Lebaran

Hi, back again at the lovely office *yeah, right*. I've just spent two weeks off having holiday in Medan, and then Banda Aceh with my family. The first and second days in the office were very busy, my manager had me to visit two clients to solve their backup problems (talking about believe-it-it's-a-horse ism *sigh*). At last today I could have my little bit time off, and I want to write my experiences during the past two weeks.

2005-11-03:
Happy Id Fitri!! I got up at 06.30 AM, waken up by my folks (hehe it's nice to be back to the old days), took a bath, then went with my dad to pray in the field near our house. After that we ate lontong with rendang (that's meat with spicy recipe), tauco (that's vegetables with sour spicy taste, my mom's best cook), emping (bah... how to explain this in english), sambalado teri kacang. My dad often said that the Id Fitri breakfast is the main event of us being together here hehe...

Shortly after this, we were visited by relatives: my aunt from my dad's side. She brought us some food. Then my cousins, my sisters, and I went around our residentials while I replied all the incoming sms in the car.

I was currently practicing "Congratulations", the theme song from Ah My Goddess anime, in our old piano. It's quite hard, since it has four mole *sigh*. I had to spend three hours to practice it.

And during the holiday, everyone of us had to do some chores because our maid was going home. So my old sister responsible to heat the food, my little sister washing the dishes (she often complaint because there's soooo many dishes need to be cleaned haha), my mom cook the food, and I cleaning the house (but often my old sister do it in the morning) *haha.. guilty*.

By the way, do you know that we have a cat now? I just knew it in my second day here because my little sister told me. She's only 3 months old, white with black dots fur, and very quiet. That's why I didn't know it in my first days here. And since my little sister is afraid of her, then she had to be prisoned all her life from birth *poor little thing*. I insisted to let her out, and she showed some strange attitudes, like chasing people's feet, eat the grass, scared when car passing our house, and running to her cage when scared. Maybe that's because she's never been outside her cage for so long. Then I washed her with my dad. I didn't know the proper way to wash a cat, so we just spray her with a hose. She soaked to her bone and shiverred violently (hey I don't know how to bath a cat), and since that day she's very afraid when I hold her *sigh*.

I also watched the Ghibli Collection DVD. Yesterday I watched "Tottaro My Neighbor". Tottaro is a an imaginary animal that lived in a very old and big tree in the forest. It's like a mix of a cat and a panda. It's soooo big but very cute. My old (and big) sister wanted her to be called Tottaro, but my little sister called her "Mokmok" instead (it's a Batak word) hahaha...

Every afternoon, my dad and I walked around our complex. Since it's rainy season, the cold wind blew made the trees around us to wiggle. The dark clouds ahead us told that it will be rain soon. It's so fresh that you can smell the wind and taste the grass in the air.

2005-11-04:
The second day of Id Fitri. Not much happened in this day. I woke up at 08.30 AM for breakfast. Again we had to eat the same food as yesterday. It's my mom's rule, whenever there's a food available, we all have to eat them first before the new one being cooked. So I'll have to eat this for at least until tomorrow hiks :(. Then I went with my dad testing our new car that had been drowned by tsunami. The body was still in very good condition, but the electronics part had damaged somewhere. The problem was the engine was heating up very soon as the air con, or tape, or light switched on. The mechanics was unable to repair it.

Then I slept all evening. It's very nice to wrap up in blanket, under very cool air con, with heavy rain outside, hoahemmm... I woke up at 8 PM to have dinner with my family. Then I watched some anime with my sister. It's Full Metal Panic Fummoffu, the funny version of FMP. I laughed like mad vampire. At 10 PM we ate tape with ketupat. Where's Katty (the cat)? I didn't hear her voice tonight. Oh well, maybe she's sleeping at her cage right now :).

2005-11-06:
Saturday. I went shopping with my parents and my old sister. We went to Makro. The prices were quite cheaper there, but we have to buy in unthinkable large quantities, like three large shampoo wrapped in one, twelve margarine packed in one, etc. After about two hours of shopping, when we'd like to check out, the clerk said that they don't have any free plastic or box to wrap the items we intended to buy. My mother was very angry at them and told us to leave the place without buying anything *sigh*. Then we went to Carrefour. Unlike Makro, it's a very convenient place for family shopping, lots of free wrapping available, the fish could be cleaned, etc. But we had to spend another two hours here to buy everything again. What a waste of time :(.

2005-11-07:
Sunday 10 PM. After I fed the cat, my little sister asked me the song from Simple Plan. Just yesterday she asked the song from Cold Play. My little sister was currently crazy about broken heart thingies, like a song from Chrisye "Gita Cinta" *omg, what a very oldies song*, Simple Plan - Speed of the Sound, and tragic-ending movies like City of Angels or Kiminozo. I just hope her feelings won't distract her from her UMPTN exam just in the next couple of months.

2005-11-09:
I woke up at 05.30 AM. Then I took a bath, prepared my clothings and packed it in my bag, then I made noodles in the microwave for my sister and I (I've done it so many times in the past when there's an "outage", it's our secret word for playing games at the office, so I got quite used to it *wkwkwk*). At 06.15 AM, my parents, my little sister, and I went to Banda Aceh by car. The traffics were quite light, so at 09.30 we were at Langsa, a small town near the border of North Sumatera and Aceh. My mom chose us the best places for us to eat during the trip, she knew a lot of interesting places after her many visits during her work as legislative. So we ate soto there. At 1.45 PM we had lunch "sate matang" at Matanggol (previously I thought the name "matang" suggested that the satay is served well, but it turns out that it's actually a name of place hehehe). Then at 2.45 PM we drank "tebu" ice and "lemang" in "Gelungku Dua". Eventhough my parents said that the GAM (Aceh separatists movement) was having kind of peace with the government at the moment, and there's a lot of patrolling military vehicles passed us (since today is the schedule of the Vice President's visit in Banda Aceh), it supposed to be safer. But still I was feeling kind of scared a bit. I often felt unsecure, like there's hidden rifle was pointed at me, so I rushed them to hurry.

At last, we arrived safely at my parent's place at 6.15 PM (exactly 12 hours in the trip). It's a health dept. government housing, located next to RS. Zainoel Abidin, the public hospital there. The stone gate was fell down after being hit by the tsunami. The first thing we did was cleaning up the house. My sister got the job to sweep the floor and I to mop it. It took two exhausting hours to clean it, oh my god the dust was so thick, my sister said our house could have dust fairies in it. I guessed she watched too many Tottaro movie.

2005-11-10:
I went with my dad and my sister to see the tanker (a very huge ship) that "parked" in the middle of residential quite far away from the ocean. It was placed there lifted by the tsunami. The tanker must have passed above all of those houses along its way, because the houses surrounding it were not damaged!! God I was beginning to realize the massive force of the December 2004's tsunami.

In the afternoon, my mom took us to see the Andalas cement factory that was destroyed during the tsunami. She told us that 400 men were died there. The factory was located at the beach, so it would take a very heavy damage. Along the way, we saw so many peoples' homes were destroyed, and there's ruins everywhere.

2005-11-11:
In the morning, my dad took us to the east side of Aceh in Syah Kuala to see another view of tsunami destruction. It's the time when I felt that human is very small and hopeless to overcome such a massive force like this. But I could also see in this place that humanity is still exist in this planet, that peoples from all over the world came to help these suffered and poor peoples with no politics or economy motives, just the willingness to help another human beings.

In the afternoon, my mom got sick, so we stayed home. I cooked nasi goreng with the help of my sister. At night, I chatted with my dad and my sister until midnight. It's my last night here in Banda Aceh.

2005-11-12:
My parents took us to the bus station at 6.15 PM. It took 10 hours to Medan from Banda Aceh. In the middle of the night, my sister got scared when she thought she heard there's someone growling at the back, while there's only toilet behind us. A couple hours later it turned out that someone was sleeping at the floor right behind our seat *fyuuuh, thanks god it's not a ghost*.

2005-11-13:
We arrived in Medan at 6 AM. I called my sister to pick us up at the bus station. I got sick. After having some noodles for breakfast, I went to sleep. My body was like pinched by thousands of needles. Waken up in the afternoon to have lunce, then I gave the cat her food, rice with fish and some soup mixed together. I also gave her the milk which she gulped in just a few seconds. She turned out not having any meal for the last 24 hours because our maid felt since there's no fish available so she can't be fed, kind of stupid maid huh?! Feeling not well, I went to sleep for another 7 hours, then had dinner on 8.30 PM with my sisters. In the night, I practised "Yoru No Uta" (Sakura Card Captor theme) and "Congratulations" (Ah My Goddess theme) in our old piano. Yay, I could play them now :).

2005-11-14:
It's time to go back to Jakarta. Back to the old routine jobs: go to office everyday, and nexus at weekend ;).