SKETCHES OF SUMBA
“CHECKING out, sir? Let me call for the Lamborghini.”
For a moment, I’m bemused by the thought of a sleek Italian sports car purring up the gravel drive of this training hotel in the Sumbanese countryside. But the joke’s on me. With a giggle, the young lady skips off to fetch her colleague, who soon appears pushing a battered wooden luggage cart emblazoned with a hand-painted Lamborghini logo (you know, the one with the snorting bull).
Cute. But then, the student staff at the Sumba Hospitality Foundation’s Maringi resort have been nothing if not good humored throughout my stay. They are, in fact, an amazing bunch of kids, especially considering that most of them didn’t speak a word of English or have any hospitality experience before starting their year at the SHF just a few months prior to my visit. For them, the school represents a rare opportunity to acquire lifechanging skills on one of Indonesia’s poorest islands, and to perhaps venture for the first time to Bali or Jakarta or further afield on internships and job placements. Guests, for their part, get to contribute to this process, and to witness first-hand the benefits of purposeful tourism. It’s a clear win-win for all.
About twice the size of Bali but with just a fifth of its population, the island of Sumba occupies an obscure corner of the Indian Ocean in eastern Indonesia. Its historical seclusion — now remedied with regular flights from Bali, Flores, and Timor — once earned it the nickname “The Forgotten Island,” and the close-knit communities here have developed a singular culture. Divination and animal sacrifice are integral to the ritual life of the Sumbanese, as are the megalithic tombs that dot roadsides and villages. Although Christianity (introduced by Dutch missionaries more than a century ago) has been widely adopted, the ancestral Marapu religion continues to flourish alongside it as one of the world’s last animist belief
