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well, this post is not in any way the reproduction of the year of living dangerously, but in the past few days i really can’t sit still or sleep well. thank god i do not lose my appetite. after few months lull of living without tremors, padang AGAIN is hit by earthquake. see…. i use the to be is not was because we are still rocking and swaying in every other hour. sigh, i will be sleeping in tent tonight since it’s too dangerous to sleep in my room which is located on the fifth floor.
Oh, just now was another hit! got to go… (i supposed to tweet not blog in this condition).
well, actually i wanted to blog about our last presidential poll on wednesday but because i really did not know how to catch up with the hocus pocus of my ill-managed schedule, its only today i am able to sit my ass and blog.
so, after a week of mourning, waking up late and swollen eyes, i forced myself to raise early on wednesday. man, i was difficult. being a bachelor and living alone in my rented room, all assortments of rules (especially DA RULE on “thou shalt raise early”) i need to abide while at home with my parents seem to evaporate. however i managed to reached the bus station quite early (early my ass! it takes two hours from padang to bukittingi and another thirty minutes from bukitting to my kampung. i arrived at the bus stop at 8 and needed to waited for an hour before my bus departed. and the polling station at home was scheduled to close at 12. call it early delvi!!) and left for bukittinggi with i-dont-know-how-and-why renewed spirit.
padang, as the capital of west sumatra province, was unusually calm on wednesday. the traffic was surprisingly easy as well. well, it was okay for me because for the first time since coming home i was able to recognize the beauty boasted by this city by the sea.
however, despite the calmness that ruled that morning the sense of festivity was so intense. on my way to the main street, spirited election officers had already manned the polling station erected in the front yard of a private university across my building and were ready to welcome voters. then, i eavesdropped a nurse in her early thirties conversing with one of the election officials. she was wondering whether it was ok for her to vote early since she needed to go to work. i was wondering myself on how devoted this nurse could be. poll day was a national holiday yet she was still working.
nearing the city outskirt, i saw less car yet more and more people getting out of their houses and headed to the near by polling stations. some of them are in their best dress yet some were on their working apparel. i saw a farmer fresh from his paddy field carrying his plough tailing scores of hopeful voters to the polling station. the same thing went to a jamu (indonesian herbal drink) peddler. she appeared in the polling station to cast her democratic right fully armed.
but the most beautiful sight of that morning is an elderly couple walking hand in hand to the polling station. i cried a soft chuckled when i spotted them thru the glass window of my bus. ah, for a few seconds, my mind flew to a city where i left my heart. they walked slowly and carefully as if to signal that love could defy time yet time was too strong to be defied by their frail frame.
the old couple floated past me and panoramic shrub laced estuaries hurrying to the sea welcomed me. i did not know how i could find those estuaries were so beautiful. padang was no stranger city to me. i spent five years doing my undergraduate there. how come it was only now i realized the beauty those estuaries possessed. they were the same estuaries i passed on my going to and forth bukittinggi-padang for the past decade, the same routes and the same railway bridge. sigh, it must be the election fever.
yes, even the speeding driver did not get my scold this time. i really hate speeding driver; they are my sworn enemy. apparently, everybody on board was in a good mood.we didn’t even realized it that we had entered lubuak aluang, a regency well-known for its tasty telur asin (salted duck egg) and sala lauak (fried balls made from a dough of flour mixed with various species of salt water fish). you know we are minangkabaunese are serious gastronomers. none will best our tasty [spicy] culinary (we he he he he).
suddenly, our driver pulled over and hurriedly got out of the car. there was a polling station next to a small stream separating the station and our bus. the driver hopped over the stream and walked straight to the first table he encountered; grabbed a ballot paper handed by the election officer; darted to the ballot booth; got out of the booth; half- ran to the bus; and started the bus. it was less than five minutes i bet.
back on the bus, a curious passenger asked, “so this is your kampung?”.
“yes, mam”, he answer cordially. “who did you voted for?”, another equally curious passenger shouted from the back.
“SBY”, he giggled.
like me, other passengers on the bus went home to bukittingi to vote. what a coincidence!
entering sicincin, another regency town well known for its fish nursery and various restaurants serving barbecued fish, we were greeted my more scenes of people pouring to the polling stations. i could not remember how many polling stations we had passed but every ten minutes drive, there would be bands of people walking in and out of a polling station.
what was unique about the polling station was their location. it could be a school, in a puskesmas (community health center) yard, near a lapau or a coffee shop, near a market, and near a slaughter house. despite the variation of the places where people erected the polling station, the common sight flagrantly seen was the presence of one or two policeman in their brown uniform or vigilant officers in their green khaki.
entering kayu tanam our nose was harassed by this sweet smell of pinyaram, another snack made of rice flour mixed with brown sugar and other undisclosed ingredient to the outsider. yeah, the bus was air conditioned yet the driver opened the window on his side to let the smoke coming from his burning cigarette. so good was the mood, i didn’t even complain about this heavy misdemeanor.
again, after fifteen minutes, another smell capable of watering our mouth came billowing from a dangerous turn in the Valley of Anai. it was the smell of perkedel jagung (savoury corn pancake) and serabi beras (sweet smooth rice pancake). well, that dangerous turn by cliff , known as kelok perkedel, was a heaven for hungry passengers coming from padang. customarily, every driver will stop there and let the sellers of the snack enter the bus and offer their merchandise to the passengers. the combination of exhaustion from hours on the move on the side of the travelers and the cool air of the valley was enough to help scores of perkedel sellers (most of them are jobless [if selling perkedel is not a job]) survive day by day.
i was wondering who these sellers voted as their president. what i knew was whoever their choice was must be responsible for improving those men’s meager lives.
another twenty minutes drive passing crazy spirallic road and deadly turns along the valley of anai, we safely reached padang panjang, the city where i completed my three years boarding islamic junior high school. it was ten thirty and it was so quite.
padang panjang was always a serene city. located between a more famous bukittingi and a more bustling padang, this city has to accept its predestined fate to be a city of just-to-drop-by (my own word o.k.). yeah despite its position as a transit city, padang panjang does not enjoy prosperity and development a transit city or port like singapore or malacca should have. this beautiful and cool padang panjang cannot beat bukittinggi for tourism and trade and it has a long way to go to match padang in terms of sophistication. however, no place in west sumatra can beat this city for its sate (another spicy food for your information). and so religious the people of padang panjang are, this city holds the records on the existence of so many boarding islamic school in it. so, if you have a too-difficult-to-handle sons and daughters just send them to this city (as most of the case when i studied there).
the next ten minutes we waved good bye to padang panjang and entered koto baru. brrr……i could feel the cool breeze coming from either mount merapi or singgalang caressing my skin. koto baru is an important place for those who want to climb the two mountains i’ve mention before. they will set their base there, buy supply for a day or two days hikings and get some rest if their mountaineering has done. merapi is an active volcano but singgalang boasts a large lake on the area which is supposed to be its volcanic crater. it can never cough hot lava no more. one more thing, koto baru is also famous for its bika (yup! another food). for me, it is not the taste that thrill me but the way they cook it. they cook the dough in an earthen ware. so what’s so special about that? they put the burning log on the top of the ware and heat the bottom of the ware by using burning charcoal only.
it was only another fifteen or twenty minutes before reaching bukitting and i was getting anxious. i kept on checking my wristwatch. the source of my ants in pants was we needed to pass padang lua to get to the bukittingi bus terminal. even though it was the election day, padang lua, the most important traditional market in west sumatera would not stop pulsing even for a single second. as a result, we would have to brace ourselves for a gridlock in the street passing the market.
that market, despite the trillion rupiahs circulating in it every day, has a very ugly face. my parents run their petty business there and i also grew up there. muddy surface especially when it is rainin is just an every day treat. the smell of the rotten vegetables i’ve learned to love since my childhood will forever linger assaulting noses of market goers. lack of sanitary facility i’ve dealt with since my tender age is not news. (i’ve known various size of human penis since i was 5 because when the nature call most men in the market prefer going to the waste land just next to my parents’s veggi stall than going to the nearest equally dirty musholla) and….the list is on and on and i do hope the next president will have to think about how to improve things in that market where thousands people earn their living there.
leaving the gridlock behind, our bus manage to reach the terminal at 11 a.m. i hoped off the bus and half-ran crossing the super busy street of aua kuniang, another important business centre (and inter city bus terminal) in west sumatera. the condition of this so called business center is not far from that of padang lua. their illness is the same “mismanagement” if not ” lack of management” or “no vision for improvement” despite the trillions of rupiahs circulating in that biggest convection centre in sumatera.
in a minute i was already on my way to my kampung. i kept pestering the driver to be quick. “faster please, i need to vote” i told my driver and he understood it well.
in 3o minutes i got to my polling station. i was greeted by the officers and told me to be quick. “we are about to close”, they kidded with me.
i dont know about other indonesians, but on last wednesday i was so spirited. i was busy comparing my country with our more “prosperous” neighboring countries . singaporeans and malaysians despite their economic prosperity never enjoy this luxury of choosing their leader directly. they might have the tallest twin erections on earth or the most effective mass transportation system on earth. but in terms of democracy, they are no where near us. it is something to be proud of. i belied that economy can grow fast with healthy democracy supporting a country.
well, indonesia, with its striking beauty and apparent ugliness, i love this part of the world i was born in.
poetry is like a bird, it ignores all frontiers (Evgeny Yevtushenko)
well, the clause of the day is “i love poetry”
I always love poetry and the same clause goes to poets (yes this is confession # 1)
Saleh ben Joned, a malaysian poet whose work i studied when i was at UKM once stated that poetry is the most private from all genre of literary work. to put it in other words, sometimes it’s only the poets who know the meanings of the piece they’ve just penned.
in my words, this private aspect makes poetry “mysterious” to most people. yes it is mysterious in any sense of the word.
as a person trained in literary criticism, i confess that reading poetry is the most challenging task i’ve ever faced. let alone analyzing it! wah, it’s like doing my hard regime of work out before participating in a martial art competition (it was years ago and i got Silver). yeah, its mysterious; hard to unveil; and difficult to comprehend.
however, naturally it challenges me and i naturally love challenges. yah, what to say, i am my parents’ daughter. it’s in the blood.
yes, challenge is another aspect which makes me smitten with poetry. quoting the great russian poet i’ve mention above that poetry ignores all frontiers. my understanding of his words is poetry challenges rules. in other words, it’s rebellious.
aih, i have this penchant to instantly in love with rebels. (for your information, my Ibu told me i m a rebel).
mmmm…..i contemplate that if i have this intention to marry, i’ll marry poets. to me poets (writers in general) are sexy (confession # 2).
nah, do you know why i ramble about marrying a poet today. because the semester break will start next week and it’s likely i’ll spend much time at home in bukittinggi. it means, i’ll spend more time with my family.
then?
it means during the two months course of the semester break, somebody will raise this question when i m gonna get married.
so?
it means i need to invent answers for that typical question which will hit me blow after blow.
hah?
and they will not stop despite my battered, black and blue with shame and humiliation psyche.
god!
they will only stop ambushing me with those annoying questions when they succeed to make me sit next to a bride groom on a pelaminan, a marriage altar.
worse, the more pressing matter is my family’s home is right next to a mosque, where couple solemnize their marriage, and right dead in front of KUA office, where couples register their marriage.
what more?
not far my my back yard is a the village’s communal bath where girls and ladies bath, do the laundry or dishes, in short, gather and gossip. and the hottest gossip feed is “the unmarried maidens in the village”.
yes, m dead. definitely finished. i envision my mom will nag me whenever she she has chances (she is as persistent as i am you know). cepat kawin!!!!!!
anyone please help me! give me a poet!
soon.
well, apart from my three years studying there and a boy had stolen my heart, malaysia really means a lot to me.
it is the first foreign country i stepped my feet into. everything was so foreign and not so foreign: the face of an air asia stewardess was so foreign but at the same time i could trace the resemblance between the two of us, our same brown skin color. it made her not so foreign anymore. when she announced something in malay, i was startled. this wave of foreign sound somehow blocked the flow of oxygen to my brain. i felt strangled. yet at the same time, the language sounded familiar as well. they were the same syllables, the same vowels, the same consonants yet different tones. minutes before landing, the captain announced in english that we were about to land. i looked out the window and saw a never ending vista of palm oil plantations. it looked foreign and i knew this land was not my home anymore. but, after the second look, i no longer thought it looked alien: the same grass, the same bush, the same greenery.
however, when i entered the KLIA terminal and queued for immigration inspection, i learned fast that i was a foreigner: not one of them. these immigration officers really looked distant: i did not know them; i could not understand their language; i did not feel secure.
i always think that all of the procedures i needed to go through in the immigration booth at that time was an ordeal. it somehow rooted me from my pride, the notion which defines my self. the gaze i got from the immigration officers destory my confidence. that single look bore thousands meanings: differences between me and them. in short, it denied me the feeling of being home; the feeling of being with people i know and know me.
it was horribly traumatic since i know that the world beyond the immigration section of KLIA was a dangerous zone for me, a foreigner. there, i was an alien who would only be legible to stay there for a limited time. yes. that was the first thing the serving malaysian immigration officer told me:
“you are only permitted to stay in west and east malaysia for one year. after that permit expires, you need to re-new your student visa otherwise your stay would be deemed illegal.”
i was agitated. at home i could stay as long as i wish. no need for visa. no need for multiple entry. no need to carry my passport to a sundry shop just to buy female sanitary napkin of which brand i never heard before. ah, one lesson, i am not home. it was different.
i was different. everything is different. even my english is different from that spoken around me. they knew it that i was not one of them from my english:
“where are you from?”
“down south”. i answered proudly.
soon i learned that being different was deadly, especially to my sense of pride.
“you do not look like local girl. are you indon*? which kilang** you are working at?
it was a common and everyday insult to my pride, an indonesian in malaysia.
“i came to malaysia to study burning my parents money not to work as factory worker or construction worker or cleaner”, it was what my pride self told me over and over again.
yes, i was a student there not a worker. our visa was different even the booth we go into to process our permit at the indonesia embassy was different. it was a matter of class. i felt i was higher, nobler that those coarse, uneducated, naive workers.
yes, we were different, but wait! i felt i know them. i felt secure when one of them was near me. i thought i understood their different tongue. i imagined we were one people. i felt my home manifested in their greeting, smile and stories. i am them.
yes! we were one people. apart from our differing class, i mean our differing fortune (i was born in a family of dedicated parents who will break their back to send me to school, so hopefully i don’t have to end up as “worker”), different mother tongue (minangkabaunese, javanese, sundanese, timorese,…….), different look, we are one nation.
finally, the pain from the traumatic event of leaving home, where you have this notion of security, and coming to a foreign terrain somehow dissappeared but not completely. insults from un-learned malaysians who were not aware that not all of indonesians are menial workers or poor people were still there. i went thru this ordeal almost every day during my three years living there.
however, leaving home has given me one most important thing in life: the sense of selfhood, identity. i am delvi, an indonesian.
*indon: derogatory term. at first it was not derogatory.the usage of this was the same as paki for pakistani or bangla for bangladeshi. it was purely for the reason of convenience and practicability. yet, at a later development, this term was deemed as derogatory, especially by an indonesian of my tipe. we always preach to those people that no nation called indon in this world. indonesian? yes that’s what we are. so encik-encik and puan-puan please mind your term.
**kilang: factory in malay. most of malaysians i met, excluded my lecturers and class mates, would think that we were factory workers.
(while waiting for my other class and before taking off to bukittinggi this afternoon)
rite, a bule (white/westerner ) whom i met few nights ago thought that i am a christian.
i never know what kind of genie possessing this bule’s mind, but i found it to be very funny.
i went to an open air food stall near my place to have a cup of coffee (not a cup, in my place they serve coffee in a glass, OK). I didn’t appear as Miss Delvi with all of my Miss Delvi regalia but just as Delvi. i also brought with me V.S Naipaul’s In a Free State.
when i arrived at the stall, in the second table next to the roadside, there was this bule with his laptop on telling or trying hard to tell the waitresses of the stall about the position of Australia, his country, on the world map. it was a funny scene since the girl waitress could only understood one or two words uttered by this bule. he looked a bit frustrated since he knew no words in indonesian to make his message cross. i pity that monolingual man.
then, the girl waitress got weary since he talked on and on but she could not understand what he was saying. i laughed to her and she looked relieved since now she had found a reason to excuse herself from this bule. yes she needed to take my order, so she moved her ass away from the bule’s table.
upon seeing my book she asked whether i was about to have an examination the next day. i said no. it seems that my book also caught the bule’s attention.
“studying”, he asked with his thick australian accent.
“no, i bring a book just to kill the time while waiting to be served”, i replied.
then.
“are you christian?”, he launched this unusual question.
“why? what makes you think that i am a christian?
“no emm… i just think.. mmm..you are…..mmmm… a christian….mmmm….because….you look ……different…..your face……mmmm…..is…..bright…..mmmm……just…..different……em…em….
(i believe what he meant by me looking different was me going out at night alone; me wearing my hair short; me wearing a white tank top topped with an unbuttoned and rolled-sleeves white shirt [so unlady like and un-muslim himthinks]; me smiling freely and warmly to the waitresses of the cafe).
…yet to ask any bule about what they have in mind regarding muslim girl…
then after a few more word exchanges which comprised of (in shouting mode since the food stall was by the roadside, so it was so noisy that you hardly heard the voice of your conversation partner) WHAT’S UR NAME? DELVI. YOU SOUND AUSTRALIAN! YES INDEED I AM AUSTRALIAN. WHICH PART? GOLD COAST! MMMM I SEE (more smiles from both sides), the bule moved to my table.
“you know what levvy (i learn that his name is levvy, i don’t know whether it’s real or imagined), your question is funny at least to my taste. it’s not funny but a bold question addressed to a minangkanau lady. a bold one yet lack of sensitivity”, i said, ironically, cheerfully.
“yaa… (australian accent) now you know it that i m not afraid to speak my mind (more australian accent)”, he said.
“oh, i see. i believe your next question is about my sexual orientation, m i right.”
“he he he he he”, he smirked.
(i was right since after few more minutes sitting next to me, he asked about my age. ah so un-bule)
and then we talked on and on until 9.30. on my part it was mainly my lecture (0r whining) to him what islam’s got to do with minangkabau people and vise versa regarding his initial question. and on his part it was mainly how relieved he was to find someone he could talked to after spending ten days in padang.
poor fellow. first, his monolingualism has limited his space. second, his insensitivity (referring one as a christian when you are in a muslim predominant province) might kill him in the most extreme case. he was lucky to meet me not my ustad ha ha ha. third, this poor fler needs to take cross cultural understanding class. i know i good lecturer for this. it was not his first time to indonesia, paradoxically. fourth, “i’m not afraid to speak my mine” what? m not afraid to speak my mind either but i will never confront any let say white foreigner whom i just run into this question “hey mistah when did you lose your virginity? (on the ground that it is widely believed in my part of the world that westerners practice free-sex).
ah this bule, what was he thinking?
did he read an ill-informed travel writing a no-more-informed amateur travel writer venturing to the muslim predominant countries before landing in padang?
ah mester bule, islam does not mean burqa or beard or turban as the west does not mean christendom or atheism or gay philosophers.
what was he thinking? what was he thinking?
i love these women. they are just great. hope any woman trapped in any conflict areas can come up with a similar strike to end the conflicts which most of the time testosterone-driven. yeah girls we need some more estrogen to cool this heating earth.
AND PLEASE REMEMBER THAT IT IS WOMEN WHO SUFFER THE MOST WHEN IT COMES TO CONE-FLICK….CONFLICT
for those who are too lazy to click the link, this is my generous copy and paste from aljazeera
| Kenya women stage ’sex strike’ | |||
Women’s groups in Kenya have started a week-long “sex strike”, in an attempt to press the country’s leaders to resolve rifts and work together. Ten non-governmental organisations urged women across the nation to boycott sex with their husbands and partners along with a statement calling for reforms in government and action on promoting women’s rights. Rukia Subow, chairwoman of the Women’s Development Organisation, said the group believed the boycott would persuade men to press the government to make peace. “This is a national boycott to show that the women of this country have resolved to push for reforms,” she said. “We want an urgent solution to the political problems facing this country.” The group would pay prostitutes so they would participate in the strike, Subow said. ‘Not punishment’ Ida Odinga, the wife of the prime minister, Raila Odinga, said on Thursday that she would join the strike to protest against divisions between her husband and the country’s president. “This should not be seen as a punishment to men, it is a measure that is aimed at drawing their attention to the real issues,” she said. It was not clear whether the wife of Mwai Kibaki, the president, would join the strike. The east African country has been in political turmoil since a presidential election in December 2007 which Odinga accused Kibaki of stealing. Protests led to violence that killed more than 1,000 people and left more than 600,000 homeless. The two rivals were pressed into a power-sharing deal by the international community but disputes have crippled the coalition government and fuelled wide popular discontent. |
nah folk, sex can be political it seems. i remember reading lysistrata . in my fresh(wo)man year back in 2000. i could not stop giggling reading this old comedy by aristophanes, the greek, despite my limited english.
i wish i had been sexually active so i could have staged the same strike to get my message cross. ah, nevermind deh, that’s not my point.
i don’t know whether these kenyan ladies were inspired by lysistrata or not, but what i can surmise from their move is they do care about the well-being of their people. that what differs them from the gents the men of the country. another thing is these ladies are not blinded by their hormons unlike their male counterparts.
i need to re-emphasize here that this move, i think, is not just a mere social/affectionate-based movement but p-o-l-i-t-i-c-a-l. these women are really serious in seriously ceasing the stupidity instigated by their men.
see, this world will be a lot safer and happier if we women take matters to our hand manage this world.
happy weekend guys…
disclaimer: please don’t get me wrong ibuk ibuk bapak bapak
setting of the story: my class.
characters: my students and the ever beautiful miss delvi.
the narrative:
it was near dusk when i almost finished lecturing my students on………………….. articles (actually, they were not my official students but since i replaced their “on leave” professor so they were my students, can you get my message?)
it was a little bit rainy and windy, yet the raindrop just would not make the humidity to budge (ah nyastra sekalee..). and because of the unfriendly temperature combined with the ill-air-conned classroom, all of us were busy fanning ourselves with whatever article we could find or use to produce some cool air. it was so oh my god hot. i could feel every drop of my sweat raced on my back and doused my blouse. half of my jilbab, especialy in the part near my ears and neck was damp. then i remembered i promptly asked my female students on why they donned hijab or jilbab?
then came this surprising asnwer, “we want to protect ourselves miss?”
protecting yourselves from what?, miss delvi launched another question.
“from unscrupulous boys and the risk of being raped by unscrupolus rapists”, was the answer.
miss delvi smiled and then laughed since now she got a chance to lecture these ladies on something they would never get from even the greatest ustad in their vicinity.
“so girls who do you blame if a girl is raped”
“the girl miss. because they attract (invite) the boy to rape them”
smiling miss delvi launched another cheeky question, “but guys how?”
“the way us girls dress ourselves can attract men to rape us miss”, they unanimously answered miss delvi.
“oh i see, the way you dress eh!. so u need to carefully cover your body to protect you from being raped huh!”
“yes miss. surely that is the case miss”, again the girls were in agreement.
“ok deh, but what about a good veiled girl getting raped just like what we read recently in the newspaper? she is a good girl! she is hijab-ed! so now how are you going to explain this?”
“wah. that must the way she walk miss”, a girl responded.
“i second her miss. the way we walk can invite the boys to rape us miss”, another girl sitting in the front row responding to her colleague.
“alright, now let me present you with another good, veiled girl who walks like a robocop. the way she walks is not sexy at all. but still she gets raped! nah now how? how? tell me why this bad thing still happen to that good girl?”
“i believe it must be the way she looks at people miss. her gaze. her eyes miss”, another respond from a girl in red jilbab.
“mmm this time is the eyes. well. eyes now huh.”
miss delvi who was in the right corner of the class moved to the center of the class and reached for her seat. after inhaling some fresh air she stood and walked to the window. the rain had stopped but the humidity was still there. the class was so silent that you could hear the tap tap sound coming from miss delvi’s 7 inches hi heel.
“rite. the first problem is the dress. then the walk. now the eyes”, sighing and looking out to the faculty’s open plaza miss delvi addressed her audience.
“ok. now let me tell you. our girl is now a really good girl. she covers all of her body. she walks like a robocop. she always casts her gaze down. she never…never….looks into the eyes of anyone she is having a conversation with. but yet, she isstill raped. then now how? how? she is a good girl you know! how could such cruel thing happen to her! she is a good girl!
“her voice miss”, a girl in blue answered me.
“voice?” miss delvi stared at that girl.
“voice! so how are we woman should live then? the dress, the walk, the eyes, now voice!” miss delvi half-screamt to her students and stared at their each eyes.
“voice. voice. so now what are going to do to hinder ourselves from getting raped? should we stop walking? should we stop seeing? should we stop talking? should we stop living since everything we do can invite boys to rape us? what should we do now?”
silence ruled the room. everybody was busy digesting what miss delvi was lecturing about.
i saw some students frowning. they must think hard to understand what i wanted them to understand. the boy in the corner even anxiously bit his nail feeling anxious what if suddenly i approached him and ask him to answer me.
“so guys, now are you still going to blame the victim if they get raped?”
some of them nodded their head, but the other frown and shook their head.
“look the girl has tried to act the way you expect her to act. she has covered herself from hair to toe. she has fixed the way she walks. she has lowered her gaze. now she has shut her mouth and stop talking for fear of getting raped. but still she gets raped”.
how now? how now? are still going to blame her this time?. miss delvi’s voice was raising and the students were getting deep in thought.
“no miss”, a girl student mumbled her answer. she began to question the value she had been holding for her entire life.
” we cannot blame the girl miss”, now she sounded more convinced.
“are you going to blame yourself if you, a good girl, get raped?”
“no miss”.
you must see miss delvi’s winning broad smile. if she could not influence the entire class, at least, this girl now was under her spell.
“so guys, who do you blame when there is a rape case. the victim?”
” nooooooooooo……………………………………”, all of the students answered anonimously.
it was getting dark outside and the time was up.
my first chance to internet since last nite and i just read this in the star on line.
i think someone has to tell these people that what is happening in gaza now is not a war between muslims against the jews. it means, these jihadist wannabes have no business in gaza.
this war, my dear syahid wannabes, is about a nation called israel attacks another nation called palestina. all right all right i change my sentence. they are assaulting each other’s ass. but the former is more powerful and more equipped than the latter. most importantly, the former gets the blessing from the strongest nation on earth to continue to pound the crippled latter. worse, the united nations has not able yet to persuade the war lords of both warring parties, namely israel and hamas, to stop rimming each other’s ass with rockets despite the pain it causes. it’s too bad that innocents civilians living within the reach of the rockets are homicidally affected. worse still, these war lords are also busy accusing each other on who starts to arouse who first while the blood of the civilians keep spilling.
if you, houri-longing-combatants, come to gaza to help these scarred bombardized people. here is my valediction. go with god blessing my child. may god reward your humanitarian deed. if you lose your life amidst your holy mission may heaven welcomes you and seven houris will entertain you ever after. but if you go there to defeat the infidel israelis you’d better stay home and learn more about what this hostility is about. your presence will only worsen the matter.
i know something unfair is taking place there. i am aware that something fishy is happening there. yet, my child this is not your holy war.
and for those who promote war on terror or fundamentalism (everybody knows who is the biggest proponent for this movement) , this phenomena should be a warning for you. unfairness will beget hardliners. they won’t give a heck about your preach on terrorism while you are condoning the act of terrorism itself. what they know is their brothers and sisters in faith (i think they never know the palestinian edward said was a christian) are being threatened by the ‘infidels’ whom you dearly support. these kind of people mean their every word you know. they said they will go to afghanistan we saw them fighting in afghanistan. they declared they will fight the infidels in ambon we watched them play god there. so, someone please stop this nonsense in gaza now. otherwise we will be seeing these newly ‘aroused’ war lords add some more madness to the already maddening situation there. thank you.
so folks, now i am back in KL.
well i don’t need to tell you how I begged them to let me go. It involved gory details which any boss on earth doesn’t want other employees to know them……(cheeky smile).
forget the jetlag (huh, it only takes 1 hour and ten minutes from padang to kl)…
i miss nasi lemak, i miss teh tarik, i miss kailan goreng ikan masin at romzee, but still i hate cabs here. they are ugly (in my country we have toyota vios for taxis u know) and the cab drivers are leeches, no, sharks, no, crocodiles, no…in short they horribly terrible. I was only away for less than a month and they dared to raise the taxi fare. three weeks ago, the taxi fare from UKM station to Hentian Kajang was RM.6.00 but just now that bloodsucker pak cik charged me RM. 7.00. If it was not because I carried so many things I would never ever use any taxi service in this country.
but, it’s good to be back despite i start to miss my mom’s balado. it’s good to be back in my working room at ukm. it’s good to have free and easy access to internet again (this is what i miss so badly when i am home).
yup, i feel good (until my prof start to call me to her room……)
folks, this is a real story. i don’t make it up ok.
last nite i saw a boy was busy dragging a girl by the hand. it was 2.30 in the morning. the girl was sobbing meekly following the boy’s lead. i have to tell you that the boy every now and then slapped her and kicked her. Oh yeah, this fella also cursed the girl even i am not clear about the content of his cursing. only hell knows.
i assume the boy was the brother of the girl. probably, his parents sent him to look for his sister. ya ya ya they must worry since it was 2 and 30 in the morning but she was not home yet.
but why the beating? is it really necessary to beat her that way. she was defenceless. what right on earth the boy has to beat that girl? the right as a brother? as a man?
it is so disheartening to see that scene that i automatically darted downstairs to lend my hand to the girl. i did not even put on my hijab, i was just in my very short pants and my father’s singlet. but when i got to the ground zero, they were gone. i pray to god that girl would just be ok.
you know, if i were her, i would fight back. i would bark back. i would trade a strike for a strike; a kick for a kick; a jab for a jab; an upper cut for an upper cut; a hook for a hook. lay a finger on me, be prepared to lose your balls.
i never have a bigger brother since i am the eldest daughter of the family. it means i will never lead the life she undergoes. i am lucky as well since my parents raise me as a jagoan. the best part of it, at school, bullies have to kowtow to me.
poor girl. but i won’t blame the boy. he is just a part of a bigger corrupt system. i would likely blame their parents. why don’t they educate him about respect. why don’t they raise the girl the way my parents raise me and my siblings. i will blame the patriarchal culture we live in which gives boys more favor than girls. i will blame the fatwa on tombyism since it gives the girl no right to fight back. girls are culturally expected to be submissive, no? girls are culturally demanded to be lemah lembut, no? kicking and punching are only for boys, no? i will blame the whole world for condoning such a disrespectful act.
