As I mentioned before I moved house to another town. It is in Bogor, south part of Jakarta. The house is quite small but this is my own. I bought it in 2002 – paid under 10 year instalment basis - and I designed the house as I live by myself. Now, my sister and my mother joined me. My sister is OK but my mother does not like the design. I like green colour. I have green bathroom, green telephone, green calendar. But my mother likes blue, so she ordered blue curtain. Well, it’s OK as the curtain makes my house full of colour. My mother does not like my bathroom with showers. She likes the one with a tank of water. She said “if we keep the water tank full of water so do our wallet with money”. Hmm….perhaps. She also does not like my kitchen. Look at the picture. My mother hammered the kitchen. She hates it !.
What should I say ? I said nothing. Let me tell you why. Indonesian life expectancy is 70 to 72.5 years old. When you have a 75 years old mother, will you argue with her ? “No way”. I even feel happy if she would like to eat something. Because if she is eating, this means she is still alive. The rests are just bonus for me !! We need our mother because there is so much wisdom she has been teaching us. My mother keeps telling us that we have to be an honest person. Since if we keep our honesty, whatever difficult our situation is, God will always give his hand to us. I totally agree with this because it is not only conceptually God gives his hand, but I did literally see God’s hand.
It happened when I was in Edinburgh, UK when I was doing my MSc study. One night I felt so hurt on my chest. It was so hurt and I had difficulty to breath. I thought I was going to die. Then I saw my Koran on the table. I wanted to reach it. But I could not move. And I screamed “God, help me!”. You know what. I suddenly saw a very very big big hand grabbed the Koran from my table and put it on my chest. Soon after, I felt so relieved. When I opened my eyes, the Koran was still on the table. But I did believe what I saw and I remembered my mother. She said “keep being honest and God’s hand will help you”. Yes mother, I promise !.
Back to my house. I understood why my mother renovates the kitchen. In the house, there is only one bedroom. My mother sleeps there with my sister. And I ? I sleep with bicycle and all the kitchen stuff. Moving the kitchen means giving me more room to sleep. Thanks Mom, I love you !!.
Though I have a small house but I feel so grateful as I still have a place to stay. I saw many people have to rent houses that make them move often from one to another. There are also unfortunate homeless people on the street. I think everyone needs a house as home to live. Then I found out I was totally wrong. Not everyone in this world needs a house to live. My friend, Ghofur (2008) did an anthropological research on people who live in “handcart” in Jakarta. They use the cart not only for collecting materials from garbage – materials that can be sold such as cartons, plastic, bottles, etc - but they also use it as “a house”. They sit in it, eat in it, sleep in it and even make love in it. Some of his respondents said that renting a house is too expensive but most of them said that they prefer to live in cart as it gives them so much freedom.
We might think that living in a cart is a free of charge living. Ghofur found it is not, not at all. They still have to pay. If they do not want to be kicked off from the street, they have to pay to the security people, legal or illegally. If they want to keep the cart close to the good source of garbage, they have to pay to the local administrative staff in the neighbourhood, legal or illegally. Live on the street is such a wild and dangerous life. But for the sake of “freedom”, they are happy to do it.
What should I say ? I said nothing. Let me tell you why. Indonesian life expectancy is 70 to 72.5 years old. When you have a 75 years old mother, will you argue with her ? “No way”. I even feel happy if she would like to eat something. Because if she is eating, this means she is still alive. The rests are just bonus for me !! We need our mother because there is so much wisdom she has been teaching us. My mother keeps telling us that we have to be an honest person. Since if we keep our honesty, whatever difficult our situation is, God will always give his hand to us. I totally agree with this because it is not only conceptually God gives his hand, but I did literally see God’s hand.
It happened when I was in Edinburgh, UK when I was doing my MSc study. One night I felt so hurt on my chest. It was so hurt and I had difficulty to breath. I thought I was going to die. Then I saw my Koran on the table. I wanted to reach it. But I could not move. And I screamed “God, help me!”. You know what. I suddenly saw a very very big big hand grabbed the Koran from my table and put it on my chest. Soon after, I felt so relieved. When I opened my eyes, the Koran was still on the table. But I did believe what I saw and I remembered my mother. She said “keep being honest and God’s hand will help you”. Yes mother, I promise !.
Back to my house. I understood why my mother renovates the kitchen. In the house, there is only one bedroom. My mother sleeps there with my sister. And I ? I sleep with bicycle and all the kitchen stuff. Moving the kitchen means giving me more room to sleep. Thanks Mom, I love you !!.
Though I have a small house but I feel so grateful as I still have a place to stay. I saw many people have to rent houses that make them move often from one to another. There are also unfortunate homeless people on the street. I think everyone needs a house as home to live. Then I found out I was totally wrong. Not everyone in this world needs a house to live. My friend, Ghofur (2008) did an anthropological research on people who live in “handcart” in Jakarta. They use the cart not only for collecting materials from garbage – materials that can be sold such as cartons, plastic, bottles, etc - but they also use it as “a house”. They sit in it, eat in it, sleep in it and even make love in it. Some of his respondents said that renting a house is too expensive but most of them said that they prefer to live in cart as it gives them so much freedom.
We might think that living in a cart is a free of charge living. Ghofur found it is not, not at all. They still have to pay. If they do not want to be kicked off from the street, they have to pay to the security people, legal or illegally. If they want to keep the cart close to the good source of garbage, they have to pay to the local administrative staff in the neighbourhood, legal or illegally. Live on the street is such a wild and dangerous life. But for the sake of “freedom”, they are happy to do it.
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