VIP visits and adat

The festival is a busy time, with poetry readings on fort Belgica, many adat performances, community workshops and activities. I selecred a few and will again try to limit my words by showing plenty of visual teasers of some of these activities.
During the past week it was my birthday, so I treated myself on 1 day to Hatta island to see if I could swim with wild dolphins; my childhood dream. As guess what, first we encountered a large group of melonhead whales/dolphins and then we found the group of smaller dolphins, with whom I actually swam! ♡

As I mentioned in my last post, the aim of the event is to attract attention to Banda by inviting VIPs. Because transportation is rather unreliable, these people were taken onboard Indonesia’s finest ship: the Silolona. Guests include the US Ambassador and his wife, the vice governor of Maluku, BBC team and several CEOs and artists.

 

Other major visitor was Ibu Susi, the minister of Fisheries and Marine Affairs. She closed sasi ( which forbids people to fish for certain marine life) on Banda Besar and opened sasi on Hatta island. She is the best public speaker I heard in Indonesia, very passionate and easy to understand. I hope her message about plastic pollution hit home.
 

Besides these adat traditions, I witnessed several “opening of the village” events, after the necessary offerings all the sacred objects are exhibited and the traditional dances are allowed to be performed. One of these villages is Lonthor, which is the only adat village in this archipelago that identifies as Orsia, people of 9, as the rest are Orlima, people of 5. Lonthor therefore has a lot more people involved. Another interesting detail is amongst the sacred object of Kamung Baru, the younger sibling of Lonthor, who own a handwritten Quran from the 12th.

The BBC were also present to capture the story of Banda, and I was so lucky to see them work. Besides them, we tagged along with the US Ambassador Donovan and his wife, and the Consul General of Surabaya and their teams. It was an honor to lead them around and tell the story of Banda.