Adventurer Agustinus Wibowo: A journey home
- By Rory Howard
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E-mail China.org.cn, May 8, 2015
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A family go home to their villagein the dry Thar Desert, Pakistan. [Photo/China.org.cn] |
"In Afghanistan, I was almost kidnapped by a taxi driver," Wibowo tells me, his smile unwavering. "Foreigners aren't supposed to take taxis, but I wanted to save money. The guy asked for twenty dollars. I didn't have twenty dollars. He drove the car all the way to the mountains." As the dramatic situation unfolded, Wibowo drew on his knowledge of Islamic society in Indonesia in the hopes that reciting Muslim prayers out loud might save him. "Did this help?" I asked.
"No. The taxi driver said he would become Muslim again after I gave him the money." The offer of a hundred dollars was enough to get the driver to turn around. Not that Wibowo paid up. He waited till he was in an area protected by soldiers and jumped out of the car.
In the face of danger, Wibowo reacts much like some of the real-life characters in his books who live in peril. He treats the experience as a joke. "I phoned a friend and told him about what happened." He laughs. "My friend told me that I had robbed the taxi driver. I didn't pay him any money!"
Wibowo has seen surprising reactions to stressful and harrowing situations throughout his travels. He recalls bombs going off in Kabul when he worked there as a photojournalist. "By the afternoon everyone is smiling again. Like nothing happened."
He also experienced this before his travels began. In the wake of the 2004 tsunami, Wibowo, then in Beijing, collected money to buy necessities for people in affected areas of Indonesia.
"What I thought I would see was desolation, hopelessness, tears...However, sitting in the refugee camps to hear their stories, everyone was telling about how the water was higher than the coconut trees, how their family had disappeared, and it's very hard to take in all these stories, but you don't see tears in their faces!" He was taken aback that people who had endured such catastrophe and loss still had hope.
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