bahkan aku tak mengenalku sebaik Engkau

Duhai yang menggenggam jiwaku
Duhai yang lebih dekat dari urat-urat dileherku
Ampuni kebodohan dan ketakaburanku

Aku bahkan tak tau siapa aku ini sebenarnya
Setiap yang terjadi dalam takdirku adalah milik-Mu
Maka ampuni aku yang selalu ingin menggugat-Mu dengan protes-protes bodohku

....

masih banyak yang ingin ku sampaikan
tapi tentunya Engkau tahu bahkan seratus ribu kali jumlahnya...

Use to be the best playground of my childhood

Neglected Tropical Diseases

Kita lahir didunia tidak pernah meminta untuk lahir dengan ketidaksempurnaan, apa lagi dengan suatu penyakit yang memberi tanda cacat seumur hidup kita. Kita lahir karena kehendak-Nya. Demikian juga dengan mereka yang tidak beruntung. yang menderita kusta dan menerima stigma seumur hidupnya bahkan anak keturunannya.

Indonesia urutan ketiga didunia untuk jumlah penderita kusta, terbanyak di Jawa Barat, Jawa Timur dan Sulawesi Selatan. tetapi keberadaan mereka masih jauh dari perhatian pemerintah maupun dunia internasional. Donor-donor kaya lebih cepat merogoh kantong mereka untuk HIV/AIDS atau Malaria ketimbang penyakit ini.

WHO mengelompokkannya kedalam penyakit tropis terabaikan, tetapi sekarang bukan saatnya untuk mengabaikan kenyataan ini. karena semakin diabaikan bukannya semakin hilang dari peradaban malah semakin menggunung.

For all the neglected.....

Panggung Sandiwara

Malam ini aku menghadiri resepsi pernikahan seseorang yang belum pernah kulihat sebelumnya. Sebenarnya yang diundang bukan aku, tetapi karena yang mengundang adalah bekas teman sekantor, dan yang diundang tidak mau berangkat sendiri jadilah kami berdua menghadiri pesta. Ternyata yang berhajat adalah alumni salah satu sekolah tinggi yang beberapa waktu lalu heboh dengan peristiwa tragis dan memilukan, penyiksaan, aborsi, pemerkosaan hingga pembunuhan telah terjadi di sekolah berasrama ini.

Resepsi diawali dengan prosesi “militer”, beberapa pria muda berseragam putih – putih melakukan atraksi baris berbaris. Lama aku termenung melihat kesigapan para pemuda ini. keagungan adat budaya yang biasa kusaksikan pada pernikahan “orang biasa” tak nampak disini, terganti oleh ritual megah para alumni sekolah maut itu.

Ingatanku kembali melayang kebarisan peristiwa diawal tahun lalu. Setelah kematian salah seorang siswa, puluhan kasus lainpun mencuat kepermukaan, satu demi satu borok mengeluarkan bau busuk dan nanah, hancur tak bersisa.

Hentakan kaki para “prajurit” menyambar telingaku hingga aku kembali sadar bahwa prosesi ini cukup lama juga. Begitu anggun, mengarak kedua mempelai kesinggasananya. Beginikah semuanya berakhir? Apakah semua borok dan kusta itu sudah sembuh, sebersih ini, megah dan berseri, tanpa cacat tanpa masa lalu yang suram. Beginikah masyarakat ini memperlakukan calon pembesar ini, yang mungkin saja dimasa lalu merupakan bagian dari tradisi gila dan penyiksaan itu. Entah kenapa semua yang hadir seperti bangga dan tersenyum puas, mungkin karena pemuda itu adalah anak seorang pembesar disini atau mereka hanya pura-pura menikmati kebodohan ini. Andai saja roh Cliff Muntu datang dan mengacaukan pesta seperti di film-film horor. Andai saja bayi-bayi yang dipaksa mati oleh para siswi itu datang dan mencekik kami semua yang sedang menikmati makanan yang enak-enak ini. Andai saja …..ah kau itu, kenapa terlalu jauh berandai-andai. Bukankah semua orang sudah melupakannya? Yah iya sih… tapi kenapa terlalu mengedepankan kebodohan ini, seandainya saja dengan adat yang biasa saja seperti pernikahan orang biasa. Bukankah lebih sacral dan manis. Tetapi itulah masyarakat ini, yang penting adalah kulit dan permukaan, tak ada lagi rasa malu, tak ada lagi kesederhanaan dan dialog batin yang bijak untuk menyikapi segala peristiwa. Yang penting adalah anakku orang hebat. Calon lurah

Chasing Dreams...........

Take time to dream, it is the future made of (Ari Ginanjar Agustian)

On my way home i saw an incident that i have never experienced before. while speaking to an officer in the airport i heard something fall so hard behind me, and believe it or not it was a man who just got a heart attack due to a serious problem that made him went so panic. In a very short time the big guy went unconcious, bleeding on his mouth, and i assumed he'd died at that time. An officer who talked to him before came to see him and said that he just have lost his pasport and some important documents, that's why he was so upset running here and there searching for it.

Subhanallah....i assumed that he just said goodbye to his family and friends, leaving home for something important, looking forward for a succesful negotiation, and in the end maybe for a better lufe in the future. But in a minute all the dreams, the vision and everything that he could hope for vanished in the dark cloud.

Dreaming for something big and we can easily forget a little thing that might possibly have a big impact on us. Like this man, on the panic situation he probably forgot that he has a heart problem. But his dream make him forget about it, maybe different person has different priority in his or her life. but when it comes to chasing dream we might forget that we are human beings............may God forgive us.

..........hey now hey now don't dream it's over.........

when was the last time you have a very strong determination to do everything that you wanted to accomplish.

Music for Soul

alas to dust we shall retun
the line grew short and came my turn

for you who understand why we are here

...the journey back home

Going out of my “home” was like stepping out of a big picture of my home and looking back into it. Staring into the picture for quite sometime, even though only from one angle, Australian angle, part of it looks ugly and another part looks even much more beautiful when I look it from here.

One and a half year is indeed a very short episode of my life, and I have to leave it. Part of me wants to stay a little longer because I really want to travel somewhere else outside this state and learn some other things, but another part of me misses home so badly until I keep calling home telling my mother that I’ll be home soon.

I’m here in Australia when quite many hard tensions occur, and I just once wondered why on earth I have to be here, feeling scared and a little bit insecure. Then I went out… trying to figure out what life looks like in my closest neighbour’s home. My God… it is awesome!! (copying the words they often said), people saying sorry when they do something bad to other people even if it is ‘not so significant’, students study hard day and night. Fathers carry their kids on their shoulders and play in the parks. And if I see this my heart just say a little prayer, I wish I can see this in my home country.

“Where are you from ?” asked a taxi driver, “I’m from Indonesia” I answered, “wow I’ve been there….it’s beautiful, but recently a lot of bad things happened hey, was there any of your relatives died in the Tsunami?”, “luckily no, because my families live in the eastern part of the country. From this short conversation a lot of questions occur in my head, what is in his mind about Indonesia? And then I went to an art center to see Rendra reciting his poets, a lot of Australian came to see him. Well here they are, they are Australian who see things differently, humanity is here, exists, right in front of you, where people look at you not because of your skin or the faith in your heart but because there is one thing in human beings that happens to be born in every skin color and every body shape, a universal value that you can find everywhere in the world.

Even though people say Australians drink till they get crazy, but I feel save here, I often had to stay until midnight to work on my assignment at the computer lab, and walked home on my own, holding my metal keychain (just in case someone attack me, keychain is bad enough to hurt someone’s face hahaha), but things that I’m afraid of have never happened to me, thank God.

I’ve learnt a lot, learn to accept and to be accepted, learn to be different and to see and appreciate different things, to understand the meaning of right and wrong from different values and different point of view. Learn to study hard, to stand on my own, to make my own decision, learn to have a strong determination to do the things that I believe (is it possible?). I’ve made friends with people from many different countries. I’m looking forward to see the next chapter of my life, indeed like an ancient Aboriginal proverb “We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love... and then we return home." Maybe the meaning of ‘home’ in this sense is deeper than a building or a place where we were born or a place where our parents reside. And learning to grow up might even have a deeper meaning. So I do not have to be afraid to go home, going back to ‘reality’ as students often said. And indeed I’m not afraid. So never afraid to leave home and never afraid to go back home.

“I want to make a difference, a worthwhile difference”
Still learning to grow up
Me

if tomorrow never comes

i will regret that i do not post this


can you believe this
who is the real terrorist