Georgetterox

The streets look fine.

The photo is taken in a corner of Palangka. Its still nine in the morning but the weather is really hot.

 Large and the ways are doubled.

The cars are plenty, but the traffic’s not jammed. Though not everybody is rich, but there’s no poor.

So I don’t find any tramps easily, at least I just can find the street musicians playing Andra and the Backbone’s Hitamku.

Maybe coz the Palangkans are lazy to plant trees, so the hot weather makes anybody lazy to beg here.

But all comforts in Palangka fade away as the electricity strikes. Trust me, everything goes dark!

Style-dead due to strike electric in Saturday night makes me and the thousands of Palangkans left our homes to the city centre, exactly at Yos Sudarso Avenue, where we all finally hung out in the awkward ten cafes. This is my chance, I thought, for hunting Palangkan snacks.

But inside the ten cafes I only could find seafoods, baked corns, soto Lamongan, bakso Semarang

I flied away to Palangka and finally met another Bakso Semarang?

 even batagor.

Gosh, I’d been running away from Java and finally just met Javaneses anymore?

If the official of Miss Universe caught me in this way act, they will disqualify me.

Too bad my intention to snapshoot the hanging-out Palangka teenagers failed due to the strike of the road lights. While these cafes just keep cooking bravely only by lighting their generator sets.

The truth is, dark in Palangka ain’t new.

Kalimantan Tengah is wealthy, its income per capita exceeds the average of the national’s, but this place exactly doesn’t own its electricity network. Their lights are still supplied from Banjarmasin.

But thanks that I came in the right night.

Though all of the houses were dark, the citizens were crowding in the city center, at the front of the big round park ahead of Palangka Raya Mall.

They celebrate the birthday of the governor like they celebrate the king of Spain.

The pretty stranger (friendly greeting a crew): “Mas, ada acara apa sih?”

(Indonesian: Hey yo Bro, what’s up?)

The crew (burdened of bringing the heavy amplifier): “Ulang tahun Teras!” (Terrace’s birthday!)

The amazed foreigner (wondering. Only terrace and they celebrate its birthday?

And they even make a music stage, too?): “Ulang tahun apa?” (What’s birthday?)

The crew (thought that he’s talking to a deaf tourist): “Teras!”

The beautiful tourist (who’s absolutely not deaf, only gaping confused): “Teras yang mana?”

(Which terrace?)

Instead of telling me which building’s terrace which is celebrated the birthday, he just pointed to a tree.

What a stupid man, I thought, I asked him which terrace and he just showed me a tree?

No building right there, not even any terrace!

And long time then I just awared that the tree was hung by a

This is what they call Teras.

 banner that imaged a uniformed man which seemed a local celebrity. They said, the man in the picture was the governor of Kalimantan Tengah.

And the governor, named Teras Narang!

Tags: Add new tag, We need to find a place at Palangka where they were lig

I should buy a new calendar.

No, not the one with the view pictures, instead the one with the bikini girls pictures.

No, I don't need this!

Pictureless ones are OK, but I concern the list of red dates.

More red dates, more I like!

Especially the holidays where I can take long vacation.

Suddenly, these long vacations become my interest so I can get long time to return home.

Let’s talk about this year’s Eid Mubarak. Nobody knows exactly when the massal postpone is.

Everybody knows that the Eid Mubarak is this Wednesday and this Thursday, though a few communities obey their own mazhabs by postponing themselves since Monday.

Actually, there’s just a few non-official postpone days, they’re the Monday before Eid Mubarak, also the Friday and the Saturday after.

By the way, who concerns for working at Monday, after the holy Sunday and before the Tuesday when all people are ironing their Eid Mubarak outfits?

And would you mind to work at Friday, after three days before you rest your mind at Eid Mubarak?

Even working at Saturday?

The chaos I’m talking about happened in an hospital at Cimahi.

The interns got the news that the Country publishes the massal postpone between September 30^th through October 5^th.

So the interns ordered flight tickets to their parents’ home, some at Batam, at Lampung, even at Surabaya.

By the way the tickets costed much now, the prices had risen twice.

But I think you’d even buy a two millions rupiahs ticket

How much I want this now.

if you could fly home to your parents, won’t you?

Suddenly, a week before the Eid Mubarak, the hospital announced that there would be no massal postpone.

The boss of the hospital’s boss ordered the hospital to open up after Eid Mubarak, it became the office days for the whole employers; so practically long vacation was dead for all the people, including the interns.

Certainly the interns cried for furious, coz they’d bought the expensive tickets.

Just count, if you’d bought a ticket for return to Bandung at October 5^th, and suddenly you must return at the 2^nd, who’d buy the expensive tickets that you’d already paid?

And those Eid Mubarak returnees weren’t just the muslims, but so were the non-muslims.

The problem is, we don’t just need Eid Mubarak, but we need vacation, too!

Why can we just postpone once for twelve days in a year?

Probably the boss of the officials think that their employers need self-refreshment for twelve days in a row each year.

They don’t kow that we need holiday once in each month, though each holiday is only one day long.

Coz we don’t need refreshment once a year, but we need holiday once a month.

And everybody needs Eid Mubarak.

Not just muslims do, but so do those who adore Jesus, Goddess Kwan Im, even those who adore trees.

It’s still October and I’d like to say Happy Eid Mubarak. I apologize.

If there’s been wrong words of me; trust me.. you probably must’ve misread it..!

Tags: Please send me home!

Hand becomes the most popular body’s part of the week.

Eid Mubarak is season of apologize, it becomes a season when suddenly people love shaking hands. This thing often makes the handicaps get low-esteems.

At the whole world, most people use one hand for greetings.

But in my land, especially in my family, we don’t just need one hand, but two.

Since I was a little girl, my mom always teaches me to greet the ancestors with both of my hands shaking.

I don’t know what it means to, probably it will make them give me free choco bars.

Though we know exactly that the averagely diabetic ancestors seldom have choco bars, there probably are just some boring madumongso or kelepon.

I’d surrendered that they wouldn’t give me choco bars;

I’d surrendered more that they didn’t always give me ang-paw, maybe coz of the Chinese blood that begun to fade slowly from my family descents, or maybe coz I’m grown up more and the ancestors don’t feel deserve to give me ang-paw (for God’s sake, Vic, you’re 26!)

But the thing annoys me mostly is, I’ve given all of my power to near the ancestors, and nobody of those elderly remembers my name.

As this Eid Mubarak, for example. This is my grandma’s open house.

There are not just her terrifying grandchildren come along, but so do her brothers.

So one of my grandma’s brother, an old-enough man, come to my grandma’s bringing her daughters, her son-in-law, and her own granddaughter.

Well, me, as a devoting granddaughter of my grandma, come to the brother, then devoting both of my hands and shake the old man’s hands.

Damn, the old man gaps wondering why his hands are suddenly reached. “Iki sopo?” (Javanese: Who’s it?)

Me, who’s felt shaking the vain hands, smile. “Me?” You don’t know my name?

The man peeps to her sister. “Sopo iki?”

Says my grandma, “Iki putuku!” (This is my granddaughter!)

“Sing ndhi?” (Which one?) asks the man.

My grandma’s got 27 grandchildren.

Can you remember the names of the 29 grandchildren of your own sister?

Never mind. This man’s gotta be unnoticing my name. I’m the 18^th grandchildren.

“I’m binti Toto,” I say trying to help. I think he may not know my name.

But he must’ve known the names of his sister’s son-in-laws.

By the way, my hands are still in his hands.

But the man has already demented. “Toto sing ndhi?” (Which Toto?)

My grandma clicks her tongue impatiently. “Iki putuku sing dokter!”

(This is my doctor granddaughter!)

Suddenly the man hits his forehead. “Oh iyo, sing ayu iku! Lho, saiki kowe wis dokter to, Nduk?”

(Oh yes, the beautiful one! Wait, you’re a doctor now, Kiddo?)

Great, thank God the head isn’t bumped. Though the hit sounds so hard.

By the way, may I pull out my hands now?

His own daughter that he brings, seems have just been married for several years;

it seems from the behavior of the son-in-law which looked so detached in the middle of visiting to the house of the sister of his new father-in-law.

The son-in-law looks insisted to walk around the living room, greeting a bunch of my aunts which look busy like buzzing bees.

My aunt smiles cynically. She sighs in Dutch, “Just a hand that he gives us. What a boy..?”

I wonder about the correlation between the amounts of hands used for greetings and the level of somebody’s courtesy.

Especially the son-in-law looks greeting my aunts just for avoiding the bump of his father-in-law, not intended for asking for choco bars like Little Laurent does.

How many hands do you use for greetings?

One hand for you may be enough for some people, two means respect.

I think it’s just Indonesian who loves greeting with two hands.

I read that Eskimos uses noses for greeting instead of hands.

They shake their noses each others when they meet each other.

Once I tried this technique to my boyfriend’s nose, but as the result he just pulverized my lips.

Finally I prefer greeting the other people by shaking the both of my hands.

I use both of them for shaking hands, so I can get envelope inserted in it.

 Instead of respect.

But I just water down the people that I greet so they can sandwich their envelopes into my hands..

Tags: and they're not us, so why don't let us all just becoming ourselves?, We're not them