INDONESIA TRIP— The Unseen Super Humans of Kawah Ijen
I had no idea I was heading towards the most overwhelming experience of my life so far, when the 6 of us set out for the Khawa Ijen trek at 1 AM. The temperature was a freezing 10 degrees and we all longed to be back under our warm blankets. Only our eyes were exposed, every other part of our bodies were covered in various layers of clothing. We reached the foothills and started the trek around 1:30 with our guide Sam. He had been our translator for the past couple of days as well. He was a lighthearted man whose eyes laughed often and effortlessly. He was a fun person to be around.
The trek consisted of 3KM of steep rising slope to the top of the Khawa Ijen volcano and 1KM down to the Sulphur lake inside the crater where the combustion of volcanic gases give out bright blue flames. These surreal, mesmerising flames would not be visible once the sun rose. We had to hurry since we were already behind schedule but we tired ourselves out frequently and had to take several short breaks. After a lot of huffing and puffing we reached the top of the crater. We could see the bright lake at the bottom, but there was so much smoke around it that we couldn’t make out the blue flames. We had to make it to the bottom of the crater which was 1Km of sharp and slippery rocks. Sam gave us gas masks to wear since the fumes would make our breathing ragged, throats burn and eyes water. Judging rightly that we wouldn’t make it down in time, Sam took one of our phones and ran down first to get a video of the blue flames before the sun rose. We were stunned at the grace and speed with which he ran down the rocks like it was level ground.
We split up at the top and went down the mountain in twos at our own pace. We were struggling step by step in the dark just guided by our headlamps and our hands grabbing on to the rocks to stabilise ourselves to some extent. I kept going only thinking of the blue flames.
We met many miners making their way up with loads of sulphur on their backs. Every miner carried around 80–90 KG of Sulphur and this sight alone is enough to make you choke. Even with nothing to carry we had such difficulty scrambling down the rocks. These people carried a man’s weight on their shoulders and they still stopped to smile at us and ask us if we were doing okay during the climb. They got a pittance of three to five rupees per KG of sulphur that they brought up the mountain. The sulphur is majorly used for vulcanizing rubber, bleaching sugar and other industrial processes nearby. Continuous exposure to this noxious environment left them with shortened life spans. Many die before they reach 40.
By the time Arun and I reached the lake at the bottom, the sun was already up and we had missed the flames by a few minutes. We saw the video of the blue flame that Sam had taken on our phone, it was just surreal. Tired and breathless we sat down near the lake and looked around at the people working tirelessly to break the sulphur slabs to carry it up the mountain.
I was dumbstruck at how close they were to the fumes and yet working hard despite the chronic coughing. Most of them didn’t have any mask on and yet they kept telling us not to remove ours. The sight of the workers at the lake was indeed an unforgettable one.
The climb back to the top of the crater was harder as the sulphur got to us even through the gas masks. Our throats burned and we coughed continuously. My lungs were screaming as I kept climbing, longing for a breath of clean, sulphur-less air. Once back up, I got into one of the wheelbarrows which were pushed by people up and down the mountain for a paltry sum. These people too in spite of working so hard had smiles on their faces for everyone. I didn’t speak much on the trip back to the home stay. Once I was alone I couldn’t stop the tears and found myself sobbing uncontrollably. Though I’m aware that jobs of such nature existed, I have not seen or been with people who did such intense manual labour and later came to know this is one of the toughest jobs in the world. It took me a while to calm down as it was not easy to digest that there were people who underwent such intense pain for such meagre wages.
At the top of the mountain before we had started our descent, a couple of my friends tried lifting the sulphur baskets. The baskets easily weighed 90 KGs and they were unable to lift it beyond a few inches off the ground. All of us were blown at the magnitude of the labour these people were undergoing on a daily basis, sometimes twice in one day if they could. All of them wanted their kids to have better education and better jobs. It was staggering to think of the pain they went through to make it happen. I came to know during the trek that Sam had worked in these mines for 7 years and had quit when he could do it no more. He had a wife and kid and also took care of his bedridden mother. I was stunned at how easily he had beguiled us with his cheerful and happy demeanor. My tears were not only because of the arduousness of the job, it was also the realisation of how people could be so pure and good even in the face of such distress.
Later I read a lot about Sulphur mining in Khawa Ijen and the more I read the more deeper the impact became. I felt honoured to have seen and walked with those people. Living in cities for major part of my life, the “difficulties” and “problems” that I thought I was facing are NOTHING compared to these souls who are nothing short of super-humans. To be in such agony and still have the heart to smile at the visitors is something beyond imagination for me.
What are these people made of?
Are they even human?
How does such goodness still exist and yet be of so little value?
If they can smile through that amount of pain, what problems do we actually have?
If they can care about the visitors when they are working under such wretched conditions, are we even a tiny percentage of the human beings we think we are?
