The Society

In the teacher’s view, the solution to economic problems is praying. That was the way they did it; they prayed and put their trust in God. On a follow-up question we asked if that was all that was needed, and then he said that he did not believe so, education also played an important role. In his opinion, religion and education are the keys to development. According to the Imam, religion does not have any impact at all on economic development, but he also said that the Mosque played an important role in training the people.

The villagers we spoke with did not participate in political life and took no interest in politics. When it comes to who is the most important person in Giricahyo, the Imam or Kepala Desa, there were different opinions. Some said that they are equally important, while others point out one of them in particular.

When they said they are equally important they looked at it in the way that the Imam had the responsibility for the relationship between God and humans, and between humans, while the Kepala Desa ‘runs the village’. Unlike what we found in Flores, there was no traditional leader.

The inequalities between genders were visible. One example was that when we interviewed some women, they left the talking to their husbands when they were present. But the most describing case was when we interviewed the teacher’s wife and asked her about whether she had used her teacher’s education or not, the teacher answered for her. She had married him after graduation from the teacher education school SPG ( Sekolah Pendidikan Guru), and from then on her role was to be a housewife. This he said after expressing his wish for more teachers in the schools with teacher’s education.

There was one woman in particular that caught our interest. On an impulse she invited us to her house, and the fact that her English was so good impressed us and we saw the opportunity to talk to one of the locals without the interpreter.

The fact that she was teaching her three years old daughter to write already, is exceptionally future-oriented taken into consideration that she lives in a rural area where the main source of income is farming. Further on, we found that she has an entrepreneur’s mind. She had opened a shop selling hair accessories, which was a new idea and unlike anything else in the area. All the others were more or less selling the same agricultural products. To see these kinds of opportunities shows her great ingeniousness.

Del/Tips: