Butet Manurung
A Woman of Letters
By Jason Tedjasukmana
Posted Monday, October 4, 2004; 21:00 HKT
Indonesian conservationist Butet Manurung lives nine months a year in the jungles of Jambi on the island of Sumatra, not so she can save trees but those who live among them: the Orang Rimba, meaning "forest people." The Orang Rimba, who number in the hundreds, are nomads who wear loincloths, live in thatched huts, hunt snakes, deer and wild pigs and forage for roots, and worship a multitude of gods. Once, they made up a primitive, pristine tribe hardly touched by civilization, but now their way of life is threatened by modernization. Butet, 32, used to train them to help an NGO keep track of illegal logging. But she grew disenchanted with the program because she found it irrelevant. "It's pointless to be a conservationist since the forest is going to disappear within the next 20 years," says Butet, who was born and raised in Jakarta but who lives like the Orang Rimba while in the jungle. "I want to be realistic, not romantic."
Armed with blackboards, chalk and some pens and paper, Butet teaches the nomads to read, write and count in their native language—a form of ancient Malay—as well as in Indonesian. It's basic stuff, but for the Orang Rimba—who are often swindled out of their land by unscrupulous villagers and loggers who make them put their fingerprints to documents they can't read—it's a powerful tool to help them cope with the encroaching outside world. "Given the rate at which their habitat is being destroyed, these people will become beggars or coolies without education," says Butet, who has now trained 14 other teachers to assist her. "I'll be done when the Orang Rimba can defend themselves."
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