Birthday in the ‘Bon

“What do you want for your birthday, Lukie?” I ask.

From his spot by the chart table, David looks at me, eyebrows raised. He’s trying to remind me of the folly of open-ended questions given our circumstances, and I quickly start layering on the caveats. “I mean, you know the score, it has to be something we can get here, something of reasonable quality, which suits your age, not too expensive….” I smile. “I guess you could have a good look around, see if there is anything you fancy?”

“I don’t need to look around, Mummy. I’ve decided.” Lukie looks up from the book he’s reading. “I just want Blutack. Can I please have a big, big pack of Blutack?”

Right. I guess that’s not asking too much. A bumper pack of Blutack. Can you even get Blutack here? I guess they must use something to hang up their posters…  I haven’t seen any stationary stores, but they do have an aisle of paper and pen supplies at the supermarket. At least it’ll be cheap, if I can find it.

“Well, I’ll see what we can do,” I promise. “Thanks, Lukie. And if you see anything else, you know, just let us know…”

We’re back in Ambon to renew our visas early before we travel on to the southern end of Sulawesi. As usual we have three days to wait for the visa, which means plenty of time to provision, eat out, explore Ambon – and hunt down some Blutack for Lukie’s birthday present.

There isn’t much to choose from in terms of presents here, at least not much that a child of Lukie’s age will enjoy. There’s plenty of cheap plastic – action figures, guns, and animals – but they’re the kind you buy in the two-dollar store at home, brightly coloured Chinese wares in crumply plastic packaging backed by cardboard, toys which will fall apart as soon as you open the packet. I’ve seen a roadside plastic toy store where I plan to buy a couple of water pistols, thinking that not much can go wrong with those.

I hadn’t thought of Blutack – but now that he mentions it, I can see the possibilities.

The Blutack craze started on the passage from Banda, a hot and humid 24-hour trip where we plodded along under engine much of the time, just managing to keep clear of most of the heavy thunderclouds lining up in our path. The kids were bored and peeled some Blutack off a picture hanging on the wall, and thus started the Blutack Battles. Hours and hours of fun, using the Blutack as plasticine, shaping little soldiers and setting up armies which attack larger blobs surrounded by mythical creatures. They create and reshape the little figures, the game accompanied by an excited narrative about what the different characters are doing. They are playing a lot of chess at the moment so there is a king and a queen and an army of prawns, which are being attacked by ice gollums and barbarians, the goodies sustaining heavy losses with damage levels plummeting in prolonged attacks at sundown. There are cannons too, and a fortress, possibly inspired by the evidence of historic battle we saw in the Banda Islands. In the end, the good guys always win but not without sacrificing scores of prawns, who lie misshapen and limp in hapless mountains decaying in the strong midday sun.

I could, of course, always try and find some plasticine for his present – but I’m not keen on the prospect of having brightly coloured goo ground into our sheets and textured cushions. Blutack, with its non-descript grayish-blue colour seems safer. But will we be able to find Blutack in Ambon? Can we even fulfil this most basic birthday wish from our youngest? The search is on.

At least I’ve got access to food. We can buy most things here, so it is with confidence that I ask: “What about the cake, Lukie? What kind of cake do you want?”

“You choose, Mummy.”

Right. Maybe I should just buy some of the local delicacies – in the supermarket here we bought some doughnuts the other day that were topped with fine, brown flakes.

“What is that?” I asked David as he opened the box. “The ones between the chocolate and the coconut sprinkles?”

“It looks like tuna floss.” He sniffed a doughnut suspiciously. “Yep, smells fishy. I’m pretty sure that it’s tuna floss.”

“Really?” cried Lukie, leaning over David’s shoulder. “Can I try one?”

Tuna Floss is a big thing here – it is liberally sprinkled on top of many vegetable dishes in the little rumah makan (eating houses) lining the roadside, and also present in many baked goods, the brown dusty sheen instantly recognisable next to the green bread and the keju cokelat (cheese chocolate, a combination that the kids are roaring to try) topped buns. Keen to know more, we picked up a tuna floss package in the supermarket and read the back apprehensively: ‘Tuna Floss: Inspired by the highly raved about chicken floss, Ayam Brand ™ Tuna Floss is a mixture of tuna fish and spices blended together to produce a luscious spread. Toast your favourite bread and spread generously for a delicious sandwich’. It goes well with rice too, apparently; indeed my impression is that the locals feel that a bit of tuna floss adds depth to almost any dish, although I’ve yet to seen tuna-floss-flavoured ice cream.

Now might be my chance to use the packet we bought – or should I try and get hold of some of the raved-about chicken floss, perhaps? “Should I just make a tuna floss cake, Lukie?”

He shakes his head and looks at me, outraged that I dare joke about such serious matters. “I would prefer a banana cake, Mummy,” he says seriously.

Banana cake – isn’t that a bit boring? That is what we have all the time, using up our never-ending supply of soft bananas. “But we have those all the time. I would like to make you something special – we can get anything here. What about chocolate – you can have a chocolate mud cake, or a vanilla cake, with cream cheese icing?” I offer, keen to spoil him with lavish homebake given I’m in the rare position of being able to bake almost anything.

“Chocolate mud cake, then,” he says.

“And what about dinner? You can have literally anything?”

David shoots me a glance.

“I mean, anything that we can get – so you know, no pork, of course, that means no bacon or ham. And there is obviously no broccoli or capsicums, no snow peas or brussel sprouts…” my voice trails off.

Lukie looks at me. “Can I have either pizza, or lasagne, or chicken curry? Any of those?”

I nod. We can definitely deliver on one of those.

The birthday is shaping into a success. Now there’s just the question of what to do. We’re anchored in the quiet Baguala Bay, in peaceful surrounds a bit out of town. The water is clean and teeming with fish, and the kids can jump in here any time. We’ve already used some of the glassy mornings to wakeboard, and have been to the beach where the locals gather on weekends to have some water fun and eat from the little fruit stalls lining the foreshore. There are numerous sights in Ambon, and we toy with the idea of visiting a waterfall many miles out of town, or a fortress and an old mosque on the northern shores of the island, but decide against them because they have only received lukewarm reviews on TripAdvisor, and also it would mean many hours of sitting in minibuses in the, frankly unbearable, heat.

In the end we decide on Waterland, a garish and loud water amusement park situated alongside brand-new gated communities for the rich in the hills above Ambon.

The day arrives and the lavish festivities begin – a hot and humid day of heavy rainfall interspersed with searing sunshine where we have pancakes for breakfast followed by an impossibly rich chocolate mud birthday cake with friends before heading off to the waterpark, where the kids and their friends exhaust themselves on the waterslides alongside scores of local uniformed school kids and a few fun-loving adults. The park is heavily staffed, uniformed men and women with whistles who sternly direct the children queuing up for the slides to ensure that there is enough of a break between sliders to prevent total carnage at the bottom. The pool at the bottom of the long, steep slides is a little short, but the situation is rectified by a dedicated staff member whose job it is to run around in waterproof pants bearing a portable crash pad which he extends to protect the squealing children as they come down the slides, full speed, from smashing into the rough concrete wall. It’s a hard job, and hot too, and no doubt he’s saved many lives. After an afternoon of waterpark mayhem we head back to the boat where we skype with family and have lasagne for dinner.

 

 

 

 

 

I’m glad the food worked out because the presents were less successful.

Perhaps not unsurprisingly given the cheap price, one of the two water pistols I bought didn’t work at all, and I was never able to find any Blutack in Ambon. I did, however, dig out a couple of strips from the homeschooling supplies, and by mid-birthday morning we’d already cleaned Blutack off the saloon seats twice and had to shave off Lukie’s hair to get rid of large lumps of Blutack stuck in the blond curls he’d been trying to grow long.