Be Careful for What You Wish.

Those sayings can’t be truer. What I wish was a job that would take me to places, more in touch to human beings and ofcourse, with a better pay. So the Universe, God and everything in it conspire to make my wish come true and oh boy, I am definitely in for a ride.

Unlike what I used to do in my previous workplace - which lay heavily on the concepting of programs, what I do now is the implementation of multiple scholarship programs. I hope that this will provide me with a learning curve for technical skills that I considered lack of. That, and also the experience of working in a professional, business-minded environment. So, I have many things to look up to.

Two weeks after my first day moving in, I was asked to go to a small town named Cepu, which is located basically in the middle of nowhere. To be exact, in the border between Central and Eastern Java. Four hours from Semarang and equally from Surabaya. Long travel on-land.

I was excited as I can be, traveling to a strange place, but I was worried with the long travel by car. I have books and my iPad with me, so I know I won’t be bored, but reality is the landscape was quite breath-taking in a very ruralistic point of view.

Along the road that stretch long between Surabaya and Cepu, there is a vast spread of ripening ricefields. Green and yellow here and there. Dilapidated joglo houses interspersed with the modern ones. Children were riding back from school with their bikes. Farmers working hard in their fields, cultivating the soil for small earnings. I can’t help to feel a little bit melancholic.

Just before we reached the road out of Surabaya, I also saw wide patches of salt farm. Empty lands are watered by ocean water from the wells and then being dried out under the sun, leaving a thin layer of unpurified salt powder. Many of the salt farm houses are in the brink of destructions. This made me wonder, where have the farmers gone? Have they left forever or is it just not a salt farming season?

Four hours later, I arrived at Cepu. From what I saw from the journey crossing the town, it is a dusty little town, only being kept alive by the near oil mines and the businesses that support it. Needless to say, the wealth brought up by the mines do not touch Cepu’s native dwellers. The luxurious complex of international oil and gas company sit side by side with groups of houses with roof made from palm leaves and bamboo. It is ironic, yet it is not uncommon. Not here, not in Papua.

Traveling does change your perspectives, doesn’t it? Here I am complaining about small things while some people happily live a meager life. Who are these people along the road, what are their dreams and how do they see their own lives? Have they found a reason for existence? Or does it even matter for them?

Then I remembered, Jack Kerouac once wrote:
Live. Travel. Adventure. Bless. And don’t be sorry.