2008 – 2009

So how to sum up 2008? 2008 was the most difficult year of my life so far. But I’m here in 2009, still in one piece and still going. 2008 marked the affirmation of my ambitions. I’m no longer toying with the idea of a law conversion course, or of applying to blah graduate schemes with hefty golden handshakes. 2008 showed me that I have only one life and that I should use the time I have to fulfil ambitions and take up causes I really believe in. I guess it’s when everything you love and care about comes under tangible threat that your core hopes come to light, and there’s no sense in wasting that understanding after a long and painful journey to reach it.

I owe it to my parents, to my family and to the sacrifices they made to give me the opportunities I’ve had. We have never been a rich family and opportunities have never fallen into our laps. We have worked hard to stay afloat and move forward, and at times we have struggled. How could I let that go to waste in a career I know I will hate? It’s not an option. I owe it also to the people who do not have opportunities, to the people who see poverty as an unavoidable inheritance, and to the children I will have and to whom I must set the example I want them to follow.

I gained friends and lost friends in 2008. I gained better friends of people I already knew. I fell out of touch with people I thought I’d know forever. When we lost my dad, it was like a make or break for some of my friends. I’ll remember 2008 as the year some of my friends astounded me with their support. Whether it was picking me up in the middle of the night to hibernate in their living room with a DVD or delivering a care package to my front door the morning after hearing the news, I will never forget and I will do everything I can to do the same for them.

And 2009? Well this year I will (insya’Allah) be graduating from university. After that, I plan to travel and join a volunteer programme in Jakarta. The plan is, essentially, to get my head out of the books and put myself to good use, to stop moping and feeling sorry for myself and to learn a few things about the world outside my own limited sphere (i.e. to stop romanticising poverty and go out and see what can be done about it).

Resolutions:

1. Visit people around the world

2. Spend less money (bar tickets to visit people around the world, obviously)

3. VOLUNTEER (again)

4. Continue making good use of gym-of-dreams membership

5. Continue being thrifty (buying second-hand, altering old clothes using my old pal the sewing machine)

We all need someone we can dream on.

Reret Marongge – Sundanese dance, song sung in Bahasa Sunda.

My own photo taken near Ubud, Bali.

Tari Saman – one of the most famous Acehnese dances and also the best dance I’ve ever seen performed live. I really want to see it in Aceh one day.

Tari Jawa.

Tari Taruna Jaya – my favourite Balinese dance.

Wayang Kulit – Javanese shadow puppets.

I’m having quite a nationalist evening (haha). I dug out some of my mum’s old gamelan tapes but realised that we no longer have a tape player so I had to make do with youtube and mp3 downloads! I miss Indonesia so much. It’s my family that I miss the most, really. The cousins that write me and my brothers cute songs about how much they love us. The aunties that insist on measuring me there and then and reappear a week later with beautiful dresses. But also the amazing meals for 50p. The unfaltering aroma of clove cigarettes. The becak (rickshaws) and bajaj (like tuk tuks in Thailand) which zip through the streets. The unrivalled politeness of the people.

There is also the rather harrowing and eye-opening side of Indonesia and indeed of many post-colonial and developing countries, which is the disturbing level of poverty. My limited experiences of slums and under-funded orphanages in Jakarta gave me only a glimpse of it, but that was enough to strike a chord that’s still ringing in the ears of a person privileged enough to visit areas where the majority of people have never left their own islands or regions. So many tourists list beggars and sellers as familiar sights in Indonesia but fail to realise that the very fact that they are even there is an indication of their comparable wealth and the reason they attract so much attention.

The moment I feel sad upon seeing people living in poverty is immediately followed by anger and the feeling that I am only patronising these people. People are not lifted out of poverty by sighs and mutterings of ‘Oh, how sad’. They want to make their own successes and take pride in their work and it is by giving them the opportunities to do this that we can really help them.

Having undertaken an undergraduate degree which lasts for three years, I have only become more affirmed in my belief that studying is one of the most selfish things a person can do. I’m reasonably healthy and I have two hands which have so far been strangers to hard work. A lot of the time I resent having to do a degree. However, I figure that if I’m going to move past the financial struggles my parents have experienced and be able to have the freedom to work at something I really believe in, a degree is a good place to start. And at least my subjects are interesting enough and I love my university enough to really enjoy the three years.

To try to balance this feeling of utter selfishness with the need to benefit someone other than myself, I’ve decided to sign up with a few volunteer programmes after I graduate. Because I have good knowledge of Indonesian and a reasonable command of German, I’ve been looking at programmes in various locations in Indonesia and inner-city areas in Germany. I figure it’ll be slightly easier to start off on programmes where I have at least a passable knowledge of the language. Then perhaps I’ll go somewhere where I won’t have a clue what anyone is saying and I’ll be forced to learn another language. Maybe somewhere in Latin America or Central Asia. I want to travel and see so many places but I want to lend the use of my hands to worthy causes along the way.

In a job interview I had last week, the idiot of my two interviewers asked me, ‘So…why do you do all this Stand Up For Africa…stuff?’ and tried to make me feel stupid for wanting to go into charity/international development after I graduate. I gave him an answer which was perhaps too honest but it was true, at least. I did have extraordinary opportunities for someone from my background and I feel I owe it to people who do not have the opportunities I had (and will have) to fight to put structures in place to make sure they have a chance at success in whatever they want to do. These structures include increased access to education and aid for small businesses (see Africa Now for a fantastic charity which does just this); they are achievable.

I’ve never brought these thoughts together before. Now is the sound of the gunshot, the moment I sprint from the starting line.