Preface Becoming a Foreigner WN SEPTEMBER 12, 1992, shortly after I arrived in Biak, Sally Bidwam, the nursing instructor who had just given me a place in her home, told me that she had once been the pen pal of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands. By that time I had already collected some strange and wonderful tales: from Mr. Mambur, a Biak official, who recounted the version of Biak's history he had learned in boarding school when Irian Jaya was Netherlands New Guinea and its inhabitants were known as Papuans, in a conversation punctuated with Dutch words and the names of Dutch texts; from Seth Warba, who regaled me with the story of his friendship with an American researcher, Mr. Jim, who had just returned from a trip to the highlands, where he had seen enormous lizards and all manner of extraordinary things; from Sally herself, who chimed in with her own account of remarkable research, by a scientist in search of the lost tribe of Israel, who came to Biak to measure the natives' noses. Sally had welcomed me solemnly two days earlier, when I had appeared at the hospital with a letter of introduction from her niece, an anthropologist at the provincial university. She had slowly read the letter before leading me across the street to her sturdy, cinderblock house, where she had shown me a room and prepared me a snack of coffee and white bread with margarine and chocolate sprinkles. It was only after sitting in on my meeting with Mr. Mambur, a local notable whom Sallys niece had advised me to contact, and the bull session with Seth Warba, her voluble neighbor, that Sally was ready to make her own contribution to my research. Like Mr. Mambur, she re- tained the lessons of her colonial-era education. Like Seth Warba, she could still tell jokes in Dutch. But she had exchanged letters with the queen. The following is an excerpt from my fieldnotes: Over dinner, Sister Sally told me stories from her childhood during Dutch times (I: jaman Bdandd). It began when I asked her about Biaks' aversion to Ambonese teachers after the war [something I had read about before coming to Biak]. She herself had had an Ambonese teacher when she was in elementary school. He was very strict. Children who did not speak clearly had to stand with their mouths propped open with sticks until they felt like their jaws were about to come loose. If a pupil made ten mistakes, the teacher would hit him or her ten times, sometimes so hard that the metal ruler would break. I asked Sally if she had told her parents about this teacher. She had—and her father had just laughed. He himself was a XIV PREFACE teacher; he had sent his daughter to live with his sister, who was married to a native administrator, when Sally was very young because she refused to go to school. It was not until she was with her father's sister in Korem that she first set foot in the classroom. Then she had this mean (I: galak) teacher, who scared her into studying. The aunt's husband was transferred to North Supiori at the time Sally finished elementary school. She then took part in a test to get into the girls' middle school in Korido [see Figure 2], and passed. I asked if she had had any ambitions at this point; no, she had just taken the test as a matter of course. It was not until her third year at Korido that Sally decided that she wanted to be a teacher. But, unfor- tunately, only one space was offered for girls in the training school. Sally did not get it, so she was sent home to her mother and father, who were then in Bosnik. Pacific Ocean Halmahera/ I 200 km Figure 2. Maps of western New Guinea and the northern Moluccas, and of Biak, Supiori, and the Padaido Islands. PREFACE • XV One day, this crazy (I: sinting) Dutch doctor came to visit Sally's father. He asked the teacher if the young girl who had served them was his maid. "No, that was my daughter." The crazy Dutch doctor then and there asked Sally's father if he could take Sally to work at the hospital. "Sure, why not?" Sally's father replied. Sally, meanwhile, was in back crying in her mother's arms. The doctor left at twelve noon, and Sally left with him, carrying only the clothes on her back. Her father promised to bring whatever stuff she might need later. So Sally arrived at the Biak hospital. Only four other Biak girls were being trained. At that time, parents refused to send their daughters to work in the hospi- tal, because it was considered a place of ill repute. Girls and paramedics, guards, doctors, and other men would interact with each other, night and day. Only people with important positions (I: orang berpangkat), men with careers like Sally's father, understood the hospital and allowed their daughters to work there. All the girls at the hospital in Biak were from prominent families. While at the Biak hospital, Sally got her current name. It seems that there were too many Nelly's when she entered. The wife of the crazy Dutch doctor was an Irish woman named Sally. Little Nelly was renamed. She has kept the name Sister Sally ever since. Also while at the Biak hospital, Sally began corresponding with Queen Juliana. She still remembers one of the Dutch nurses, a big, strong woman who smoked two packs of cigarettes in a night shift and tried to get the Papuan girls to smoke with her. She gave the girls some Spiegel magazines in which Sally and her friends found pictures and the address of Queen Juliana. She and her friends talked about writing to her—but Sally was the only one who followed through. She wrote Queen Juliana a letter, telling her how in Biak, children had no snow to play in because it only rained. The queen responded. One day, while Sally was sleeping off her night shift, she awoke in her bunk to find the room filled with doctors. She searched her mind—what did I do wrong?—sure that she was about to be sent home. (Not an uncommon occurrence; a girl who made one mistake was dis- missed.) The crazy doctor told Sally to read the letter in his hand, first to herself, then to the others out loud. Queen Juliana had written back, telling Sally that yes, indeed, there was a lot of snow in Holland, but with all her responsibilities, she had little time to enjoy it. "A little girl like you should correspond with other little girls—but with big people (I: orang besar) like this?" the doctor teased her. But Sally kept writing—in Dutch; she immediately sent a response to the queen's response. After working in Biak for a few years, Sally had an opportunity to study at the hospital in Hollandia [the capital of Netherlands New Guinea, later renamed Jay- apura]. She tricked the doctor in charge, telling him that her parents had agreed to the plan. It wasn't until she arrived in Hollandia that she wrote to tell her parents where she was. Before she left for Hollandia, she did write to tell the queen that she was moving. Sure enough, in Hollandia, Sally was called to the director's office. Convinced that this meant that she was about to be dismissed, she had already XVI • PREFACE wept with all her closest friends. Like the other doctor, the director said, "How can it be that such a small girl (Sally was the youngest) can write to such a big person!" But Sally kept it up, throughout her time in Hollandia and after she returned to Biak. In one letter, she told the queen that she would like to visit Holland. The queen responded that she would be happy to see her. Sally's dreams almost came true when a Dutch sailor's family asked her to return with them to Holland. Unfor- tunately, Sally hadn't finished her degree and the head doctor would not let her go. The sailor's family was forced to leave early, when the dispute with Indonesia heated up in 1963. Sally was devastated not to have a chance to meet Queen Juliana. The transfer to Indonesia cut her off from her pen pal. After 1963, she was afraid to write any more. I asked Sally if she had saved the letters. At one time, she had had a big stack of correspondence. Sally had sent the queen a picture of her family; the queen had reciprocated with pictures of hers. But then, after the transfer, an Indonesian sol- dier whom she had treated (and befriended) came to her house and found the letters and photographs. He told her to burn them, warning her that she could get into trouble for having letters from the Dutch head of state. She took his advice and seems sad about it. Under Indonesia, however, Sally has finally been able to realize her ambition to become a teacher. In 1983, she was sent to Java for a short course. Her boss decided to send her back in 1987. Her training in Bandung in Java, where she was the only Irianese student, prepared her finally to be a teacher—a teacher of nurses. Of course, there is much more to Sally's story than a simple assertion of closeness to the Dutch queen.