My Unforgettable Memory

During my fifteen years of my life, there are sure many memories impossible to forget. Happy memories, sad memories, embarrassing memories, and such. One of them, the one that I would remember clearly no matter how much time has passed is when I broke my ankle. It happened when I was in second grade of elementary school. Around that time of my life, I could not seem to stay put. I would always jump and run around, with the impact of me breaking things; glass windows, my mother’s porcelain plates, and even my own body part.

The way my elementary worked is that second graders start their lesson at late morning after the first graders finish, due to lack of class given. I always got to school early because my father had to go to his campus early, too. Therefore, I always had plenty time to kill before class started. Together with my other early-comers classmates, I played around the school building. My favorite spot was the stairs which connected the first floor (where my class was) and the second floor (where the higher classes were). Before that stairs to the second floor, there was this space which is perfect for us to hang around while waiting for our class to start.

When you were little, remember how your mother used to scold you when you play by the stairs? Well, I didn’t seem to take my mother’s warning seriously by then. As I arrived at school, I would quickly drop my bag and go to the stairs. It was not recess time, so it was pretty spacey for me to play. The banister was especially fun to slide onto. It was glossy and smooth, which made it even better to act as my free rollercoaster ride.

The problem was not at this banister, however. It was this other game, in which I challenged myself to jump from stair to stair. When I successfully jumped across one stair, I would try to jump across two. One, two, three, all I passed easily. However, when I tried to jump across four stairs, I fell.

I did not feel the pain right away, just numbness. Those days, falling was usual experience for me, and I had experienced lots without any serious injury. So, I did not understand why I could not seem to move my right foot easily. My friends asked me if I was alright, and I just shrugged and laughed it off. Throughout that day, I restrained the pain (which arose if I moved my right foot) and convinced myself that the pain was not a big deal, that it would go away at the end of the day.

Unfortunately, it did not go away. The pain was still there by the time the school ended, and it only got worse. Because I was still a second grader, I went home by a pick-up transportation service, where kids with the same neighborhood go home together with a car driven by a driver. On the way home that day, one of my friend stepped on my ankle by accident. So, the pain grew, and grew, and grew.

When I got home, the pain was intolerable that I directly cried to my mother. She panicked even more than I was and quickly took me to a hospital nearby. Turned out that I broke my ankle’s bone, that I had my right foot casted for two weeks.

From then, I tried my best to restrain myself from jumping and running around anymore.

Solo, Central Java

Surakarta, or more familiar to me as Solo, is a city in Central Java. What makes this city the one place I want to go to the most is because this is where my parents are from. Every year, at the celebration of Eid Mubarak, my family would travel from Bandung to Solo by a car. We call it mudik. That is not an easy trip, remembering the mass on the road, the traffic jams, and countless boring hours of being stuck in a bumping car. While being a tough trip to take, it is also an unforgettable one. Through my fifteen years of living, the around 500 kilometers trip has made many memories for me. It has bounded my family to the core. So that's why Solo is the place I love the most, the place full of memories, the place that I miss every second of my life being outside it.

As I have told you earlier, both my father and mother came from Solo. They spent their entire childhood here, before moving to Bandung after their marriage. Both my grandparents' houses are here, and I that's the first reason why I always want to go to Solo. Both places are filled with stories of them as a mere children; how my mother sold popsicle for a living, how my father studied hard at his room. Both of my grandfathers have passed away, so now I can only meet the grandmothers. Visiting grandmothers' house, especially around the Eid Mubarak holiday, means that I can also meet my cousins. When we were little, years ago, we used to play games all the time. But now that we are all grown up, we have our own business, and we don't get together as often. Which is sad, and I miss those games we used to play, and how I would do anything just so we could be little kids playing together again.

My sole purpose every time I visit Solo is to visit my grandmothers, so I haven't deliberately enjoy the tourism spots. But I do have visited Keraton Surakarta Hadiningrat Palace, which I find beautiful and charismatic. Built in 1744, the palace were mainly made as home for Sri Sunan and his servants, but for now most of the land are changed into museum for tourists. It changed after the independence of Indonesia in 1945, which made Sri Sunan lost his right to order the government activity around Solo. The present Sri Sunan, Pakubuwana VIII, now works to preserve and protect Java culture from extinction.

the outside of Keraton Palace

Solo's citizens really respect Pakubuwana XIII. Although he is not the one who takes care of Solo's government, he helps people understand Javanese culture and he contributes so the culture will never be gone.

traditional ceremony held in Keraton Palace

The second thing I admire most about Solo is the people and their culture. Both my grandmothers live in the country side, where custom and tradition lives more than here in the city. They live with modest and humble mindset. It's not rare for me to find old women still wearing kebayas on daily basis. The bond between them is really strong. For example, my grandmother rarely cooks for herself because her neighbors would always giving her food to eat. This also shows how they really respect their elders. Nearing Eid Mubarak, people from the neighborhood would be invited by grandma to her home for a feast. Lots of people know each other and they are all friendly, even to me, who is an outsider to them.

The other thing I absolutely love about Solo is its traditional market and food. There are markets everywhere, which sells everything, in a really cheap price (waaay cheaper than goods sold in Bandung). In the morning, especially on weekends, people crowd the nearest market to find breakfast. My favorite breakfast to have is anchovy porridge (the porridge is a little saltier than the normal porridge) for 1000 rupiah per serving, sate-lontong (it's still 8 in the morning, but who can resist bites of meat covered in peanut sauce?), and chicken soup. Not only foods, the markets also sell household appliances, vegetables and fruits, souvenirs, and even beautiful purple flowers for funeral. The thing I find unique is the sellers. They are usually middle-aged woman in their kebayas, busy serving their customer while busy gossiping (and often in a loud and obnoxious voice) with their neighbor fellow-seller in Javanese.

popular tradirional market in Solo, Pasar Gede, which literally means "big market"

Other than markets, there are also street vendors (which usually sell food) scattered everywhere. Twentyfour seven, you are guaranteed to encounter at least one street vendor whenever you go for a walk. My favorite is called Shi Jack, which sells variants of drinks and snacks. They sell milk, ginger drink, grilled bread, gorengan, and nasi kucing (a veeeery little portion of rice accompanied with also little piece of anchovy and spices). The price varies, but you would not find any foods or drinks for more than 10.000 rupiah.

the famous Susu Segar "Shi Jack"

With the reasons to love Solo described, I hope you understand just how much I want to go there, over and over again.

Questions

1. What's my main reason to love Solo?

a. the magnificence of Keraton Surakarta Hadiningrat

b. this place is full of memory for my family

c. the people are nice

d. there are a lot of traditional markets

e. the foods are delicious and cheap

(answer: b)

2. Below are Sri Sunan's duties, except...

a. order the government activity

b. help people understand Javanese culture

c. protect Javanese culture from extinction

d. host several traditional ceremony

e. carry Javanese tradition on

(answer: a)

3. What's the synonym of the word deliberately?

a. thoroughly

b. exactly

c. unconsciously

d. intentionally

e. entirely

(answer: d)

4. Below are foods/beverages from Solo, except...

a. nasi kucing

b. anchovy porridge

c. nasi timbel

d. sate-lontong

e. ginger milk

(answer: c)

5. What made Sri Sunan lost his right to order the government activity in Solo?

a. he was not capable to do it anymore

b. Indonesia declared its independence from Dutch

c. he had no descendant to take the throne

d. the government system in Indonesia was replaced

e. his people did not support him anymore

(answer: d)

Festival Budaya Megantara

Yesterday was a blast. Festival Budaya Megantara successfully ended last night. First of all, before telling you about Festival Budaya Megantara, I must say sorry because I can't possibly retell every single thing occured. There were just too much things happened: the hectic work of making the decoration (I was one of the decoration committee), the famous food stalls and food trucks, the flood of people everywhere, and of course, the magnificent performances on stage.

Being a committe for Festival Budaya Megantara, first thing to do at D-day is being present at Lapangan Bali at 6 sharp for briefing. We were told what to do and what not to do by the core committee from class XII. After, we pray together for the better of the event.

Decoration for yesterday's event were made months before the actual event, so at D-day there were not a lot of things to do other than keeping an eye for each piece of decoration. In the other hand, logistics committee were running around, busy carrying things needed for the day.

Despite being at Lapangan Bali since 6, Festival Budaya Megantara was opened for public at 11.30. Just after the gate opened,  a lot of people came in already. They were excited mostly for the food stalls/trucks and the ghost house. The ghost house were being 'haunted' by 'ghosts' from SMAN 12 Bandung, and I heard they were doing a great job scaring their guests. The food stalls were separated into five area: Java, Sumatera, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Papua. Some of them sold traditional food from each area. My favorites are Sate Padang from Sumatera and batagor from Java. The main artists would perform at the end of the event, so the stage area were not crowded yet.

However, there was a fashion show consists of 34 students from class X wearing the traditional costume from each province of Indonesia. My friend, Fya, was one of the models. It was really fun watching our friends wearing costumes we've never heard of. Some of them wore strange costumes with even stranger properties.

Of all the performances, my favorites are from Darul Hikam, T'sT, and The Changcuters. Sadly, I could not see performance from RAN because dad had already picked me up. The cultural performance of Darul Hikam was astonishing, they played rampak gendang and sang at the same time. At the performance of T'sT (Tiloe's Theatre), I could not contain my laughter. They were so good at making parody of the popular movie Suicide Squad mixed with a cultural touch. For The Changcuters' performance, I could only describe it as epic. I was not the type to dance at a rock band's songs, but last night was an exception. Tria, the vocalist of the band, always threw funny jokes which made us laugh. And the way he sang and moved around the stage nonchalantly was really amazing. At the end of their performance, Tria threw the iket he was wearing at the crowd.

After The Changcuters' performance, my dad called, telling me that he was outside, ready to pick me up. So I did not have any choice but to go home.

Thank you Festival Budaya Megantara, you will be forever remembered!