An Idul-Fitri Block Party in Tetebatu

Andy Hill

Towards the end of the month of Ramadan, a friend of mine in Kuta Lombok named Reggae, a local budding rock star and surf teacher (seriously), asked me to come up to his village in the foothills of Mount Rinjani (Indonesia’s second-biggest volcano) and play with him and his friends at an “awesome rock party.” 

When the day came, we rode our motorbikes a couple hours’ north to Tetebatu, arriving in the afternoon at a public practice space in some elderly woman’s housing complex. This was fortunate because I hadn’t played a drum set in over 10 years.  A few of his friends and band mates were waiting for us, and we were ushered into a sweltering room with walls and ceilings lined with old carpet. We gave our set a cursory run-through. Some of the tracks were “What’s Goin On?” by Four Non Blonds; Guns & Roses’ version of “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” (practically the Indonesian national anthem); and “Englishman in New York” styled as “Reggaeman in Lombok.” 

After an hour or so of practicing, we again got on our motorbikes and went to Reggae’s house so he could get into his “awesome rock party” clothes and so we could break fast, on the last night of Ramadan (Idul-Fitri, as it is known in Indonesia), with his mother. As has always been my experience in this country, this home-cooked meal was remarkable. I struggled to eat with my hands while they made fun of me and I thanked them profusely for having me over to eat with them. I told his mother it was delicious in the Sasak language, thinking it would impress her, although she corrected me; the dialect there in east Lombok is actually totally different from that of central Lombok, of which I knew a bit.  

After that, like clockwork we scurried out of the labyrinth of pedestrian lanes his house was buried within, saying hello to everyone in the street, all of them out in their break-of-fast best. Eventually, we arrived at a small intersection adjacent to which a stage had been built, replete with a professional sound system and range of guitars and drums being set up by black-clad, pierced and tattooed Sasak youths. Politely, they only stared when I turned the other way. 

There was an excited and friendly buzz in the air; children played with firecrackers, head-scarved women clucked and laughed with one another, and men stood around by their motorbikes smoking endless clove cigarettes, watching on as the restless youths prepared to do their thing. 

A few different groups of young guys took turns on the stage, going through an interesting amalgam of Indonesian pop, American-style punk, and traditional numbers until finally I was beckoned from my perch behind the stage to get up onto the drum set. I was pleased that I was able to keep up, given how self-conscious I was to be the only foreigner within a 100-mile radius.

It was a thoroughly family-friendly affair, and a beaming older woman even brought me a little cup of coffee from her shop, which was unfortunately located across the street from the cacophony. 

We spent the rest of the night jamming back at his house with many of his friends until we passed out on the couches in his front room. I drove back home in the morning, singing to myself “Wah-oh - I’m an alien, I’m a legal alien, I'm a Reggaeman in Lombok....”