She’s only one amongst thirteen thousand, beg me to deliver her story to the world…
Promise is an obligation. I owe a promise to write this note about a small island in the northern part of Flores, administratively a sub-district in the province of Eastern Lesser Sunda, Indonesia. I promised to deliver the desire from the local community to let people know about Palu’e, their remote homeland which separated about 4 hours by sea to the closest city (Maumere); and won’t be found in the map even if you type it in the Google Map. I only beg a small amount of time to listen to this story; it won’t be scientific and it won’t be long, for there are still another thirteen thousand islands and millions of complex problems in our archipelago.
But Palu’e deserves to tell her story…
You might feel isolated if you have to switch your easy city life to be in a mountainous 41 sqare kms island with your feet and motorcycle as the only transportation and really limited facilitation. It takes 9 kms from the port to the center of highest village, with the most extreme inclination in the main road reaching 60 degree. It has 8 villages, with cute names such as Tuanggeo, Nitunglea, Rokirole, Ladolaka, and so on. Don’t forget to count small route in the forest which still be used by old grandmothers to collect firewood, and territory of each village in where the areas which are too far from the village centre with very difficult topography which also been resided. But you can never complaint about difficult topography if you see how old women carry firewood as tall as 1,5 times their height on their back, walking kilometers by feet through this kind of topography. Or kids from the furthest village climb the difficult route to reach junior high school in the middle of the mountain.
In here, you complaint about water. But look at this island. Palu’e doesn’t have spring or another source of clear water; for years the people relied on rain and trees. Have you ever drink water from banana tree or take shower with it? They have, even though right now most of them have rainwater receiver (which are mostly broken because of the earthquake on May 2011, so they’re in water crisis right now). And if you could take shower twice in a day, some of them probably do it twice in a week, with only 5-10 liters for everything. Saturday was a school holiday years ago, dedicated for mass shower in the beach because they didn’t have water. And if you could only drink mineral water, try to adapt because boiled water always taste like baked since they use firewood for cooking.
You couldn’t complaint about bad signal of Blackberry. From 8 villages, only 3 villages in Palu’e covered with signal; and note this, not the whole 3 villages. People in the mountain aren’t reached by the telecommunication service, making them have to go to the coast just to text or call a family across the sea. There’s a small tree called ‘Tree of Signal’ in the middle of mountain, and you should share your signal because it won’t be enough for more than 5 people. All the villages on the mountain rely on this small tree. And the electricity only turned on every 6pm to 10pm in the whole island, giving people opportunity to see the world from the television, but sadly they only use it to watch sinetron.
I haven’t told you about woman, the mothers who refuse to have lunch together with the guests, silently eat separated in the kitchen without table and chair, squatting on the ground. The wives who do everything from washing, collecting firewood, parenting, farming, weaving, and so on even some of them climbing the coconut tree for copra. The widows, who may not eat rice and must wear black for five years after her husband’s death. And many other stories that they live with happy hearts without any complaints; that make me pretty sure NGO workers need to work very hard to ensure them about CEDAW or woman empowerment.
And did you ever think about old people, or disabled kids, or migrant with HIV/AIDS; in a remote and mountainous area like this?
There is one small area in the valley surrounded by hills, very steep and far away from the healthcare, even Posyandu. And one of my friend’s life has changed forever for seeing a small house not better than a cage for pigs, resided by an old sick grandmother with her mute-deaf-and paralyzed grandchild, with broken roof from coconut leaves and cracked rainwater receiver filled with dirty water. There’s no neighbor care for her, because in that area living is very difficult for each individuals and houses separated far enough one to another. Juliana Weka, name of that grandmother, could only wait for awareness of the neighbor to feed her, give her water, care for her, even maybe bury her if one day she pass away. The option to take her to the healthcare is very difficult either, because she’s too weak to climb the steep and slippery road from the valley.
And let me tell you about disabled people. There is one village with about 33 disabled people, all without education, all with dirty and untreated look. We haven’t discovered how many of them exist in the whole island. Some of them socially fine, have a nice family who understand their ‘language’ and good friends who plays with them; but some of them showed us sad stories, rejected by families, pup in the ground just like animals, abused verbally and physically, walk with their butts without underwear, or everything else. Some of them very diligent, but doesn’t able to enter normal school because as what people says towards them, they are ‘stupid’, couldn’t be taught. However they need 20x harder effort compared with us just to understand some easy task like spelling A-E. Some of them always have saliva out from their mouth, making some specific stink that high-maintained city girls would expel them in instant. But no matter how they live, indeed, they have no access to education. No access to see the world and taste the bittersweet of knowledge.
But this island is not a compilation of sad stories to show all of you how underdeveloped they are. This island with her beautiful stars, crystal clear waters, green mountains, dusty ground, communal hospitality that keeps calling, has made a kind of sentimental feeling of missing. She’s a raw diamond which sooner or later be polished by the different values from big cities across the sea. This island, with all the stories that couldn’t be told in a note, is a teacher for us. A teacher about how to be grateful for what you have as those so-called ‘underdeveloped’ people who could be happier than you. This island is a mirror to reflect how we’ve been living, and what we could do and we should do as a human. A mirror, which will always be remembered whatever we will be in the future.
And it has changed nineteen souls. It has changed us all.
