Last year when I published my story on Twitter I received many leads which had taken me several months to investigate. It was a difficult year. Not in the least because of COVID-19, but I also had to temper myself because I thought to have found the person who would be able to unlock the mysteries of my past. Due to the pandemic, it took me exactly a year before I was able to follow up on my leads and make my third roots travel.
A woman named Suyatni approached me via social media after my interview with ANTV News. I received many messages from people wanting to help and also families who were looking for their missing kin. Suyatni drew my attention because the first thing, she said is: "you remember the fire that burned down our house, because of something your father did". In the ANTV interview, I indeed talked shortly about me remembering a burning house but never got into details.
I was suspicious since I was aware that 'fame' can attract strange people and the first time she approached me I did not believe her. Later I realised that communication through the Google translation app was not ideal. While I love Google Translate, it is often not the best instrument in a delicate matter like this, where details are important. Suyatni then contacted my friend Tazia who is a native speaker. She was able to translate her story much better than Google.
The most shocking part was that she said that I remembered our house burning down because the villagers did this in retaliation for my father who had raped a girl from the village. I do not have many memories of my father, the only memory I have is that he was often abusive towards my mother & me and that I did not like him very much. But this memory made it credible that he perhaps could also have abused and raped a girl.
She told me that her daughter, my half-sister saw me on TV and she immediately recognized me from the picture of 1979. According to her, my real name is Widyawati and I was born on 16 September 1975. I have a 100% biological brother named Adhika from Kangen band, who is some kind of an enfant terrible, but also a famous singer in Indonesia. Tazia immediately said that this part sounded a bit too fantastic. But Suyatni was able to give so many other details that matched my memories that my attention got drawn. It was hard to figure out if her story was legitimate since I had to publish lots of memories to ask for help in my search. The only way possible to do this was to publish (most) of my memories. Though, I did not tell everything and hoped to be able to use this to find out if she was for real.
My friend Peter who also speaks Bahasa offered to help and suggested calling her. She was very emotional but answered all his questions (and the ones I forwarded him) patiently. You have to realize that everything that I remember, was through the eyes of a child of 4+ years old. I have pictures in my head and certain situations, but I also realize that a child sees the world in quite a different way. That's why it was difficult to know if Suyatni was indeed the person who I remember as my mother and whom I saw last at a train station. She was able to tell me lots of details, from our lives in Yogjakarta, the Kraton - the palace of the sultan, to our travel to the Lampung. She told me that my father used to work there for the GGP factory. After our house burned down, she decided to separate from Suprapto, my father and took me with her to find work in Jakarta. I remember in detail our trip on the ferry and she confirmed most of my memories. Though, in Jakarta, there were some things I remembered differently. According to her our last moment together was at the train station in Kota Tua and in my memory, the train station was smaller. She also did not remember a location where we used to sleep at night.
Ana from Mijn Roots saw the similarity in both our stories and suggested doing a DNA test. I had done my weeks before my Twitter publication and this was indeed a logical second step. Unfortunately due to the pandemic, it was difficult to get a DNA kit to Suyatni's home address and took me more than 8 weeks before she received a kit. She had to do the test herself, due to COVID-19 and sent it afterwards to Ana in Surabaya, who sent it in her turn to me in The Hague. I was so convinced that she could be it, that I decided to send the test to Consanguinitas, which is much more expensive, but results would be available after 10 days, instead of 6-10 weeks of MyHeritage. Unfortunately, I received unexpected feedback that there was not enough DNA to pull a full profile. I was devastated, we had to do another sample and with the continuing lockdown, it took another 6 weeks before we were successful. This time Ana asked one of her searchers to do the test and she, once again, sent it to me in The Hague. I choose to send it to DNA Diagnostics Center because I found their overall service cheaper and since I had already spent so much money on DNA tests, I wanted to keep the costs low. When the results came in my stomach turned upside down. It showed me that there was no chance that we could be a mother and daughter (biologically).
I felt heartbroken. How was it possible that she had all this information, which was so close to what I remember. I could not imagine she made it all up. and I was not alone in my conviction. Both my adoptive parents, Peter and the searcher of Mijn Roots who both had spoken to her were all convinced she did not make it up. In December 2020 Mijn Roots asked her if she wanted to interview for the Straits Times and she immediately said yes. I was still a bit hesitant because I wanted to wait for the results of the DNA test, but she was so enthusiastic that I found it to be contagious and agreed to also cooperate.
Confused as I was, I decided to do a third test from MyHeritage. In my mind, I thought: it can't do any harm, If I am not her child, maybe there could be another match. It was a win-win situation. I had trouble sleeping since my brain did not stop analyzing this whole ordeal. How was it possible we both had similar stories? Was it a coincidence? I thought it to be impossible to have that many similarities, but maybe she was just not my birth mother but did take care of me as her own, or maybe she was an 'acting mother'? The only way to find out was to visit her. You can only do so much through messenger and Google Translate. I needed to see her face to face.
I was supposed to travel in January 2021, unfortunately, due to a travel ban, my trip had a 6 months delay. Originally I planned to visit several media outlets, but in the end, I decided to do only 2, BBC Indonesia and Straits times, since I wanted to focus on myself and my search instead of a whole media circus. The only option to travel was to request a business visa, which is not cheap, but I felt I had been waiting for over a year and was not able to wait any longer. I had been in contact with BBC Indonesia and Straits Times for almost a year. When my trip was finally confirmed the BBC approached me with the suggestion to make a documentary about my search, which will hopefully be published next year.
I was ecstatic when after a year I finally was able to depart to my country of birth. My first goal was to visit Suyatni and asked her in person if she had an explanation why our DNA was not a match. In the back of my mind, I thought, maybe she just got me from a family member who is not her direct kin, or maybe I got switched by birth or something. It might even be possible that the subject was too difficult for her to talk about it over messenger, that's why I wanted to talk to her in person.
My other goal was to find confirmation about my suspicion that I was indeed a victim of child trafficking. According to Suyatni she temporarily gave me to a woman named Maria to babysit, so she was able to work. She told me that she asked Maria to take care of me for only a couple of days, but when she came to pick me up, Maria refused to let me go and asked her for an outrageous amount of money, which she was not able to pay. She came back several times, but always got threatened. On the last occasion, they laughed at her and told her that I was already in a foreign country.
I showed her an old photo of me from 1979 and she said she recognized me immediately and said the dress I was wearing in the photo, was bought by her. I also showed her a picture of a (Chinese) woman who took care of me in the orphanage Kasih Bunda and she recognized her as the woman she named 'Maria'. The interesting part was that her timeline matched exactly with the moment my parents came to Jakarta to adopt me. With her testimony, I was able to make up an entire timeline of what had happened in my past and felt I finally found a big part of my identity. And this after so many years of not knowing what had happened to me when I was little. I always felt my mother was meant to come back but I was never believed. Her testimony felt like a victory.
Unfortunately, the sense of victory did not take long. Soon after my 5 days of quarantine, she was first on my list to visit. BBC Indonesia, Straits Times and Mijn Roots were all present. When we arrived, she started to get emotional and cried. I restrained myself and pushed myself to be cautious. After the nightmare family reunion of 1991, this was like a deja-vu and I did not want to let go of my emotions. In the end, the stress and situation got the best of me and I also started tearing up, but was this because I felt a connection? Honestly, at that time, I did not know but was able to take put myself together again. I decided to start simple and ask her "what is my full name and what is my date of birth". When she told me: "your name is Widyastuti", it felt like lightning striking me. The whole past year she claimed via messenger that my name was Widyawati and now all of a sudden she claimed otherwise?!? After repeating the question, she still claimed that my name was Widyastuti instead of Widyawati. I was disappointed since this was a major red flag for me.
I had informed Suyatni of our negative DNA results earlier and asked her for an explanation why we did not match. She was not able to give me an answer but I had the feeling she might be hiding something. I was determined to find out and asked if she understood what it meant when DNA is not matching. I told her once again, that it means it is impossible that biologically we are mother and daughter. She confirmed she understood the situation but had no explanation. At this moment I still thought maybe she is just not ready to talk about it. But a little later she cried on camera and describes in detail how she gave birth to me in Yogjakarta. I did not know what to make of it and noticed that she was quite comfortable telling her story in front of the cameras while crying. Sometimes I even got the eerie feeling that she was more focused on the camera than on me. When the journalist asked her the name of the sultan, from the time that she worked at the Keraton she named the present sultan, which was another red flag.
My confusion grew by the minute. Did she give these strange answers because she was nervous? My stomach turned and I did not know what to do but to follow my original plan to take her to locations in Jakarta and the Lampung, which I more or less remember. She wanted to show me all the locations where we used to live and stroll around. In Jakarta, she lead us to Jl Raden Saleh nr 22 and she said that this used to be Maria's house. This was supposed to be the location where she tried to pick me up after her work was finished. I was familiar with Jl Raden Saleh 5 the location of Kasih Bunda in 1979 and number 37, which was the hotel where children were collected by their adoptive parents. Number 22 did not sound familiar. Later we discovered that it was a governmental building in 1979 and not very likely that this would be the house of 'Maria'. During the rest of the tour, Suyatni was talkative and I heard my name often when she talked but most of the time I did not fully understand what she was saying.
The Lampung plays an important role in my memories. My adoptive mother was so kind to write them down in 1980 when I was ready to talk to her about what had happened to me. I'll always be grateful for this because when I reread them last month it made me feel I am not imagining things. In my search for my identity, I often thought: "I was crazy." Many times I felt belittled when people told me there is no way a person would be able to remember all this. It made me insecure about my own identity and sanity. My detailed memories also made me often think that my date of birth was false, and since the woman from Kasih Bunda confirmed in 1991 that my papers were falsified, it would be possible that my suspicion was correct.
Suyatni travelled with me to the Lampung to show me the locations where we used to live. She told me that during the week we lived with my father on GGP factory grounds but during the weekend we stayed in a house in Metro. We started at the house in Metro and she points out a blue house at the end of the street as the house where we lived during the weekend in1978. This was not the house that burned down but she explained that I used to play there with the ducks, close to a sawah. BBC Indonesia wanted to interview her at that location and I decided to stroll around when the searcher from Mijn Roots started to talk to one of the neighbours and we found out that the house was not there in 1978.
I got restless. Many things did not make sense at all, "why was she doing this?" I decided I wanted to confront her about it the next day but during our evening dinner the journalist of the BBC started to ask her questions she was either not willing or not able to answer. We all noticed that she became nervous. That night, I received a message from Suyatni that her husband demanded her return immediately and that she had to comply cause otherwise, he would beat her. The timing was strange and it prevented me from getting any sleep. Early in the morning at 4.30, I heard someone walking up and down right in front of my door and then 1 knock. Call me stupid but when I am in a strange country I do not have the habit to open the door in the middle of the night. And since it was only 1 knock and not an urgent boinking on the door, I decided not to act upon it.
At breakfast, Suyatni came to me and told me she immediately had to go back to Jakarta, otherwise, her husband would take another wife. I decided there and then to confront her before she left. I told her if she indeed wished to go that I would arrange it since I did not want to hold her against her will. Though, I also told her that I was disappointed because this trip was planned months ago and that I had noticed that big parts of her stories did not add up. I started questioning her about the wrong addresses, and the difference in my name and also asked if she still believed that she gave birth to me. She started to cry and immediately said she did not lie and that she did give birth to me. After talking to her for almost two hours I got frustrated and decided to arrange for her pick up by minivan, which would bring her from door to door. She just needed to wait a couple of hours before being picked up. I was surprised and offended that she requested the searcher from Mijn Roots to take her home because she needed to go immediately. I told her no because I needed him and this was the best I could do. After almost two hours of unreasonable crying, the BBC was so kind to lend their driver to bring her home. The strange part is that when they arrived at the port of Bandar Lampung she told the driver that she did not need him anymore and got out of the car and send him back.
The driver came back a couple of hours later and told us something interesting: apparently in the restaurant close to our hotel, Suyatni was identified drinking coffee with 2 men at 5 a.m. Who were those men? I suddenly got an eerie feeling and thought: "in what kind of a" Twilight zone" I got myself into?" We decided to move hotels and continue our travel plan.
I tried to contact Suyatni several times to find out if she was ok, when she left the Lampung she almost seemed irrational. We were all wondering if she safely reached her house, but there was no response. Was this a confirmation that she knew she lied? Was everything she told me a scam or was she indeed desperate to go home? In the last days of my trip, I decided to give her a last visit. When she saw me she started crying again and said that she was sorry that she had to go, but that her husband demanded it. I did not see her husband and was not able to confirm if this was indeed the situation. Again I confronted her that too many things in her story did not add up, but that I did not understand why she did this to me. Once again she said: "she did not lie and that she was sure I was her child and that she gave birth to me." I asked her also if she was the one that knocked on my door at 4.30 in the morning on her last day and she confirmed. She claimed that she just wanted to have a coffee with me. My frustration surfaced and I said I was not able to accept half a truth or even full lies and told her it felt like she was messing with my head. I said my goodbyes and wanted to leave she was crying and desperately tried to hold on to my arm. I coldly pulled back and left.
Days before, I received the phone number of Andhika, my so-called famous 100% baby brother. She told me that after she lost me in Jakarta, she tried to make it on her own and failed. After a while, she decided to go back to Suprapto, my so-called father. A few years later she said to have given birth to Andhika. A couple of years later she, once again, separated from her husband, but this time she was not able to take her child and left him with the father. She claims that Andhika does not want to recognize her as his mother and that she had not seen him for years. She even told her other children, from her second husband that he was their half brother, but when I asked if they had seen him, they said they were never able to reach him. After my last meeting with Suyatni, I decided to text him to see if he was familiar with her story and even send him a picture of her. I finally got my answer. Andhika did not know who she was and told us that his mother was at his home.
I felt ashamed and silly, why did I believe her? Was I naive or even stupid? Fortunately, I concluded that I can't blame myself, although it does feel kind of sour. When searching for clues to find your biological family and identity you have no choice but to publish personal information. I realize that I could not have prevented this in any way.
We could have crossed paths somewhere between 1975-1979 or she still could be an 'acting mother' but the fact is that most of the time she either was not able to tell the full truth or unwilling but on other occasions she also flat out lied. My fake meeting with a false Bandung mother in 1991was already an enormous mindfuck, and had a huge negative impact on me. After 6 weeks of overthinking Suyatni's lies, this feels worse. Once again someone is screwing with my head. But did she do this on purpose or is she just a little mental? She never asked me for anything, what did she gain from it? Why would you tell your children for years that Andhika is their half brother? I don't have the answers and have to mistrust everything she ever told me. It hurts and makes me sad but also made me realize that I'll probably have to come to terms with the fact that I won't be able to find my biological mother any time soon.....