Subject: Traveling Experience
Posted by: Indah SR
Talking about traveling experience, I had once experience of the study tour that I did when I was in my last grade in college long years ago. I took part in a group consisted of five students altogether, each from different faculties, so we had never known each other before. We had been placed at Tapen Village, Wanadadi District, Banjarnegara, Central Java. During the study tour, we were all staying at the village head’s house, and we had to stay in the village for three weeks.
Tapen was a nice, small traditional village which had only a very little area. Most the villagers worked as traditional farmers. Long time ago, Tapen used to be a big village, but since the government commanded to build an enormous dam that had taken more than 80% area of the village, so only less 20% area had been left. Nevertheless, believed it or not, the village had already got a stadium! How amazing… you could imagine; a very small village with only a few villagers, enclosed a large sports ground in it?
Staying in a traditional village for a long time was really a new experience for me. I felt surprised when I first knew that villagers were all relatives (?!) Furthermore, I found out that people had specific customs and behavior. They were more sensitive and too much curious about everything. It was really different with people in big cities, who were less care and more apathetic. The situation made me was rather unconfident at the beginning, because I was supposed to speak carefully (and also behave well ;-D) every time I needed to interact with the villagers. Luckily, I had overcome with that soon.
In the other hand, they were the most cooperative and sociable people I ever knew. They respected us so much, and they also liked to greet us all the time. One of my friends had got a funny experience with that. One day while he was riding motorcycle along the street, he saw some people came out from their house just to greet him, so he must nod his head quickly over and over again, every time he passed the people. ;-D
Obviously, we had a lot of agendas we had to do for the village. For all you knew, it was very tiring, for the reason I was not excited to talk more about that. Well, of course, we did the study tour not just for working at all, more than that; we looked forward something fun and more fascinating to do.
By the way, we had a favorite activity we always did in the morning, and we had never missed it. For the purpose, we were willing to wake up early, when the sky was still dark. Then together we walked to the dam. After we reached the dam, we were just sitting in silence for a while, waiting for the sun rising. At the beginning, we could only see the dark water. Then the color of the water changed slowly, and finally we could see the sun started rising at the horizon… It looked like a great fire ball floated from the water surface and slowly moved to the sky. According to us, it was really beautiful.
Two days before the last day, companied with several youngster from the village (we had asked them to be our guides ;-D), we traveled to Dieng Plateau, where was located in Wonosobo. It just took about an hour by bus from Banjarnegara. We stayed at a villager’s house for one night, whose family had served us very well. In the second day, we continued the trip to the mountain by walking, because there was no public transportation at all. However, it was not really a problem, and we enjoyed it so far. The scenery of mountain range along the journey was amazingly beautiful, it made all of us were so satisfied at the time.
In the last day, the villagers made a farewell party for us. At the night before our leaving, almost the villagers filled in the village head’s house. The village head’s wife also served us so many delicious food and drinks. We all sat together in group, had a long talk and shared each other. The atmosphere was so close and friendly. I felt both happy and sad at same time, because I realized that I had never met such kind people like them again.
It had been happened for long years ago, but I still remembered it well. Before the students came to the village, the lectures had told us what we had to do for the villagers; we were supposed to teach them many things and counsel them well, but I considered it was not really true. The villagers had probably learned a few things from us, but in fact, we had exactly learned more from them.
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Indah, in my opinion you have a talent to write. Your articles is very good. When I read your article, I feel I was there. You described it very clear.
I agree with Wahyu. The style you described the place is very narrative. You seem to be so astonished to the villagers’ life. A typical view from a Jakarta’s Homo sapiens.
I’m a villager, actually. When I was in elementary school, my village was one of villages where students from IKIP Surabaya—now we call it Universitas Negeri Surabaya—carried out KKN. I noticed they didn’t focus on community education (KKN) itself. They regarded it as a vacation. Probably just like you (:p).
My village may be not as beautiful as the village in Banjarnegara where you carried out study tour. However, it’s a lovely place to be always in my heart. It’s only one kilometer from Bengawan Solo, one kilometer from jati woods, and fifteen minutes away (by motorcycle) from Java Sea. When we pass through the woods in early rainy season, we can smell “forest aroma”. It’s nice scent comes out from jati leaves buds. If rain comes right after a sunny day, we can smell “earth aroma” from dry soil (we call it lempung) that suddenly becomes wet. So unforgettable.
Thank to review my writing. I see you two are the most dilligent among us who always give comments earlier. May you want ms asri’ll give you ‘A’…
and Soleh, also thanks for… well, I just know ‘KKN’ in English is ‘Community College’ not, ’study tour’…
You elaborate your experience quite nicely. Good job. In a way, I envy you. I never got a chance to have KKN myself. I think it was a great loss. Just like what you have described, we can actually learn a lot from the experience. Can’t wait to read more of your writings.
Indah, good writing skill… Wish i can learn lot from you..
Your ‘community college’ or ‘KKN’experiences are so unforgetable and remains in your heart until now which i think very good.
My community college experiences were also unforgetable, but in different way. We, me and my friends, placed at Jampang Kulon, Sukabumi… if you know that place…
and in that time have no electricity too. So imagine how spooky that place are. All that i can say, it was the place that i had ‘magical experiences with supranatural object’.