It's a late Saturday morning and a dozen men are hanging out in a scraggly playing field in Borobudur, Indonesia. There's a shaded dugout along one edge, and a worn patch of dirt in the center that makes this look like a lopsided baseball diamond. It's training day at the Lapak Netral pigeon racer club. To race, you must have a pair of birds. Pigeons, it turns out, mate for life. The male bird is the racer, and returning to the female provides his motivation. The males are piled into a cage and ferried by motorbike to a release spot about 2 miles away. Ken Rapopo, 40, pulls two birds from the cage and holds them up in the air, one in each hand. He pulls his arms back, then flings the birds up. A split-second later, they spread their wings and start flapping. The two pigeons circle the field and Rapopo reports their movements by walkie-talkie. Suddenly one bird changes direction and flies in a direct line toward the goal, where his female partner awaits. He disappears over the trees and
↧