I, a very young reporter — back before the Earth cooled — lived in the Indonesia that is now in the news under the headline: “It’s a ticking time bomb.”

Sukarno, a one-named former architectural student at Bandung University, had cobbled together the 17,000 disparate islands, each with its own language, into one country — then known as the Dutch East Indies — that became Earth’s fourth largest.

Me, a then reporter for a little news agency, had done a small interview with Sukarno who was then affectionately called “Bapak,” which is Indonesian for “Father.” Perhaps because I hadn’t known better, I’d made him laugh. His English was good and I asked why he always wore a military uniform. His answer: “Because I am the Father of this country.” Me: “I don’t think so. I think it’s because you know you look handsome in it.” Sukarno laughed, and the interview proceeded easily.

Months later I am back in New York and the US State Department contacts me. They tell me that America’s current envoy to Jakarta is Ambassador Howard Jones. And President Sukarno had told the ambassador he wanted to compile an autobiography and that “many men with fat bellies and cigar ashes” down them had wanted to write his story but — Sukarno said: “I only want that lady to do it. Find her for me.”

In my apartment vacuuming the living room when the State Department called, I didn’t know Indonesia from downtown Arizona. Calls from the ambassador, our State Department, Sukarno’s government never stopped. I then spent months studying Indonesia. The language, the history, the president. I finally flew over and spent the next many years with him.

Sukarno was a magician. The country he created — his stage. His land — like him — understood that “white people are boring.” Spend time in this magic world and visitors soon learn efficiency is a very minor virtue. Holding a job — a novelty. I remember when I desperately needed his photograph. Files were locked up. The man in charge wasn’t in. Then phone was out of order. Nine weeks to get that photo: It showed the back of Sukarno’s head and only my left arm.

In our own impersonal way Bapak and I loved one another. Understood one another. Laughed, then fought with one another. He, Muslim — allowed four wives — was full up. Indonesia was coffee, java, fruit, oil, wives. He is gone. His land — rich. But if you read today’s headlines, it’s “Warning Lights Flash for Indonesia.”

The world’s fourth most populous nation has known conflict, upheaval, disaster. I was targeted at one point by anti-Americans. It was Ambassador Jones who hustled me to safety at 5 a.m.

Decades come, centuries go, I am still in touch with Bapak’s family. Even stayed with them. Japanese wife Dewi lives in Tokyo. Their daughter — London. Grandson — Midwest. If pushed I can still remember a few words of Bahasa, their native language. So terima kasih — that’s thank you in their language — for reading this far.