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The authentic Bajo experience
Floating homes: Bajo stilt houses in Mola Raya village in Wakatobi, Southeast Sulawesi, are seen from a distance
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Floating homes: Bajo stilt houses in Mola Raya village in Wakatobi, Southeast Sulawesi, are seen from a distance.
Located at the heart of the coral triangle where the Flores and Banda seas meet, Wakatobi in Southeast Sulawesi is often referred to as an underwater heaven.
Wakatobi ' short for the Wangi-Wangi, Kaledupa, Tomia and Binongko Islands ' are not just home to hundreds of fish and coral reef species, as well as dozens of diving sites. The four main islands are also home for the Bajo people.
The Bajo people are often known as boat people ' a seafaring community that is largely identified by its reliance on the sea for food and shelter. As time went by, their lives changed as most of them no longer live in boats, but in wooden houses on stilts near the shore.
Nevertheless, their unique traditions remain alive, having been passed down to the younger generations ' and now to tourists through the Mola Tourism Body in Wangi-Wangi.
The body, initiated by the British Council and the Mandiri Bersama Mandiri (MBM) program, allows tourists to participate in various Bajo-related activities ' all guided by proficient local people ' to promote the richness of the Bajo culture.
The British Council's senior program manager, Ari Susanti, said that apart from scuba diving and snorkeling, visitors now have more choices when spending their holidays in Wakatobi.
'Wakatobi has more than just the sea. The Bajo people who live here have a unique culture from which we can learn a lot,' she said.
One of the trips offered by the body involves dolphin watching.
It was 5 a.m., and we donned our life vests before getting on board a large traditional Bajo boat, locally known as a bodi, heading toward Kapota Island to look for dolphins.
The 30-minute journey to our destination was far from boring, as the guide shared his experiences as a Bajo about their relationship with dolphins.
'It's a good sign if we see a pod of dolphins because it means a school of tuna are swimming below them and that's what we're aiming for,' Derdi, the guide, told a group of journalists invited on the tour.
But not all dolphins that appear mean good things.
He said when certain types of dolphin appeared, like Risso's dolphin, or lummu mapote as the locals call it, it would mean disaster.
'If we see lummu mapote swimming around, it's a sign for danger ahead of us and we should turn around,' he said.
Since wild animals are involved in this trip, there is no guarantee they will always appear. In our case, it took about more than an hour of circling around the area before we finally see marine mammals playing around our boats.
After a hectic morning session with the dolphins, we took a stroll in the afternoon around Mola village, exploring the biggest Bajo community in Southeast Asia to get a closer look at the daily life of the Bajo.
Walking through the narrow alleys, we got to see how carummeng, traditional Bajo fishing goggles, and other fishing tools are made.
During our walks, almost every woman was seen wearing barrabuas, or cooling powder, to protect their face from the sun.
'Unlike people in the cities, we don't use sunscreen when we're out in the sun; we use instead this natural powder made of rice powder,' another guide, Hendra, said.
He added that men sometimes used the powder, too, when they went fishing.
That afternoon, some kids were walking on wooden pole stilts, some were canoeing along the canals, or helping their mothers with their laundry, while the adults were drying their fresh catch from the sea, or working on their boats in the waterways.
Our group also got the chance to observe Bajo's traditional healing practices.
Hendra said those who saw the healers, who are mostly elderly women, usually had been ill for a few days and did not get any better even they had seen a doctor.
'In that case, Bajo people believe that our 'twin' in the ocean misses us,' he said.
When a baby is born, Bajo people usually put the placenta in the ocean and believe it to be the child's twin.
At around 4 p.m., our group of five decided to hop onto a lepa, a smaller wooden boat for canoeing, to experience the maritime lifestyle of the Bajo.
We stopped by at a fish cage to learn a little bit about fishing, before slithering in between bigger boats to find our way to a fish landing facility and to a maritime school built by the local community.
When the sun was about to slip out of the sky, we found ourselves riding smoothly along the canals, observing the locals enjoying the late afternoon on their porches overlooking the canals.
Occasionally, our boats crossed paths with one or two other boats full of children or families.
The ride finally led us to calm water to watch the golden sunset.
In the evening, dinner time à la Bajo was served: raw sea cucumber, kasuami (cassava added to red beans and grated coconut and steamed), sea urchin and more.
Afterwards, we gathered by Mola's pier and three local guides told us stories about objects in the sky that have for centuries guided the Bajo in traveling on the seas and through life.
That night, lucky for us, the sky was so clear that we were able to identify several constellations in the sky, such as Scorpius and Crux, as well as the Milky Way ' gracefully closing our authentic Bajo experience.
' Photos by Novia D. Rulistia
