Piece of Mind: Rp 500 Million to Get Married?

Editors Note: Beatles song "Can't buy me love" no longer applies to foreigners seeking Indonesian Muslim Brides. Wonder what the price of Hindu, Catholic,and Buddhist Indonesia brides will be??

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/lifeandtimes/piece-of-mind-rp-500-million-to-get-married/379223

Piece of Mind: Rp 500 Million to Get Married?

Overheard in a Jalan Jaksa pub next year, by which time a law requiring foreigners to pay a security deposit to wed an Indonesian Muslim woman may have passed:

“So then I says to my girl, how about it? And she says, yes, only you’ll have to pay 500 million rupes, and I say, [forget] that, who do you think you are? Then she starts crying and saying, it’s the law, it’s the law, and I can’t make nothing out of the rest of it.”

The next day I go to see a friend of mine named Tommy to find out what it’s all about.

I knock on his door and he opens it a crack, and then wider when he sees it’s me.

He’s paranoid now that he’s lost his work permit (Kitas) and is working from home freelance. I said I thought he’d be golden since he’s married to Ani and all, and he says it doesn’t mean a thing.

Can’t he just get a spouse Kitas, I say, and he laughs, and says I could, but then I’d be liable for taxes, only I couldn’t work.

He says there’s not a visa that makes it legal for him to work unless he can get a job that offers a full Kitas, which costs the company an extra two grand. Hardly anybody offers it, he says, and most people work on social or business visas and pray they don’t get caught.

I ask him about this bride deposit thing. Again he starts laughing, only this time he don’t stop, and when I leave, he’s crying, breaking all the crockery and babbling that it’d be quicker to shoot himself.

So I go home and do some checking on the Internet, and it’s all true.

If I want to marry Ika, I have to put up a 500 million rupe deposit. Supposedly, I’ll get the money back in 10 years if I don’t abandon her and any kids we got by then, but the whole thing just makes my gorge well up.

They want me to pay $55,000 to get married and then still expect me to jump hurdles if I want to stay in the country and work?

Next day, I go see the neighborhood ustad who’s been after me to convert and make an honest woman out of Ika. We chat for a bit, while his youngest wife — she looks like she’s about 14 — brings us coffee and sweet cakes.

Then I ask about this law. He smiles and says, yes, yes, it’s true, that it’s for Ika’s protection, and that it doesn’t matter anyway, because you’re all rich.

I say, look, mate, who’s all rich? You see where I live? You see any flashy new car sitting out front? You think I share a house with five blokes because I like the company?

So he says surely your family has money. And I say, are you (kidding) me? My father’s house didn’t cost that much, and you want me to call him up and say, by the way, Dad, I’m getting married and I need 50,000 bucks.

You know what he’s going to say? Expensive bird, click.

Then the ustad gets all huffy and I can see it’s time to go. On the way out, I thank his wife for her hospitality and she just titters.

Going home, I pick up a few Bintangs, and after I’d had a few while I stewed over things, I call up Mack because last year he got married out in Sumba and had this big old wedding with this betel-nut-chewing priest officiating and it was a grand party.

I say, how’s it hanging? And then we shot the (breeze) for a bit until I finally ask him about fixing me up with a nice Sumbanese Christian gal. And he started laughing, and said how much money you got? And I said, none, why?

And then he says that grooms in Sumba have to pay a bride price, usually in cows or pigs to the girl’s family, and that Sumbanese men usually have to borrow the money to buy the animals, and then end up working most of their life to pay off the debt.

So, I ask, well, how much did you pay for Desi?

And he says proudly that she’s a 40-pigger and that no other girl from her village had ever gone for over 20 pigs before.

So, I hang up the phone laughing, and now I’m thinking, (forget) this, I’m moving to Bangkok, because there at least, it’s all above board, and I don’t have to make no religious declaration.

Geez, this is about the nuttiest country I ever been in. There must be other places that need good English teachers.

T.L. Ohagan lives in Bali with his Indonesian wife and two children, and he hasn’t left them … yet.