thank you protesters: you are my fuel hero!

i am so glad that the fuel hike was just a myth, an imaginary fear. a non-existent night mare.
the past few weeks starting from the day the government announced about the hike plan, life was so distressing to me.

well, i have been accustommed to living a middle class life. i have ms. devil, a lovely car that takes me home from work, work to home, padang to bukittinggi, or simply takes me to the nearest  bakso kiosk. No days passed without driving. A classy life of its own.

so, it is just normal to say that it boosts my pride. you know i live in a planet where pride counts for everything important in one’s life. And i do think i can’t live without my pride.

i’ve told you that i am the member of the middle class, right? for your information our number is getting bigger each day.  and the important  parameter to the status is our ability to have four wheeled, motorized vehicles. while low class people are still struggling to make the ends meet, our preoccupation is which car accessories suit what car. a stark contrast right? that’s why we are the middle class. a group of people that live a quiet confortable life. very nice. pity those low class bunch!!!!!

i work for the government, earn idr. 2 million plus…plus…plus…per month, car paid cash by my parents, about to have my own home (parents help, ha ha ha), got a nice hubby, no grubby children yet, can afford to dine in expensive restaurant, you know that restaurants that cost me one eighth of my monthly salary (but i always begrudge the parking boy who insists that i have to pay idr. 2 thousand for the parking space. very classy attitude!

life was so blissful, then. And then israel started to threaten iran for reasons i don’t think i care about. they said the world is bracing for the third world war and the sign is the speed increase in crude oil price, which i don’t even know what it is. and then my government has this absurd idea about raising the price of the fuel! damn it!  

my existence is threatened! my pride wouldn’t be able on a constant move then. idr. 4.500/liter is the price i could tolerate for the sake of my pride. but idr. 6000 is too much. then i start to weep, scream. No! howl. Why does this government want to disturb my peaceful existence. I can’t sleep! I can’t eat. I refuse my husband’s sexual advances. I just can’t live a normal life if I can’t get my ms. devil on the street because I can’t afford to feed her her favorite subsidized premium. I am about to fall deep into depression!

Heavenly God, we still have this young protesters on street condemning the fuel hike! They shout. They scream to voice their opposition to the plan. They even want to topple the ruling president; the guy that made my husband live in a forced celibacy. I heard they were so determined in refusing the hike that they took over the hi way, the airport, the presidential palace. I also heard they burn government owned cars or buildings. They shell the parliamentary building with molotov bombs or cocktail bombs. Somebody got shot. Some people suffered injuries cause by mysterious chemical solution thrown at them. A police officer’s got lynched (serve him right!!). pundits on news tv raved crazily. Demonstrations went viral….

All of them said that this hike will affect the needy dearly. Life will be difficult for them.

Then, they announced that there will be no fuel hike in the near future even though it’s very difficult for the government to balance its big ledger. No fuel hike eventhough most government’s (the say it is the people’s money) money goes to subsidize fuel for a person like ME!!!!!!

Peace restored.
   

Hair and Profession

i was on my way to malang, east java, last november for a conference when this little funny “incident” happened. as usual i am a kind girl that dares to face complication that sometimes i end up being in a predicament. instead of going straight to malang, i went to jogja first planning to abuse my feet to go around jogja, seeing great things they’ve  said about jogja. they were right. it was a place that you must see before you die.
nah, i am not going to talk about how great jogja was in detail in this post. or  how miserable i was on the train going to malang. someone refused to give me my seat despite i’ve told her that the seat she was sitting on was mine. it was shown on my ticket. or how the train official did not try to help me but asking me to take another vacant seat instead. IT WAS AN EXECUTIVE CAR MIND YOU!

the incident i am talking about is not really a big story but i thought it was quite funny. garuda (the flight that took me to jakarta from padang) landed at terminal 3 of sukarno-hatta airport. meanwhile my lion flight which went to jogja was at terminal 1. so, i needed to take the shuttle bus to reach that terminal. before reaching terminal 1 definitely we would pass terminal 2 which is  for international flight.
nah, this funny incident happened when the bus was entering terminal 2. a lady with her very bright and sincere smile tucked me on my elbow and said:
She : “miss, your flight is air asia right? this is the terminal you have to drop off .”
I :  “oh, i am not taking air asia. i am going to jogja with lion air. i am dropping off at terminal 1.
She : oh, sorry. i thought you are going to malaysia.

the theory that i postulated during the remaining journey to terminal 1 was she thought i was a TKW (female indonesian worker) going to malaysia. why?
1. I wore my hair short (not that  rihanna style)
2. I looked messy ( i didn’t sleep well the night before)
3. I was carrying a travelling bag and a backpack
4. I was wearing a shabby sweater lended by my cousin

I believe the reason that convinced her that i was a tkw was my short hair. by standard, TKWs working as maid are obligated to cut their hair short during their training. my messy look or my worn out travelling bag and shabby sweater which made  me look like a refugee might add another healthy dose of conviction to her that i was on my way to malaysia to go back to my master’s place after a brief visit to my village.

well, i was not offended at all. she was just trying to be helpful anyway. i just felt funny when she frowned listening to me speaking in english with john (yeah the john orford who cant see the forest from the trees).

Malin Kundang

Malin Kundang, a legend originating from my native land, Minangkabau, is a classic story of the misfortune that befalls those who dare to challenge the law of the earth: parental wishes.

Malin Kundang, young and in despair of poverty engulfing him, told his mother his plan to merantau, to leave his village for some far away foreign lands to look for a chance for a better life. And the story went a typical plot where the old and, of course, poor mother waved his son good bye in torrents of tears, equipping him only with best wishes and hopeful prayer that the son would comeback home in glory to make her proud, to hoist the honor of the family. Yes, that was very very very typical . Parents hope their children to be somebody they can be proud of them. Well, nothing bad about that. But the bad thing is children must be children forever. Once you a child of a somebody, no matter how old you are, you are still the child who has to obey your parents in any respects. If you obey them you love them. If your opinions contradict theirs you are durhaka, bound to hell, as the holy verses have mandated.

Then off Malin Kundang went to far far far away place to look for fortune. A good natured young man would always succeed in whatever he did was the archetypal main plot of a legend. After sometimes, he morphed into a very successful success story of a pauper-turned-a-prince. He owned and commanded a massive armada of trading ships and a thriving trader at that. His fortune did not end in volumes of gold but extended to a fulsome beautiful princess for a wife. What a perfect story! Too perfect to have a perfectly sad end.

At times, Malin grew homesick. Yes, that was typical again. A bird might fly a zillions miles but he must go home to his root, to the root of why he had to fly so far in the first place. In a typically legend-ly manner, Malin Kundang set sail homeward bringing with him coteries of various types of extravagances and of course his beautiful wife for a typical legend-ly show case (is it….off?) at home.

During the journey, he was never tired of assuring his wife of how beautiful his village was; how prosperous his native land was; how respected his family was. He was of the son of a respected lady who brought him up in the absent of her demised husband. She was a graceful, independent lady. Too good a story, isn’t it?

News about the homecoming of a successful fellow villager reached the shore even faster from the master mast of a ship approaching the farthest sea-ward mouth of the port. Everyone from every walk of life gathered on the beach to see the ship of Malin Kundang edging to the dock. They hold their breath. Their heart seemed to stop beating upon seeing the glistening Malin Kundang and his wife descended from the ship.

There was a hip-hip hooray. There was a thunderous applause. They were proud of him. And there was a pride hand waving back to the crowd. There were also ebbing tears rolling on his cheeks. He was proud of himself. He was done with his mission to bring pride dawning to his family history. He was relieved. What a perfect scene! Too perfect to end so abruptly.

Malin Kundang’s mother heard about his son’s homecoming. She also heard about his lavish success. Of course, she was very very very proud of him. Soon, she started, dragging her old feet to the beach. On the scene of the success story, she parted the crowd with her ageing body. Breathless when she reached the spot where her whispers “Here I am, your mother Malin” could reach Malin Kundang’s ears.

Malin Kundang was startled to see the woman before his eyes. Her haggard face, her tethered clothes, her frail body, her destitute of the very being betrayed his pride. He did not recognized that lady since she did not resemble a particle of the mother he told her wife so earnestly. He didn’t feel at home once. Her presence reminded him of an old bitter feeling securely buried in the tomb of his past.  He didn’t feel comfortable. He felt sick. Too sick to try to at least think about the possibility correctness of that woman’s proclamation.

“Impossible! You are not my mother” was his first and last declaration on the short duration of his homecoming (you may interpret that the duration of the homecoming becomes short because of the appearance of that woman). He commanded to the first mate of the ship to set the sail to travel home and ascended up to his cabin.

To cut the legend short, the mother was so offended and derailed. She could not take her son disavowal of her presence with grace. “I pray to God Almighty May you and all of your entourage change into stone” was the curse mouthed by the mother.

It happened that on the early leg of the sea journey headed home, Malin Kundang’s ship was met by a fierce storm. So fierce was the storm, a thunder wrecked his ship into pieces and those pieces and every piece of soul on board transformed into stone as Malin Kundang’s mother had wished earlier.

————————————————————————————————————————-

Until know we never know the raison d’être of why Malin Kundang shunned her mother. We cannot ask him either since he’s long dead and a stone at that.

It can be that he might feel ashamed of his mother’s condition or may be something else. A successful person who yearns to go home like Malin Kundang must miss everything related to home: the village, the paddy field, the rivers, the lakes, the people, let alone the mother. It is not told that he leaves the village because of some rows with her mother of someone else. He even completes his mission: to bring pride to the family. It might be the shock felt by a home coming diaspora: his dearly idealized homeland manifested before him in the form he derides the most. It must be very shocking never consoling.

Still, so many “but whys” hang in the air.

On why the mother gets so angry that she curses her son the way she does is also a mystery. She might be hurt that her very own son rejects her. A public disavowal, we may say. Very shameful of course. Or, is it just her failure to notice that her son is not the same son she-waves-good-bye-with-tears sometimes ago? He is no more a boy, but a man with his own thinking. It might be the case of the wrath over the end of her sovereignty over her son.  A typical fury of somebody who has just lost control over what they used to control so dearly and lovingly.

Whatever it is, one must learn that the mother’s wish has ruined the hard gained success of Malin Kundang. In other words, she has destroyed her own son. And one of the reason why it is possible for her to kill her son is the system is with her. What we mean by “the system” here is: religion and culture. The mother, the killer, never faces any wordly trial. Parents are never wrong. Meanwhile, Malin Kundang can never seek justice for what has befallen him. Children can never be right.

This is the common formula of parents-children relationship we propose:

You go against your parents=you are a durhaka child= you are bound to hell+hated by your people= you are so dead!

questions

where will you go when you are on the brink of a breakdown?

balancing modernity and tradition

that was the subject i studied with Dr. Shantini Pillai when i was at UKM.  It was one the most intriguing subject i’ve ever encountered during my study. before entering her class, i never thought a woman might face this problem throughout her life. i thought you could choose to be  either modern or traditional. you could not be both. and i naively thought that i was completely “modern” before enterting her class. i, since my childhood, has a tendency of pushing the boundary when it comes to traditions. Wearing pants to a wedding party was not yet perceived appropriate in those times. i wore one to any ceremony party my mom ordered me to go. i often got scolded for that but i kept on going on my way. that’s was why i thought i was “completely modern”. i was brave to defy the convention. but of course i was wrong.

“one of major problems faced by women in once colonized country is the notion of balancing modernity and tradition…men and women might have an equal contribution when it came to  the effort to gain independence. yet, when independence obtained, men continued occupying the public sphere and women retreated to the domestic area, which is traditionally hers. once a woman wanted to be modern (read, participating in publish sphere such as being a politician, she would be accused of being westernized, not traditional hence not nationalist”…. that is a bit i can recall from the lecture i got from my lecturer.

after the class, i still thought i won’t face such troubles. hey, i was born decades after Indonesia got her independence. there are lots of female politicians around. we even had a female president. so why bother. i can be a modern girl as long as i please.

again, i was wrong.

today i realized that was not the essence of Dr. Shant’s lecture on that day. I believe what she tried to tell us that day women whether in colonial or post colonial era face the same problem: equality. I am not talking about Hilary Clinton being the first woman to run for American presidency, or Megawati being the first female president of Indonesia. Yes, they are successful in being top guns in male dominated politics. but the big fuss over it probably show that what those two woman had gained is a “special case” not “natural” happening as male candidate for every top position.  When I was at senior high school, a female candidate who won the race for the class top chair had to be satisfied being inaugurated  as the vice chair simply because she was a woman. in other words, her defeated male competitor  was pointed to chair the class solely because he is a man. No equality there. What’s left is first position and second position. The second sex as Simone de Beauvoir called it.

Up to the typing of this post, vaguely I still think I am a modern girl. I got the degree. I got the job. I am independent. But I can’t be modern the way you understand what modern girl is. In my life, in this place i happened to be born, I have to bow down to tradition.

Do you want examples? I will have no wedding ceremony held after Idul Fitri or anytime during my life time (unless my  marriage fails and i remarry). Talking about wedding, I really have no voice in it. My last chance to assert my opinion is only when i chose  my current husband as my spouse and when i decided the date of my wedding. (it’s because i am working and work’s got rules when you may or may not get your day off. other girls who is not working might not be as lucky as me). When it comes to the party, it’s not your domain. Everything is decided by you big extended family. The most powerful personals there are my uncles from maternal line.  By tradition, they are the ones together with their wives who will take care of everything about the wedding. Every minutes of the wedding needs to have their approval. In old times, uncles even in charge in finding you a spouse. you might have your choice but if they disagree with you,  you have to follow suit unless you want your mother being ostracized by her brothers. Meanwhile father has no say on this wedding things.

In my case, my father was on the front line to make my wedding with my current husband possible. he defied all odds to get me and lucky married. This offended one of the uncles and the outcome is my mom in tears told me yesterday that there will be no wedding ceremony for me. Well, I am okay with that decision. Frankly speaking i have no money to hold even a modest party let alone a lavish one. Moreover, my teaching schedule is tight. The person who’re hurt the most is my mom. She has build that big house with seven rooms for memorable event like wedding ceremony. I am her first daughter and she’d told me that she will throw a lavish party for me. She earned the money not the Uncles. Father even joked that he will slaughter one of his cows for my party. But it wont happen anyway.  I am afraid my other three sisters won’t have their wedding ceremony either when they get married out of respect for me. But hope things have gone back to normal when it is their time.

As for me, I can’t push the boundary this time. It’s time to retreat and follow the tradition. Even if i am able to hold a ceremony on my own expense, I won’t do it. I don’t want to cause more familial feuds over this trivial thing. At least I marry the man I love. And that’s enough for now.

gadis kampung: first day fasting

I am home in Bukittinggi for the first day of Ramadhan. Ah, fasting month for a newly weds is really………..in other words, we need to restrain ourselves from the newly-wed-ly things at day time (from dawn to dusk, everybody!).

anyway, It’s a tradition. In my kampung, failing to abide the tradition means you prepare your own gallows. Kampung gossips? Ah, you can’t just stand it.

so, by tradition, a newly weds like us are suggested to show up in the near mosque performing tarawih prayer (you only do it during ramadhan every year). You don’t have to announce your presence but people will notice new face in the crowds. it’s like…”psst…psst is it that so and so new son in law…..what does he do….pssst….pssssst…..” or “ah, delvi you are home….is my son in law home?….where is he? ash ash….ouw…. he is in that corner!”

It might look trivial for you, but it’s wordily important in my place. I think the tradition is meant to make public that you are married couple.  remember, married ladies get more respect from the society. For my husband, who is not from my kampung, the event is for informing the public that he is part of family and part of the kampung now. by tradition, he lives in my family house now. (in my kampung, if you have 4 daughters like my mom, you need to build a house with at least 4 rooms. our husbands will live with us. at home there are 7 rooms all together).

there was nothing special with the last nite tarawih session. the same imam would lead the prayer. he would recite the same verses, which as a child, i duly committed to my memory.

but the thing that attracted my attention was  me last nite was the preacher announced by the mc. he was not somebody from my kampung. at first, i listened to his sermon quite seriously (out of courtesy. my home is next to the mosque. so, we were brought up to be extra polite in words, dresses and behaviors simply due to our home proximity with the mosque). what he said is nothing new. i recalled hearing the same sermon since my 4th grade. yeah it’s boring.

but, what’s new for me was the preacher is the Regent candidate for Agam regency, the biggest regency in West Sumatera. He was in my kampung  for meet and greet session with an islamic organization popular in my place in which he is one of the member.

first, he told the crowd about what his name and  academic titles were. then, he continued telling us where he came from and his two years education in Egypt (boys studying in Egypt are every mother’s choice to be her son-in-laws. they must be “siak” or religious. and in my kampung religiosity is more valuable than your SUVs). He also told us that he taught at IAIN Padang, a quite big Islamic institute in my region.

at first, i was amazed by him. I mean a big city ustadz like him was willing to preach in a little kampung mosque like mine dealing with the crowd who mostly din’t understand his level of intellectuality.  what had brought him here, i was wandering. after a few moment, he began telling us that he was the regent candidate. and he was there to ask for the support for his run in the second round regional election.

once he mentioned….” ladies and gentleman… my name is……..and I am the regent candidate for Agam for the second round……..” I signaled to my hubby to leave the mosque and go home. Ah, it’s better for us to enjoy our short night together than listen to his blabber campaign. (we need to raise earlier the next day for sahur or early breakfast for tomorrow’s fasting).

Ah, newly weds during Ramadan. it’s so…….

the lucky guy is Lucky!

I don’t really take “coincidence” seriously. But the date i chose to end my singledom is the same as the day Colson decided to marry his love. What a coincidence! and What does it mean? I don’t know but I hope it will mean my union with Lucky will last forever.

Yes, Lucky is the man! (it’s the answer for your question Triesti). To my Mom’s great relieve, he is a nice and charming Minangkabau boy (I saw horrow in my Mom’s eyes when I told her that my boyfriend was a Sudanese last year. It’s nothing racial yet the thought of having a non-Indonesian son-in-law gives my Mom a heart attack. As a result, she stopped nagging me to get married soon).

Professor Ruzy, my dear thesis supervisor, once predicted that I’ll meet my husband at the university where I teach. She was right. I don’t think my professor was a psychic, yet her prophecy came true two years afterward. (No…no…. for you who think that Lucky is my fellow lecturer at uni, you are so wrong).

The romance itself was never a rocky one except for some disagreement on the part of our big extended family on the date of the wedding. My wish was we tie the knot as soon as possible (I had my father’s support. He likes Lucky very much. and he was the one who urged me to marry Lucky soon. It was in January). But some close and distant (yet important) relatives suggested we postpone the wedding until both of us are financially secure. “Financially security in todays Indonesia could literally means Lucky needs to be a civil servant first, which obviously means I need to wait for years and years since the competition to get that hot cake is so fierce. Of course we refused the suggestion cum order. It was like waiting for Godot. That’s where the conflict began.

After six months of  “fighting and cajoling and diplomating and midnight meetings, and on my part, tantrum throwings, we managed to set July 16th 2010 as our wedding day.

Many people think that Lucky is lucky to have me. I personally think I’m lucky to have him. A man who can “handle with care” a girl like me in this Minangkabau land is a rarity. and he is Lucky!

murderous sex?

Two days before our wedding day, we (my soon-to-be-hubby and me) were scheduled to have a screening session before a religious authority. The screening session itself was a question and asnwer session where you were asked whether you really want to marry this guy and nobody forces  you to do so. Then, the religious authority aslo cross-checked the validity of our marital status and other related  statements (including: are you still a virgin?). He wanted to make sure that none of us are married to someone else at the time of the wedding.

After we passed the screening session, we proceeded to another session on the a to z of a union. We were educated on the importance of marriage in Islam and what awaits married couples in heaven. It was a light and full of laughter session. The religious authority even told  the husband-to-bes (yes, there were two couples joining the session) about the a to z of how to please one’s wife. (I think he is supposed to write his version of kamasutra).

but what amused me the most is his statement about how holy sex is after the marriage. He told us that the reward for married couple doing sex is equal to the amount of heavenly reward for a Muslim killing a thousand non-believers.

What came to my mind at that time is this ustadz needs to go on a campaign to promote sex not war to those war mongers Muslim across the globe. Hey……..why try the hard way to exterminate the infidels? Just go home to your wife or husband and have your time as often as you please. The more sex you have “technically” the more infidels you kill. And I think other religions should also find about the power of sex in their holy scripture (If they don’t have any, create one!)

cheers everybody!

ariel-luna-tari case: indonesia will really never go no where

it’s been weeks.

yeah it’s been weeks people have been talking about the ariel, the pop star, sex tape with other celebirites.

it’s been weeks and i expected this case  will just “gone with the wind” the way the lapindo or century case did. (hey, there is nothing extraordinary stuff  in the tape. it is just a famous man copulating with an equally famous  woman. it’s between two consenting adults i m telling you. yeah two amourous adults who record their sexual act).

yet, it keeps on boiling and brewing and i see no way for this case to chill out in the near future.  i can see it that people in my country  are very angry (or excited)  about this case started from the usual opportunist politicians (the tape was discussed in the house!), the usual “go to hell adulterers” religious snobs the like of FPI (islam defender front), and the usual “use the show” personality like Farhat Abbas, the lawyer who just sued people for having sex (yes……he did it. i m not kidding you. he just founded an NGO called HAJAR which means ASSAULT  in English. He,  in the capacity as the leader of that NGO sued Ariel for his sex tape).

it’s been a national issue! yes, it’s so a current issue now that NGO the like of FPI took to the street screaming at the top of their voice cursing the “adulterers” and called for the implementation of syariah law.

it is really a national issue now.  even mr.president (who is infamous for his sluggishness to make important decision) was quick to order the national police force to settle things down and get the guilty parties behind bars. SOON….that is the order.

tv stations, infotainment programs, gossips colums have been tiredlessly informing the mass about the development of the case. every so called development (like ariel received special treatment in jail) was reported and covered  as meticulously as possible the way a war journalist covers the plight of a POW. (what  a waste of energy!).

hah….the way i see it…my country will really never go no where. there’s so much time and energy wasted in this trivial case. WHAT ABOUT OTHER MORE IMPORNANT ISSUES?

(what delvi…….are you trying to say that pornography is a trivial thing?)

my stand on pornography is like my stand on tobacco. they are there and nothing you can do about it. the only thing you can do is to control them (in this sense, i am talking about their circulation). so, those who are not elligible to consume them yet  like children have no access to them.

in short, if Ariel is the star in the sex tape, so what? if u like his act just enjoy it. if you dont, trash the tape. end of the story.

if ariel has sinned for adultery, that’s not ur business. it’s his business with his god.

but if ariel made that tape for commercial purpose and sold his creative product without putting “parental advisory or not for children or not for those who have cardiovascular problems” label on the pack, u should really teach him some lessons.

the way is see it, the police should hunt for those who upload the tape to the net not those are on the tape. if those who are on the tape are culpable for the wide circulation of the tape, nah “pak polisi” go for it.

so, no need for scream and cry and curse on morality here. it’s just an ordinary case. end of the story.

NB:

this case has proved my hypothesis that sex is not really taboo for Indonesian people. they say it’s a taboo thing; you should not talk aboy it. yet, this scandal tells us another story.

racism is still there

ah, i m very glad finally i can post something today.  for those who miss me, thank you! (ah i just have less than a handful reader, but it doesn’t matter anyway).

so i was in aceh last week. my kid sister was accepted in a public uni there majoring in veterinary. yes, she is an animal lover ( i hate any kind of animal with fur, especially cats). well, i can say that i kind of love aceh for it’s culinary but not for some stupid religion-originated laws practiced there.  I met nice people there. some even were very nice to me and my sister. they gave us free lodging and  many free lunches and dinners and rides! all free!

yeah…. i love the city too. it is way more beautiful than padang, the city where i live now. i don’t know why i instantly fall in love with that city. probably, it is the first place i visited after the last time i left padang months ago. and i think the “lets go to aceh to see what tsunami has done to it” is also a factor in my new found love to aceh. but my trip was not without any heartbreaking, i mean annoying  incident for your information. I was denied entry to the Baiturrahman  mosque ( the famous mosque you find in many calendars) because i wore long pants. Actually there is no such rule barring a lady with long pants from entering the mosque. Yet, the general rule is you have to wear islamic dress if you want to enter the mosque complex. nah, that’s where the problem lies. the term “islamic dress” means different to different people.  for the man, who stopped my step to the mosque, long pants is not islamic enough. but still, that experience wont make me hate the entire aceh people. I try my best not to make a generalization about acehnese over that small incident. Yet, one thing for sure is I HATE THE MAN WHO BARRED ME FROM ENTERING THE MOSQUE!

Then, why i chose this title for my post.

after settling everything in aceh (with the great help from those i mention above) i went to medan to see some relative.  the banda aceh-medan flight was only 40 minutes. in medan i was obligated by my mom to visit various aunties and uncles there. in one of the visits, one of my aunties warned my sister (the one who will a veterinarian in the future) to be careful with acehnese. she told my sis that “if one encounter an acehnese and a serpent, one will kill the acehnese  first”. in other words, she was trying to tell us that aceh people are bad guys. to put in another way, acehnese are lower than animal.

hearing this, i challenged her wisdom with the fact that our time in aceh was so much easier because where were helped by people there. for ur information, it was our first time going to aceh with no one we know there. i mean without the kindness of those who helped me and my sis there, we surely would have a hard time there.

well, there was no fierce argument between me and my aunt that nite. I was too tired to argue more and she was too shocked learning about how good acehnese people were to us.

ha….ha….ha it feels so nice to break a stupid myth like what my aunt has told us.