From the Novel: Norwegian Wood

I'm not...

Utusan Nyai Goes to BAWEAN!!

Visiting new place is always exciting. But this one is different :)

"Hey troops, can we meet tonight at Yudha's place? There are a lot of things to discuss. Don't forget to bring your money for tomorrow. Confirm needed."

A new message coming from EXELSO chat group. Since this group consist of XL Future Leaders Suroboyo student, this must be something related to our Bawean Membaca project. My heart is pumping. We already plan this project since July, I have to go or I'll regret my whole lifetime.

"Hey, sorry I might be late. Already have an agenda at 7 PM." Me sending confirmation message a while after waking up in the morning.

Yudha, Erlia, and Yulia ended picking me up at 9 PM to pack books and the other things. There were about 8 big packages of book, 2 super big packages of rack, and 3 bags of essential. This was beyond our expectation. One car won't be enough to pick us with these packages. Then we started to discuss the details attach our departure tomorrow. "How about going to the harbor by taxi? It wouldn't cost as much as rent a car for two days right?" Yudha giving his idea to cut off budget. This idea seems brilliant since we do really need to cut off our budget. One car and one taxi would be ok. That car we rent is actually enough for us as long as the packages are off. So we only use taxi for our departure tomorrow morning.

Surabaya - Gresik spend 1 hour of travel by car so we gather in Yudha's place at 6 AM in the morning. We depart from Gresik Harbor by Natuna Express to Bawean Island at 9 AM. It was one sunny Saturday morning. The weather was really nice for me to travel by ship as a first-timer. Tidar (our facilitator at XL Future Leaders class) suggest to consume medicine in reducing sea-sickness. At first, I feel ok, "this isn't as bad as I think it was" I thought. But then, when we were in the middle of Java Sea, the waves turned out to be bigger than it was in the beginning. It was 2.5 meter waves that brought us to Bawean Island. We started to feel that-so-called sea sickness. I try to sleep by eating half of sea-sickness medicine. It helped a lot. Like for real.

Arrived in Bawean at 12 PM be like "whoa finally!". I still can't believe that we were already step our foot in Bawean's soil and bring social message. Village officials welcomed us with a festive. They were so nice. They also invited young teacher from Indonesia Mengajar and students from MTs & MIN. We did sharing session with the students to grow a sense of courage in their personality. We also share stories with those young teacher and guess what?! They inspired me, a lot. They were like an angel sincerely share their knowledge with children in rural areas like this. We did photo session several times and went back to the mess.

Soon after that, we went out to the city square searching for food. Accompanied by acoustic music played by local youth, Saturday night dinner was full of joy with these lovely people around me. Oh I forgot to introduce them to you, they were Yudha, Erlia, Yulia, Gandhi, Ilham, Nafi, and Agmel. We continued sharing stories on the edge of the harbor while enjoying night breeze of Bawean Island. Thank God for bringing me with them.

The next morning, we went back to Gresik at 9 AM by the same ship. But before that, Mas Rahman took us strolled to the beach. He said Bawean's beach is too bad to be missed out. Yea, he's right. The beach was picturesque. Again, I thank God for being there with the people I love.

This journey... is the journey that I will remember my whole life and it wouldn't be the same without you.