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yeah folk galodo is my mother tongue for massive flood accompanied with huge amount of mudflow. in short, it is a disaster and it kills. in my entire life, i’ve survived three successive galodo.
my first galodo is when i was 12. it was right after our family dinner. me and siblings were sprawling on our home’s second floor when i heard thunderous voice on the street. so, i stretched my neck through the window to find out what was happening outside. then i saw a massive amount of water flow ferociously on the street dragging all kinds of materials along its journey down to the sea (in the morning after the water had subsided i saw dead bodies of dogs and snakes). soon, the flood covered all over the area and entered people’s home; mine was not spared.
after learning about this grave situation i run downstairs and shouted to my father that there was flood coming. my instinct told me to do some necessary measures. the first thing i did is to open the wardrobe and saved our school uniform, report books, certificates, my text books since the next day was the second day of my final examination to graduate from elementary school, our home and land legal papers. i bundled those stuffs in a piece of cloth and strapped it to my back. i was ready for everything and more than ready to evacuate. my father run outside and set our three dogs free from their collars so they could save themselves if things turn worser. my mom was perplexed. she panicked so badly than she suggested to my father to evacuate to the south following the flow of the water instead of climbing the higher ground in the north of our home. she got very emotional and scared to death. i remember the first thing mom did when she learned about this galodo is to take my 1,5 year old fifth sister from her swing and strapped the sis to her body. yeah, i guess that’s naturally a mother instinct.
the situation was getting worse as the night wore on. rain kept pouring intensively without a slight chance to stop and there was more water and mud. it was so wet and cold. you know i was such a small built girl at 12 (now i am still short) and the mud had reached just slightly below my waist. i could not swim; none of my family could swim. My father opened our back door and asked me to jump to the mud and walk to the higher ground 100 m from our home. my mom and my other and my siblings followed suit behind me. while father, went to meet the alerted youth in the crossroad and organized some work to dredge some main ditches to tunnel the flood water so it could subside immediately.
however, that night the nature refused to subdue to our will it seemed. despite the youth and man folks had broken their back to save the day, water and mud kept coming dragging whatever force standing before them. the newly dredged ditches could only be little help. it was a bit scary for me since it was my first experience to be in such situation. but as kid i could not stop my innocent imagining, despite living as a one-nite refugee, that i would be seen on tv interviewed by reporters about this disaster. yeah kids they are always innocent.
that night we, the mothers and children, slept in a refugee camp (it was not a camp actually but a home of one of the villager which happened to be located several meter higher than the flowing water). as a kid i realized that living as a refugee was not fun at all. i could not sleep without my blanket but where on earth would I find my blanket at that place. so, i started a little adventure of touring back to my home, without my mother’s consent, defying the fiercely flowing stream to get to my blanket. luckily i managed to complete my mission and proudly presented several blankets to the refugees. i hoped everybody would thank me and say, “how nice and brave delvi is”. but, my mom rewarded me with her long nagging about how fool i was to do that stupid trip and endangering my life for my blanket. she was so mad because she worried so much when i went missing for my blanket-fetching mission. she thought she would never see me again. yeah mothers, they are always like that, don’t u think so?
in the morning, the water began to subside and it had stopped raining. thank god there was only one casuality on that galodo. that old man was crossing the bridge when the water came. For the second galodo of my life the story of the dead victim is even ‘funnily’ grimmer. the viction, a man, was peeing or defecating (m not sure ok! but that was the rumor) on the bank of the river when the big water came. we were so sorry for his family and his pregnat wife. his remain was found the next day, stiff and blue. i still remember his stiff , black and blue fingers and expressionless, lifeless face.
yeah disaster always brings tears. some people wail for the lost of their loved ones. i wept because none of my chicks and duckies survived (as a kid they were my most precious belonging you know). other people lost their spirit to see their soon-to-be-harvested paddy fields wreaked havoc by the galodo.
well, disaster always means lost. just like what had happened to the people of situ gintung. my heart goes to them. i know their lost, and i know how they feel. Hope they will recover soon.
disclaimer: this post is not in any sense of the word anti islam. so for those who think that m a cia secret agent who’s brainwashed by christian liberal secular school of thots and deployed to wreak havoc asian religious values; or a secret operative specially trained by some zionist ideologues to destroy islam; or a radical feminist illegitimate daughter of an aging white male canonite orientalist, who thinks that everything western is cultured and everything eastern is uncivilized, or an indonesian version of vs naupaul’s mimic (wo) man who reads salman rushdie’s the satanic verse at the very tender age of five, just go to hell.
on his comment of my me not religious: nevah wanta one, colson said that there was a gradual de-secularization on most part of republic of Indonesia, my country. well, i couldn’t agree more with him since such thing called de-secularization does exist and i terribly feel flabbergasted by it. just look at regions which are predominantly muslim like aceh, west sumatra, some parts of java and some parts of sulawesi. those regions implement the what so-called syariah law, or laws that take islam as their basic tenets. however, i never heard about regions with predominant christian or hindu or buddhist population impose laws which take those religions as their basic creeds. so, if colson is right about the de-secularization, soon probably we will read in the news about majority christian papuas oblige the papuans to go to church every sunday or get fined or jailed if fail to pay the fine or both for constant transgressors. who knows, may be such thing will happen in the future (i duly hope it won’t).
but, so far i notice that it’s only the muslim society which getting more religious lately. no. i don’t think the word religious is in a correct usage here. i reckon they are not going religious but going religiously backward.
i always believe that religion is a matter of choice. you can be considered as religious if you practice your five times prayers voluntarily. i will label you religious if you don your hijab by choice because you think this is one of the many ways to show your piety to your god. you are religious if you sincerely donate one third of your fortune to help the have nots without hoping for words of praises from clapping hands mortals. so, the key words here are: choice and voluntary. those words are key concepts that make religion sacred and holy.
nevertheless, today we see various kinds of syariah-based laws which are legal base for the authority to criminalize you when you do not adhere those laws. let say in aceh, un-hijab-ed muslim women are stopped on the streets by the authority and given a jilbab to wear. or, in my place, female civil servants serving in the office of the major must cover their heads. here, every morning i will see a laughable scene where a female civil servant goes to her office covering her head yet exposing her thighs. it is understandable since her boss just asks her to pakai jilbab (wearing head scarf) but cares not to ask her to cover her legs because to this religious boss what is religiously important is to see all of his female staff memakai jilbab since it’s religious. the same major also signed a bill that all female school students must pakai jilbab regardless their faith or they can’t attend classes. so, now it’s a common sight in padang to see school girls religiously reluctantly cover their heads but intentionally showing up some piece of hair in the front and in the back. i mean instead of keeping all of their hair inside the jilbab, those ‘rebellious’ girls let some flocks to peep out. i believe they behave this way because they wear the jilbab against their will. Things are different with those who ‘choose’ to wear it; they don their hijab properly (in accordance with their different brands of islam, ok).
i also laugh at law that bans an un-married couple to stay at the same room in a hotel for fear of an act of adultery. so, when you partner would book a hotel room you must show the front desk a legal document that you are married. there are sporadic raids committed every nights in hotels or motels around here. if caught red handed those sinful adulterers would be arrested, questioned by the police, covered by the media, in short publicly embarrassed for their (human) carnal desire. i heard and read they do the same thing in tanggerang, west java. what is so derisory about this law is it spares the homos and lesbians (i do not say i bear any grudge to these people, ok). let say if two women book a room in a hotel, it is so unlikely in this religious padang or bukittinggi the front desk will ask, “are you couples”. if adultery is what this law is trying to prevent, it fails in this particular case. what if those women are in love with each other? anything under the sun and in your dirty mind can happen in their hotel room, right? is this law endorsing homosexuality or what? If that is the case, muslim in indonesia are really great in any meanings the word might bear.
what m trying to say is these syariah-based laws only move on the cosmetic stage of the religion. to put it in another way, people obey the laws not because their love to god or their piety but because they are afraid of getting fined, jailed, fired, expelled from school, or raided. It’s so cosmetic, right? those pathetic people are not afraid of the wrath of god but the fury of the major or the head master or the shah. do we still call this vulgar coup d’état against god’s privilege to be feared by his creatures as ‘religious’? that’s what i call a downright bastardization of a religion. the implementation of these religious-based laws, if you’re trained to read between the lines, basically signs the failure the religion. in other words, it fails to make the believers to stick to its teachings and do what it asks the faithful to do that it needs human interference to make the day. does it mean god has failed? who’s the god now? do religions really come from god, then?
i think this kind of law has hurt those who are really religious; it has offended those who practice their faith piously. and i hope no more religiously backward people in power plan to make so more religiously funny religious-based laws which impinge the private domain of the citizen and endanger their civil right.
p.s. read this to view the take of the national commission for women affair on this issue.
as usual, i went home last weekend. in my kampung there was no interesting news to rant about. life was idyllic as usual. everything but time passed by so slowly. however, my kampung was beautiful as usual. It was consoling to my soul to gaze to the mind bending limitless vista of green and golden paddy fields from our home’s second floor. looking up to the north you would see the magnificent mount merapi, an active volcano which was protected by a mighty tiger roaming the forest tirelessly and showed himself out when something bad would befall the kampung (that’s what my late grandmother told me, Ok!). in the morning, mist would cover the majority part of the mountain, so you could see nothing but a giant shadow against the backdrop of the rising sun. when day wore on, the mist will disappear and you could see three water falls clearly. They were beautiful. Back home, we called those water falls as sarasah (literally means source of water). I was told that no mortal had ever set their foot at those sarasahs (i never believe in them). Then, far to the west, you could see the legendary singgalang mountain…..i think i should stop exoticizing my kampung now. I’ve got something more important to tell here.
Well, on my last homecoming, my kampung folks (including my mother) began to open an account that i’m not married yet. yeah everybody knows that at this age of 26 i’m husband-less. i have no problem with that, but those around seem to problematize it.
Everyone seems to pity my mom on the fact that she is son-in-law-less. last week, I, who’re dolled up and dressed to kill since I had a class to teach before, prompted a moderately big fuss in the market where my mother opened her stall. my mom’s colleagues started with questioning how i was, where i worked, when i left malaysia etc. i entertained their question cheerfully and everybody was happy. but, when an aunty started questioning about how many kids I have to my name, the big fuss began. everyone suggested that I should get married since i’ve got everything: i’ve finished my study; i’ve got a ‘thousands-will-kill-for-it job; i’ve reached (or passed ?) an (over) mature age to be husband-ed.
whenever confronted by this situation, i choose to play safe. It’s useless to argue with them the way i argue with my peers back in padang. they won’t just understand it. usually, to save my ass from further public embarrassment i said, “why don’t one of you act as my match maker?”. then, everything was settled and everyone was happy: promises uttered; prospective bachelors mentioned; good lucks wished.
During the hullabaloo of her daughter’s husband-less-ness, mom sometimes defended me, but at other times she collaborated with her colleagues. One time, in my defence, she told an aunty, who sold her entire tomato harvest to my mom, i was a big girl and knew what was best for her. yet, last week, she began to ricochet what her market colleagues said on the previous day. i chose not to confront my mom on this. i would zip my mouth and go about my business or simply drop the subject by switching the topic to my kid brother’s development in school until she got tired lamenting and hurt since she saw me having no interest in this subject.
i tell you folks, definitely I won’t die a virgin; never had i entertain such an idea.
but, the thing is i don’t feel like marrying anyone right now. it does not mean that nobody wants me or fancies me. you’re dead wrong if you think that way. i’ve got a list of admirers here whom i never really put great interest in them. Some of them even once called me in the dead hour of the night just to tell how much they missed me. why am i not interested to them? i tell you that their mortal mistake is they think they can owe and control me. their other deadly sin is they can never catch up with my dissenting mind. they belong to the mainstream which i detest to death. how am i going to consider him as my spouse if that guy keeps bragging that valentine day is the culture of the christian and we should not celebrate it because it will deviate your iman or faith. (i don’t celebrate valentine day either, but not because it comes from the christian culture). i think i can’t stand a day to spend with such a micro-minded person. how am i going to live with a guy who accuses the chinese for the poverty of his brothers and sisters with the same skin color. i hate racist, he should’ve known it. how am i going to love a guy who eagerly tells me that a perfect woman is a woman who stays home raising her children dutifully. ah, delvi is not perfect then. my mom is not perfect then: she leaves home for market before dawn and comes home after dusk every day. it’s my job to look after my five of siblings. yeah, since i was 8 my day always started with doing the laundry, washing the dishes, preparing the breakfast, ironing the sibling’s school uniforms up to checking their PR (homework). It only stopped when i started college few years ago. It’s no wonder i could not ride a bicycle and just know how to swim. i’d got no really time to play around when i was a kid.
if only one of them (or more) could share or at least understand my visions, my dreams and my thoughts, it’s me who will be after them.
sigh. of course i can never talk this way to my mom’s colleagues coz they won’t understand it.
well, this is my first serious take on indonesia’s general election. few days ago we just saw the beginning of the open campaign season. for the next 21 days we’ll be hearing all sorts of crabs and crappy promises from 11.ooo member of parliament hopefuls.
on my way from home to padang on last monday, i noticed scores of youths wearing jersey bearing a photo of an MP hopeful (we call them as Caleg here). they occupied an open truck or minivan weaving all sorts of buntings, posters and flags promoting the MP hopeful whose face and name were imprinted on the jersey they were wearing. I expected I would see some hilarious antics such as soaking your whole body with the signature color of a particular party; or shaving your head and leave only some segment of your hair that will form a symbol of a party. I did not see those antics though. Probably the party people thought it was not necessary yet at this early stage of the campaign.
During this election fever (shall i call it euphoria?) i develop a habit of studying all sorts of slogan written on posters of the MP hopefuls. let me introduce you to examples of them:
1. (Fill in the Blank) Bsc, Msc. Anak Petani. Memberi Untuk Nagari/ (Fill in the Blank) Bsc. A Son of a Peasant. Willing to give his all to his district.
2. Mohon Do’a Restunya. (Fill in the Blank), MM, MBA. Menuju Indonesia modern and religious/ I am seeking for your prayer and blessing. (Fill in the blank), MM, MBA. Toward Modern and Religious Indonesia.
3. (Fill in the blank)
19….elementary school no …. Bukittinggi.
19… junior high school no… Bukittingi
19… senior high school no….Bukittinggi
19… Stekpi, Jakarta
19…Southeast Washinton University, magister of economics ……
19…(Someting university in the USA,) liberal arts school, magisterial of International affair.
20.. a Ph.D candidate at UNP
Caleg DPD Bukittinggi.
4. (fill in the blank)…. pilih (……) ya! (fill in the blank)…….vote for me ok!
5. (fill in the blank), the granddaughter of Syeikh something something the founder of the great school something something.
I still have more ridiculous slogans but I’ll save them for future postings. But I surmise that none of these MP hopefuls’ slogan is appealing. None of the slogans can educate voters on why they should vote for them.
Lots of MP hopefuls are asking for our Do’a dan Restu (Prayer and Blessing) but they never tell us why we should mendoakan them (pray for them) and merestui them (give our blessing). Even those with the most sophisticated education have no clues on how to appeal to the voters. They might obtained their double magisters from universities in the US of A, but they cannot come out with a tagline which will make voters trust him to get their voice thru in the parliament. at least for my case, i am not impressed with this double master guy. however, if he tell me how he would help to eradicate poverty and stupidity in my neighborhood on his poster, probably i will spare my time to listen to his ceramah (campaign).
and this one “toward a religious and modern Indonesia” MP hopeful who looks intellectual enough has let me down. He does not give his topic sentence the controlling and ideas and supporting details it deserves. i m still in blue on what he means by a modern and religious indonesia. like i said before, i m allergic to religious people.
then, i just can’t stand MP hopefuls who use their father or mother or grandfather or grandmother or uncle’s name to attract voters. it clearly shows that they are nothing but a bunch of spoiled brats who do not know how to differentiate between a general election from a family debut.
i must say i feel like screaming, “Hello MP hopefuls…where is your program? where is your platform?”
so far, no body’s answering me. therefore, i surmise most of these MP hopefuls are unbelievably dimwits. I still don’t know who to vote for. I’m still skeptical since everybody is asking for my doa restu without telling me what i, the ordinary people, will get if give them that restu. i won’t vote for blockheads.
i do hope that my people can be smart enough not to vote for those dullards. at the last GE, we had already made some big mistakes. we voted for corruptors ( read the paper and you will know lots of MPs have been charged for taking bribes or gratifications), easily sexually aroused dunces who enacted the porn bill, or self-righteous MP from religious political party who can’t be faithful to his wife.
i never get impressed with anyone who tell the crowd that they are religious. i also have a serious problem of allergy to those who are ‘allegedly’ religious. as a result, i get numerous heart attacks whenever i see ballyhoos, placards, posters and pamphlets bearing this kind of slogan: “vote for (fill in the blank) for the national parliament….a young religious activist who insyaallah (god’s willing) will get your voice through”; “The university of (fill in the blank), an intellectual and religious campus”; and “we are indonesian youths: nationalist and religious”.
i’m scared to death if that young religious activist makes his way to the parliament since i envision another stupid law such as the porn law and other laws governing people civil right be enacted. in my city bukittinggi, we have such a ridiculous law which bans unmarried couples from holding hands in public. worse, here in padang, the religious twice-elected major obliged all of the female students to don jilbab (hijab, tudung, whatever you call it) regardless their faith to school. in my own department, a religious professor told the female student to wear the hijab if they take his class otherwise they won’t pass the subject.
i’m feverishly shivering under the scorching sun of the humid padang imagining university students are blinded by strict religious dogmas and never let some reasons prevail. on a not so big billboard, right in front of the secretariat of the student centre, there is written: “pakailah pakaian yang sopan dan islami” (students are expected to wear something polite and islamic). to my horror, what they deem as polite and islamic is different from my concept of politeness and islamic-ness. to me, muslim ladies are no less muslim despite they don’t cover their head. to me, they are no less islamic if they don’t appear like arabic girls with abayas or like afgan girls with burqas. to me, muslim boys are no less islamic if they shave their chin clean. to me, they still have chances to enter heaven even if they don’t have arabic names like nabila, abdul, najib, or salsabila.as a result, this difference sparks a problem: whose concept of politeness and islamic that will be used in our public domain?
most of the time, these people insist on believing that they are the rightest. it is not unknown that in my uni there are two divisions of students; those who spend most of their time in musholla–the abaya clad ladies and the bearded young men–; and those cafe(taria) lovers–the (some of them) smoking, jeans wearing youngsters– who listen to pop music and read ayu utami’s saman without squeaking so many “astagfirullahs” (oh god please forgive us) once they encounter the word kontol (penis) or melancap (masturbating). i belonged to the latter when i was a student, i bore no qualm to the former as long as they don’t preach on me about how i should don my hijab and do not look down at my jilbab which is minier that theirs. but most of the time i had skirmishes with them on what so profane about me wearing jeans is, or what so sacred about them wearing very loose skirts is.
i am in pain realizing that my country’s youths are going ‘religious’. it’s not that i’m religious-less nor m i god-less. i don’t even know why i religiously don this hijab since i was 12.
but, these days those who are ‘religious’ give more harm to people than good. more often than not, those religious people are at the same time self-righteous which is dangerous for the dissenting minds. look at what the front pembela islam (the guards of islam) and the like vigilant groups did in the past few years. they raid clubs which serve alcohol, mob the scantily clad hostesses, and humiliate the unmarried couples found rendezvouzing in the remote corner of the club. they have no authority to do so actually. or, last time i heard some religious muslims who believe that muhammad is the last prophet expelled the ahmadiyahs who believe that gulam mirza was the last prophet from their homes, business premises and mosques forcing them to live as refugees in a foreign place.
those kind of religious people act to purify the world from the sinners as if they were mandated by god to do so. they feel good about it and believe that they will enter heaven at the expense of god’s other not-so-religious-creatures. for the ahmadiyahs’ plight, they reason they do so to show their love to the prophet and guard the legacy of the prophet. but they forget that the great prophet never let people–even his detractors– to suffer before him let alone forcibly uprooting them from their home for what they believe in.
why does the word religious scare me that much? why does it affect me that much? the answer is: because i live in a plural, multi-cultural and multi-religion country.
i tell you i have no problem with people practicing the teachings of their religion. i’ve got no right to tell them not to do so. i admire those who are true to their faith; i admire those who respect other people’s belief even more. if religious people really practice what they preach, i believe, this world will be as safe as haven.
but today’s religious people are not as truly religiously as they say, especially those who busy themselves in politics. i see that to them religious is not a guidance to live a good god-fearing life but a mere political vehicle for power. for that reason, i believe those kind of of religious people should not sit in the parliament or in any government position if they only believe in the sanctity of their own religion. what they think not religious might be religious in other religions and vice versa. the dreaded porn law is the finest example which shows the grave blunder made by the so-called-religious people in my country’s parliament. to the predominantly muslims law makers in senayan, criminalizing nudity or partial nudity might not be a problem. however, they forget that for the papuans who only cover their penises that law is a real problem: the law criminalizes their way of life. to the self-important muslims (not me) this law might mean something good for they have saved their soul from sinning (or getting aroused?)by seeing less sexy girls strutting their stuffs on the streets. or, for muslim madams this law might help them checking on their easily sexually aroused husbands. but all of this religiosity is at the cost of other people’s way of life. so, what is so religious about that?
p.s. i don’t discount the same blunder will not happen in countries with another predominant religion. we see and watch on tv minority muslims or minority buddist or minority christians or minority bahais or minority liberals are unfairly treated by the more religious-driven and politically powerful majority. even once the colonizing western countries used christianity to justify their dreadful colonizing enterprise. got my point?
i talk mostly about islam since it is my own faith and i know one or two things about it. moreover, it is what happens around me.
saman is ayu utami’s, indonesian celebrated female writer, block buster which gained notoriety and much controversy for the use of words that are deemed as vulgars.
