12. Indonesia (Sulawesi)
Seated with care in the esteemed guest’s position,
itinerant strangers shepherded in to honour The Dead.
The squealing of sacrificial pigs exploding up through the floorboards.
There we squirm, eyeballing the black cardboard coffin.
Garlands of flowers, not quite masking the slightly sweet aroma of humid, three day old death.
jpm
50 words for 50 countries 
Interesting! Is there a backstory?
Hi Tom – I will put it up for you – I hadn’t been continuing with the backstories, as was not sure if my readers enjoyed those or not. How does a German artist get to be a rice farmer in Sulawesi??
Readers usually are curious, Julie, but I wouldn’t worry about them, as the Balinese say: “We have no art, we just do everything as well as we can.”
If you could understand German, you’d find all the answers in my blogs, especially in “Waldschrat’s memories” (I just learned that this is some kind of forest-“hobgoblin”. 🙂 First: “cherchez la femme”, who is Indonesian and the rest is looking for adventure.
Thanks for your encouragement Tom – I am just starting out on my public writing journey and I will keep your Balinese saying close to heart. I did have a look at your blog – but despite 2 years of school German – couldn’t read it – which is such a shame as the close-up pictures of the volcanic eruption really intrigued me… perhaps given your German (and your Bahasa I presume) is fabulous, you could translate key parts of it from time to time…?
It’s difficult. The production of my posts already consumes a lot of time and in translation a lot would be lost. I also use slang, especially when I’m silly and my own language-creations, which are hardly translatable. And the automatic online translation is useful only as correction.
Your Toraja backstory made me laugh. Long ago at a Toraja-ceremony I waded through buffalo-guts and blood and was repelled. Today, after more than 10 years of life among very simple-minded people, Western funeral rituals appear rather callous to me.
http://www.fotocommunity.de/pc/pc/mypics/1649294/display/25304458
Yes, it’s interesting, isn’t Tom. I have worked in healthcare in developing countries for nearly 20 years now, and I think we have lost a great deal in the sanitisation of death, and by attempting to remove it from our lives. No more keening, no more sitting by your loved one as they pass on, sending the dying to die in a hospital in the care of strangers etc. For that most personal and intimate of life’s events, to delegate it into the hands of strangers, no matter how wonderful, seems entirely wrong.