My Sanctuary: YOUCAN EMPOWER LOMBOK 2017! (2/3): Mendure

Been a week in Mendure was amazing!

From left to right (Kak Glenn, Bagus, Kak Ima, Ryan, Dadan,
Kak Reyhan, ME, Kak Uni, Kak Nining, Kak Dyah
Kak Ardina, Dimas
Kak Laili (blur ): )

Since the first day, we were treated like "kings" by people there, when actually we want to mingle in the society. The girls volunteer stayed at Kak Uni's house, while the boys stayed at one of elders's house. In Mendure, a bathroom inside a house is very rarely, include at our houses. There are some bathroom build by some people scattered at some locations for all people in the village. Don't be surprised, if you want to shower you have to go around the village looking for an empty bathroom. Usually we had our favorite bathroom, so we can scramble the bathroom and the loser had to find another bathroom. But, IF you are lucky, you will be invited to shower at her/his house with bathroom inside because the house owner were kind and feeling pity at you.

Most of people in Mendure are farmers of rice and tobacco. As you can see from our selfie picture above, February is perfect month for rice because it was rainny season, right? Rice paddy need lots of water to grow up! In fact, it's not too rainy in Mendure. The weather was pretty good to dry your laundry, just took 2 hours from 10 AM-12 PM! Moreover, the temperature in Mendure is always above 30 degrees celsius! It only happened once a heavy raining on the last day during the farewell ceremony :(

Move on from the weather and livelihood, I will tell you about Mendure's all time favorite beverage: LOMBOK COFFEE! Yeah, Inaq-Inaq in Mendure love to serve coffee for guests like us. They were pounding and blending the coffee with their own recipe. I don't drink coffee, but the other volunteers said the coffee was really good and unique. Maybe because the coffee blended with rice pounding that increased the flavors. In the last day, some of my friends ordered to inaq-inaq to make coffee because they want to buy some kilos of Lombok Coffee! I think they've been addicted with the coffee after a week non stop consuming caffeine XD

caffeine time with guava and rempeyek

By the way, I've been talking about children in Mendure on my previous post. Yeah, they are so lovely. After dhuhur prayer, we held our programs and mostly our target is children. While their parents were busy on the farm, we taught them how to turn garbage into useful things, the important of clean and healthy lifestyle, and the spirit to dare to reach their dreams! Kak Uni said, the children were very excited about our programs. They even had their own "Kakak favorit". I will tell about Kakak Favorit later. Anyway, the pictures below were about the kiddoss!

I was using bahasa mixed with Sasak little bit while explaining to the kids

Beside their cuteness, the children in Mendure are very religious. After Ashar prayer, usually they went home, took a bath, and went together to Masjid in the different village before magrib. Actually there was a mushola in their village. But, they don't have any ustadz or ustadzah to teach them read Al Qur'an in that mushola. The high learning spirit of the children eventually making them accustomed to go to the Masjid even though the distance is far.

Saw this problem, finally we asked for permission to teach the children read Al Qur'an after Magrib prayer for a week. After reading Al Qur'an, usually we help the children to make their homework.This is also being one of our unexpecting program, so they didn't have to go that far to learn qur'an and enliven their mushola too.

my dream when I was in elementary school was beeing a teacher LOL

In that mushola, we made a mini library from a small unused room in the mushola that is being our main goal to increase their reading interest. We called it "PERPUS KANCIL". PERPUS KANCIL stands for Perpustakaan Pustakawan Cilik. Beside many books for the children, there is a section for writing their dreams inside the PERPUS KANCIL, called "Aku Mele Jari" means "I Wanna Be". They wrote their dreams in the notes then sticked it all. We were advised them to always keep this library and keep those dreams by being Agen Kancil. Agen Kancil is a team that will look after this library although we (kakak-kakak) are not there. The children were very excited to be Agen Kancil. Again, I want to thank you for those books donation because it means a lot for the children in Mendure.

After inaugurated PERPUS KANCIL!

There were some programs that haven't mentioned: teaching at school and watching movie together or usually called layar tancep. We were getting so blend with people in Mendure. In leisure time, an Amaq invited my friends and I to harvest his guava trees. In the village offie, when I came to ask Mendure's data statistics, the staffs told me many things. Finally I know the condition of Mendure wasn't stable becuase their head arrested by KPK on corruption charges until how bad the tobacco companies provide insurance to farmers in Mendure.

After a long conversation, one of the village staffs asked me, "Are you married?"

"Not yet," I was laughing beause people here are very "direct".

"Then, you must try 'merariq' here. HAHA!," Okay, they tried to joke but I still dont get it.

Back to home, I found Inaq-Inaq gathered, waiting their children playing. I join them, and into their conversation. Until an Inaq said, "I was merariq before."

With extra curiousity, I aksed her, "Inaq, what is merariq?"

"Merariq is one of Lombok tradition. Merariq means to run away. The elopement, is a customary marriage system still applied in Lombok," she replied. "It's very exciting. When a man and a woman ready to marry, the man can't purpose his woman directly. But, the man has to bring the woman in his house at night (usually after magrib), but her parents should not realized until the morning. In the next morning, this news about a woman who is merariq with her man will be shared to all people. And not long after, people will be very busy preparing your wedding."

I was astonised, "Ooo.. that's how merariq unites man and woman in Lombok."

"Yeah," the Inaq answered. "Usually after junior high school, we already merariq."

Ookaay.
I hope children in the picture below can make right decision between education or merariq :'')

no more happy face :(

It was the last picture we took together before this volunteering program was over. On the Tuesday morning, we had to say goodbye to all people in Mendure. Like I said in the previous post, say good bye to the children was really hard. A night before we were leaving was full of tears. Instead of sleep at their houses, they prefer to sleep with us, especially near to his/her "Kakak favorit". And in the next morning, they were still so blue, no more happy face. Then, we decided to take them to school for the last time before we left.

It was Fiona, a sweet girl who really hard to let me go. She stood in front of me at that photo. On the way to school, she can't stop crying (her friends did the same too to their kakak favorit). I can only calm her down. rubbed her shoulders, and said, "Later if Fiona is successful, it's Fiona's turn to go to Java, Okay?"

But she is still crying until in front of the school gate. She hugged me for a moment. I don't know how bad or how mixed her feelings at that time because saw her and the other children made me really lost something.

~~~and Fiona was forced to take her arms off from me after realizing that all her friends had gone to school~~~