DREAM OF KIDS IN MENDAHARA

I woke up this early morn­ing with bad feeling after a quick dream, it was about the children in a huge area called Menda­hara.

Nia S. Amira
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Trying to chronologize the event I had in Mendaha­ra when visiting that area for a cooperative workshop some times ago.

Sumatra has a vast natural re­source in the archipelago. Some parts are still wild, a good place for the beast. Traveling in the so-called ex transmigration area where most local come from other is­lands like Sulawesi, Kalimantan and Java, we can see the contrast in this fertile land but poor inhabitans.

Huge palm oil planta­tion dominate the view along the trip with half portion of the land in this wouth­ern part of Suma­tra covered by rubber planta­tion.

It will take approximately 2 hours driving from the capital to enter the district of Mendahara in Tanjung Jabung Timur regency. I saw a group of women wear­ing their old batik fabricc wash­ing the laundry in a small river at the edge of the rubber plantation. Speaking in Malay we will hear odd accents when they speak. They are wives of rubber tap­pers in plam oil plantation.

I was curi­ous to know what is the do­mestic issue, and everyone com­plained the economy issue is the trending topic. “That wage, it would not be suf­ficient for our husbands to support the family, even for a day!” said a 30 year young mother with her toddler playing beside her.

Squatting while listen­ing to their conversation and mostly com­plaints addressed to no one in partticu­lar, I tried to start friendly chat as if we have known each other for a long time. Some of them complained about the local women organization simply asked them to make something without giving them enough sample how to do things. Perhaps the em­powerment program for women in the area have not run well. Some told me their hus­bands badly need to be educated by the lo­cal authority to have better work so that they can earn enough money to supplement their family income.

Lunch time was in about one hour and the group have almost finished t h e i r laudry. We promised to meet some el­ementary children who would gather at the house of the palm oil plantation owner, the transmi­grant family from Sulawesi. I had a small project regarding poems and would collect the good ones for the kids page in a leading national daily newspaper.

During tea time in that afternoon, a group of 10 children showed up at the white house. They brought their poems and showed them to me cheerfully. They were looked very con­fident as if they knew that I would pick all of them for the kids page.

I smiled looking to their works; some of them re-write each other’s work as if they wrote their own ones. Some have written funny poem, some even tell love story. Most of the po­ems are wri t ten in Malay quatrain.

I could not let their feeling down, all the papers were collect­ed. We talked more about the activi­ties; their dreams, their hope. Most of them are talented, but lack of opportunity.

Teenagers at Mendahara district have their own moti­vation to achieve higher level of education. They want to make their parents happy and to assist their parents to escape from permanent poverty. The girls said they wanted to study at the nursing academy in o r ­der to be able work in a h o s ­pital. They hope to meet their future husbands there, who are doctors.

A local ice cream vendor passed in front of the house. We jumped to get plastic glasses of mixed coconut milk made by shaking cold salty ice with sweet red syrup poured over, yummy.

Everyone loves that tropical re­freshment and forgets a while to those who usually tap the areac nuts for as their daily informal work.

Life is colorful and children at Mendahara pass their time at schoold and enjoy their time together doing their poems. It was really a pleasant day.