The Amphibious Villagers of Indonesia

I've been living for the past few years in another coastal region in Indonesia, which happens to be flooded since a millennium ago, probably more.

The flooding the article is talking about is relatively recent so the disaster aspect is real. It catches people by surprise. But when the flood has been there since time immemorial, people find ways to adapt and stop treating it as a disaster.

Where I live, houses are built on the water, even today. Poles are driven in the bottom, and you build on top. For streets, they pour shit ton of rubble to displace the water, then put tarmac on top. In the past, there were almost no roads at all, people moved around in boats. You want to buy food - you go with your boat to the "local market", which is just a bunch of other boats with sellers.

It affects the language as well. Since your house is high above water, you don't say "I'm going out", you say "I'm going down" - because you have to go down the stairs and into your boat. When you invite guests in, you say "Please, come up!", as if you are in a tree house :) This wording is used even today, when most houses are at ground level.

When you order food where you can choose the protein part yourself, the seller asks you "What [kind of] fish?", and you can say "eggs", or "chicken breast"! Historically, since most of the meat available was various kinds of fish, this was the established expression, and it has stuck to this day.

https://archive.ph/bcGNj

The paywall is so huge I can't even view the title of the article lol, bye Economist

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