Do you miss your hometown?

I was born in a small town in Bandar Lampung, south of Sumatra. It is a place where everyone knows everyone. A place I hated as a kid but appreciate as an adult. We didn't have relatives there because both families from mom and dad side lived in Bogor and Jakarta. My parents migrated there shortly after they got married. Me and my siblings were all born in Lampung. I lived there for about 15 years, then in Yogyakarta (3 years), Bandung (10 years) and Jakarta (14 years). When both my parents still alive, I would always go back there. Most of my trips home then were by bus, then by ferry, and bus again. It took almost 10 hours to reach home. After dad passed away in 1988 and mom moved to Bogor to stay in my eldest sis house in 2003, I never visit again. My last trip there was last year on November for mom's funeral.

One thing that most of us all have in common is that we come from somewhere. You love to hear people talk about their hometowns. What’s good about it, what’s bad about it, what they miss, etc... But thinking back I have never really been sure where my home town is. I never thought I belonged there anymore. I appreciate the memories I have of my hometown but I am better off getting out of there. Jakarta is my hometown now.

What do you miss most from your hometown? If you still live there, will you ever leave? Do your childhood friends still live in your hometown ?

Childhood games

When I was a kid, my friends and I played a lot of board games. Ludo board, monopoly game, snakes and ladders, and chinese checkers game.
Those are games that every child enjoyed back then. I remember I had a set of each of the board game and would play them either with my sisters or my friends after school. The game of snakes and ladders for example is one of my favorite because the board is colorful and have a lot of snakes...LOL! The rule of the game is the first person to reach top left square is the winner. Each player will throw a dice and count their way up the board. If you land at the foot of a ladder you climb it, but if you land on the head of a snake you slide down it. Some snakes and ladders are higher than others and I hated it when I hit the longest snake and had to go down to the bottom square again. But I like this game because it is fun, entertaining and suitable for every age range.


My other favorite game is "Congklak" or the Javanese called it "Dakon" game. It was said congklak, or dakon board game was brought to Indonesia by Indian or Arab traders centuries ago. Congklak is played on a board with circular indentations along both sides and a home indentation on each end of the board. The game is played with 98 small markers such as shells or beads, which are divided evenly between all the indentations. It is quite a challenging game and takes a lot of practice before a player becomes skilled. And it led to interesting games as the kids learning basic math in an enjoyable way. To learn more how to play congklak, please read here.

Too bad this kind of games can rarely be seen being played anymore. The kids today seem more interested in electronic gadgets than board games...but sadly that's the direction the world is taking now.

**picture of snakes and ladders courtesy of Wikipedia, the dakon picture taken from Yogyes.**

Sisters

in a photo studio in my home town...(me = left, younger sis=right)
photo taken in our elementary school vicinity ... (me with big hair, sis with her underwear peeked a bit)

Looking at these old photos, my sis, Imelda, and I laughed so hard particularly on seeing the second picture. My hair was naturally straight but I wanted to have a Shirley Temple curls style. I thought it was cute and I begged my mom to take me to the hairdresser. However, it didn't look quite even close...LOL! Instead, I think I looked more like a walking durian.

Anyway, I was born in 1966 and she was born in 1967. We're fourteen months apart, you might think I am lucky to have a sister so close in age. But unfortunately we were like cheese and chalk. She is named after Imelda Marcos, the former Philippine First Lady, as my mom adored her beauty when her husband still reigned as the president of the Philippines. Yes, my sister is very pretty. In fact she is the prettiest in the family, she is the tallest among the five girls in the family, she has dimples on both of her cheek when she smiles, she is a real head turner. When we were teenagers, she always gets a lot of boys looking at her and the boys most of the time try to get her attention. Even now she still get stares when she walks down the street, the malls, her workplace and when stepping out of the MRT. I am considered a plain Jane, even my boss didn't believe it when she saw us together at the airport. She said, "are you sure you're sisters"...I said...er...'she is actually a distant relative'... LOL! We have never been friends when we were young girls. I worked hard at being good, right and smart. She on the other hand took everything less seriously than me, but she could be very stubborn and had her ways whether you liked it or not. In short, we're two completely different personality.

Years passed and we had become increasingly distant, esp. when she got married and moved to Singapore. Unlike in Indonesia where she worked in a bank, over there she was a stay at home mom but often traveled to Bali to help her husband's garment business. To everyone else on the outside they appeared to be the perfect family. Unfortunately, he was not as good as what she thought he was. They eventually divorced. I felt symphatize with her problem and I was apprehensive about making a truce because she has no one there but her only daughter, L. She then managed to find a good career job in a Japanese electronic and electrical equipment's manufacturer. Secretly I admire her strength in a hard time, for being a single breadwinner, for juggling between working and raising her daughter alone, for being a wonderful mom. L, is a mommy's girl, she is very doting and always right by her mother whenever they have time together.

We began emailing and talking with each other more often, spent quality time whenever she came over to Indonesia or I went to visit her in Singapore. I realized despite our differences we had a lot in common. We've had our ups and downs but we are closer than before. I love her and I could not imagine a world without her in it. She is as beautiful person on the outside as she is on the inside.

The nuns in my life

For most of my childhood to teenage years I have been surrounded by Sisters (nuns), seeing their familiar faces in their long white gowns and long white head-dresses. They were the ones who were taking care of me and my other siblings---mom had 8 children; 5 girls, 3 boys ... 6 of them born at the same Catholic hospital at the small village run by a Dutch nun. Unlike other mothers, after giving birth my mom trusted our care to the nuns at the hospital and visiting the baby once a week and took us home when we were already 2 years old.

Many of you may have been wondering and asked what kind of mother was she, and where on earth there's a maternity hospital that would house a baby until they were able to walk??? My parents had an explainable reasons for that. First off, they both run a coffee bean trading (buying from farmers and selling them to the bigger buyers), and since our house was used both for business and living, they were worried it would be bad for the baby's health. My mom then had a talk with Sister Joseph and was granted a privilege to leave her babies there. Of course mom had to pay for all of that but it was justifiable and she did not have to worry about us knowing that she had found the best child care provider in the world. The maternity hospital lies under the base of a mountain, next to that was a convent, an elementary school and a church. It was such a beautiful place.

My fondness memories of Sister Joseph (the Dutch nun) was her very fair complexion, her angelic smiles combined with the stern gentleness toward everyone. Being a small kid, I remember I had to look up to be able to see her face and she would lowering her head so she could hear me when I talked to her. Over the years, after we all grew up we always took time to visit her whenever we returned to our home town. Just seeing her wrinkled face, and her humble smile, afforded us the opportunity to recall some of the best memories of our childhood. Today, Sister Joseph is in heaven and my family will never forget how she touched our life.

Later I attended elementary school where Sister Lucia is my school principal. Sister Lucia was patient, kind and loving. She was at times quite stern keeping us in line but you could feel the love she gave each one of us. Then there's Sister Imelda, Sister Herma, and Sister Redempta. The last one I mentioned, Sister Redempta, is one of the Sisters I disliked because of one small incident. Back then the kids got their vaccination in school and I felt uncomfortable seeing the long needle going to my skin. So I ran away but Sister Redempta was able to catch me, and since I fought with all I could, she had a hard time giving the vaccination to me. So she asked the other teacher to hold me and sticked the needle on top of my thigh. Within a few seconds she was finished and let me go. Until today I still have that coin size circle on my left top thigh, courtesy of Sister Redempta...hehehe! On our recent trip to Sumatra, we had the chance to visit the elementary school and met Sister Redempta there. She was so happy to see her girls and could not stop laughing when I told her about that coin size scar!

When I finished my elementary school, like my older sisters, my mom decided that I had to stay in dormitory. The reason is because our Junior High School was far from home and it would tire me to travel back and forth. The school was across the dormitory, convent and a church (it was all a walking distant). I remember Sister Domenica, the head of the dormitory. She was a middle age nun and always demanded obedience and is remembered by everyone for that clicker. She was tough and would not compromise if you broke the regulations etc. In today's world she would have been considered a dictator but I learned about discipline and many other things from living under her dictatorship...LOL!

Our daily routine was to wake up at 4:30am sharp (she made sure the bell was loud enough for all of us to hear), then we would rush to the bathrooms, after we groomed ourselves we had to go to the church for a morning mass. That was at 6:00am sharp. Even if there was no morning mass we still had to go to church for rosary prayer. We had to recite Our Father and Hail Mary with the exact words, all of the beatitudes etc. and made sure you did not chat in between or tried to get some sleep because her eyes were so sharp like an eagle eyes. After church, we would head to the dining room and being a Catholic dormitory, again you had to say a prayer before you eat. Sometimes I tested Sister Domenica's patience by doing a cross sign as fast as I could. She was unhappy and asked me to come forward and in front of everybody I had to repeat how to do the cross sign. Of course, I did that perfectly knowing she's in front of me with her wicked eyes.

I created a lot of troubles that made her so mad and she grounded me for breaking the order. I was locked inside the book room because I skipped church and hid behind the book shelves, I was forced to eat the young jambu air when she caught me and my friends throwing the fruits with our slippers. I was grounded for buying snacks outside because we were not allow to buy foods from outside when food inside the dormitory was so untasteful. I was scolded for did not wearing a layer under my white skirt, gosh...she got so many excuses to give me a punishment. Well not only me, but a bunch of rebels that shared the same juvenile delinquencies like yours truly.

Looking back on it now, I realize how fortunate I was to spend my childhood and teenage years with them. I think of their kindness and compassion and I thank my parents for entrusting me to them. They truly were/are my other mothers in heart.
Late Sister Joseph
The nuns at the convent.
Sister Domenica and Elyani.
Xaverius Elementary School today
Teacher and her students (this lady is my eldest sister classmate).
Sister Redempta, the teachers and my eldest sister.
The church next to Xaverius Elementary School.
One of the alley in my dormitory.
The old well inside the dormitory.
Sister Lauren in charged for Kitchen during my dormitory school time.
The church next to the dormitory.
Xaverius Junior High School which is just across from the dormitory (back then the building was not this grand).