coffee culture

The popular claim is that in Banda Aceh everything happens in the coffee shops. This speaks both to the quality of kopi aceh as well as the Acehnese approach to life, both of which I have been enjoying. The coffee is the best I have ever had—fresh, highland grown coffee—prepared by straining piping hot water back and forth between two long handled tin cups through a ground filled sieve. The whole process is mesmerizing to watch—all dip and flourish—like a juggler slicing deliciousness through morning’s pleasant vapors.

All day the shops are humming, filled with men nursing short glasses of the black stuff over a conversation or a smoke, the swirl of steam and crackles of kretek nearly ubiquitous. This is the way the Acehnese have always preferred it, casual and laid back, so much like Java (outside of the fact that Java’s coffee is decidedly average) that it is a wonder these two rival identities do not get along better.

The other morning, on the way to the office by way of the coffee shop, I ended up catching a ride with one of our vehicles that happened to be passing by. The driver and I ended up going in together, me for my usual rice/coffee breakfast, he for a coffee/raw egg/condensed milk combination, the name of which slips my mind.

Anyhow, after exhausting my reserve of Bahasa Indonesian small talk topics (marriage status and children leading the way, followed by the heat, followed by how terrible the city of Medan is) the Simeulue earthquake came up. We talked a little bit about it and its strength and then all of a sudden we were back in December 2004, me listening as he talked quietly about the 9.3 earthquake that set off the tsunami.

He talked about the unbelievable violent strength of the quake, about not even being able to stay on one’s feet. When it was over everyone came out in the street, stunned and unaware that in less than 20 minutes the city was going to be inundated. He talked about families, missing persons, foreign prospectors buying—cash on sight—orphaned children and spiriting them out of the country, bodies stacked in the courtyard of every mosque in the city. Mostly he talked about the smell, an asphyxiant haze that hung over the city for weeks.

The tsunami is rarely spontaneously talked about by the Acehnese—too much trauma, too many fresh graves—and listening to him was both humbling and completely heartbreaking. It amazes me even more because this driver and I have been around each other frequently with nothing approaching this level of intimacy. In fact, between Monday and Tuesday we probably spent 15 hours driving around the province together, and while I always try to speak Indonesian with the local staff, we did little more than exchange greetings and smiles. But, as I am learning, this is typical to many Indonesians. Initially, before they feel as if they know you (especially difficult for a foreigner), they are often shy, guarded, and obscure in their interactions. However, once you spend a little bit of time together they truly become some of the most wonderful people in the world: kind, genuine, and generous. In this case it was so spontaneous that I was stunned, looking around the shop it was clear that many of the other customers felt the same. All the time he kept talking, quietly reflecting on all that he had seen, never demanding the pity and emotion that I found anyways impossible to withhold, and a personal catharsis that I was not even aware I was waiting on. I finally arrived at the office late—as we ended up sitting around for about an hour talking—feeling blessed to have passed a morning as the Acehnese do.