Mommy Dearest. 28/12/04
		New Year's Day, 2001 There were seven of us staying at the Mama D'Anna Bungalows, which we all simply called Mommy Diana's. Steve and Luke were from England, Bessy was from Switzerland, Molly was Russian, and the new guy sounded French. And there was Hugh and I, adding much-needed volume to an otherwise silent crowd. Everyone had endured the long, kidney-wrenching bus trip to Sumatra's north-west tip strictly for the surfing except us. We had taken the detour to Banda Aceh after deciding it was too early to catch the boat to Malaysia from Medan when we had three weeks still left on our Indonesian visa. Hugh joined the surfers each morning, floating above the jagged coral on a borrowed board, while I dove off the coastline with my mask and snorkel. I had learned several painful lessons about surfing as a rookie in Australia and enjoyed swimming down among the colorful fish and ominous caverns much more than treating infected wounds with hydrogen peroxide for weeks after falling on sharp coral. We had all rung in the new year with expensive Bintang beers the night before. The Indonesians didn't really celebrate the occasion, and today had the general feeling of any of the eighteen say spent in Lokna, located about ten kilometers west of Aceh. Besides, there were more important events taking place at the moment. There was a civil war waging between Indonesia's army and Aceh's GAM, who sought independance for their secluded and unique province. The bus we had rode for a full day to get to Aceh from Medan had been stopped well over twenty times by "polisi" and nationalists, who never paid any attention to the two white guys dressed in Rip Curl shorts with Canadian flags sewn on the packs next to them. Shortly after arriving in Lokna, a messenger drove up on a moped and spoke with Mommy in the rapid Acehenese dialect, a language Hugh and I found vastly different from the Indonesian standard we'd spent so much time studying. Mommy later informed us the roads, ferry, and airport in Aceh were closed until the conflict subsided. We both shrugged and agreed it was hardly a bad spot to be stranded. For dinner, Mommy surprised us all with a New Year's feast. A whole tuna secretly baked using heated stones in an underground oven behind the main cabin was carried out by her sons during our daily ping-pong tournament. We helped ourselves to the steaming white meat with our hands and soon were all groaning and holding our bellies. One by one, everyone stumbled to the nearest sheltered hammock to digest the feast while the gentle rain turned to a violent downpour. Mommy visited each of us throughout the afternoon and spoke softly while pushing our hammock back and forth in a soothing rythm. Her three teenage children, who displayed none of the shy characteristics typical of Indonesians, bounced from cabin to cabin, their laughs heard over the deafening rain. It was growing dark when I heard Mommy's footsteps approach my bungalow along the rough wood planks of the deck. I looked up and returned the wide smile beaming down at me. She sat and didn't speak for several minutes, rocking me ever so slightly in the mesh hammock. Then Mommy asked me when I had last talked to my family. I told her that it had been over a month ago while I was in Bali, Indonesia's most developed island that thrived on tourism. She left briefly then returned with a note written in Achenese. Mommy pointed to a path at the far end of the courtyard and gave me several left and right turns to commit to memory. She passed me a flashlight and I jogged off through the warm rain. Several minutes later I came to a short metal tower with a tiny shack at its base. I knocked and the door opened almost immediately, a small hand waving me inside the dimly lit room. An elderly man smiled widely, and when I couldn't respond to his fast chatter I passed him the note Mommy had given me. He read it, nodded, and led me to a table in the corner. He turned a few dials, spoke to someone through a microphone after slipping on some headphones, then passed the large foam discs to me. A woman asked me what country I would like to reach in poor English and I suddenly understood what I was doing there. I gave her my mother's phone number and after several clicking noises followed by static I heard a faint ring. Mom answered, I repeatedly assured her that both sides in the Aceh conflict had no interest in me, and told her I'd call from Malaysia. The man smiled, turned the dials again, and showed me to the door.
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