Lake Tempe
Sengkang is the site of a large, shallow lake with floating villages. As we went out that night to eat dinner, Anne fell into a hole in the unlit street and hurt her leg badly. Such holes in the sidewalk are common in Indonesia. In fact, they are usually just sewers with haphazardly-placed concrete lids on them. Sometimes these lids will fall in or a hole will be left uncovered. At night, with poor street lighting, it can be difficult to see them. The deep wound was right on her shin, where it hurts the most. Eric walked her home, propped her leg up and surveyed the damage. We decided not to go immediately to the hospital but to leave it overnight and see how it looked in the morning. Luckily, when the bleeding stopped, it didn't look serious. We had to restrict our activities for the next few days: this meant no walking. The next morning Eric managed to get Anne into a longboat for a tour of the lake. Pulling away from the river that ran through town, we advanced onto the shallow, open waters of Lake Tempe. Men, up to their chests in muddy water, fished with cast-nets along the riverside. Out on the lake we could see large traps built from lines of poles designed to channel fish with the current into waiting nets.
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There were also fish farms. Aquatic plants would be cultivated to attract the fish to feed. When enough fish had been drawn in, the area would be closed off with nets. Later, as the water level decreased, the plants would gradually be cut and the enclosure tightened. Eventually, as the level of the lake dropped in the dry season, the fattened fish could be easily harvested from the shallow water. Birds were all around us as we glided across the water: giant herons, white egrets, diving cormorants and many others. Huge flocks of them were browsing and feeding, feasting on the fish in the shallow water. We saw a large, graceful heron strike, catch a fish in its beak and tip its head back, pumping eagerly to gulp it down. As the level of the lake was too low for the “floating” village to float, the house we visited rested in murky, knee-deep water. Fish fillets, laid out on racks, dried in the sun. We sat down inside the one-room hut for a glass of tea, staring at the muddy water through the thin, split-bamboo floor. The family had even brought their chickens with them onto the lake. We were not very excited by the idea of floating houses, with their floating outhouses hanging over the back. All of the waste and garbage went directly into the shallow water below.
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