A Thread in Mappi Region - Part IV...

Penulis: Ratu Atikah, 02 May 2022
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November 13th 2021

Anyhow, on the next day Team Mappi Selatan continue to survey Kampung Yame until the sun rose vertically above our head. We then moved to our next destination Kampung Muya (eks-Borohaba), Yakomi. In these village, we especially met Three teacher GPDT and mingled with them since our survey was done earlier due to the area of Kampung Muya was not more than 5 km with a straight line road. We could not met Kepala Kampung since he was in Kampung Bade for something in his privacy, though we’ve got an information of recent tragedy happened to One of the female teacher there from the victim itself who already stayed there for Four years, an ex-criminal came through her house without any permission, put a long knife on her neck and almost –sorry- raped her. Fortunately, she had her guts to scream out loud that the ex-criminal finally ran way, he did got caught by other citizen, but the law could not caught him up because authorities taught he was mentally-ill. Currently he still lived in the same village as the Female teacher with citizen put their eyes on both of them. The lesson I got from her was, no matter how long have you been living in others area, or how close you are with locals, you always need buddy system, a guy even better! And never put your guard down. It might not happen to everyone nor done by everyone, but does not mean it did not happen at all. The rest of our activity still the same for inventarization the LTSHE. When the sun ready to set, our speedboat also ready to go to Sahapikya, Venaha district to transit for a peaceful night.

Saturday, November 13th 2021, after Subh prayer besides Maria statue, Team Mappi Selatan had a morning walk before facing the reality to survey another village, Kampung Harapan, Venaha District. It only took 15 minutes by speedboat-85 between Kampung Sahapikya and Kampung Harapan, we’ve got there at 9 AM, but had to postpone our activity for a couple of hours due to heavy rain. The overall locals were welcomed, they also excited to show us Kampung Karet that will be separated from Kampung Harapan for some reason. I appreciated Mama Vita (one of the locals) who allowed me to pray inside her home, she also held my hand along our walk during the survey, she suggested me to walk slowly to avoid dog and pig’s p*ops which cover almost all road. I remembered it was 2 o’clock when we were ready to get back to our speedboat, there were peoples from neighbor-village (Sahapikya) came to Harapan and brought their archers and knives, long-short story they almost burned the conflict up due to teenage love, Two love birds from different villages fell in love and ran away from their parents, Mama Vita said that it was a common things when family issues might turn into conflict between village. I love drama minus bloody things, luckily, there were locals who asked both family to solve those problem with a light heart. I did not watched the drama until the end but I hope they’ll find their own best way.

So, we went back to Kampung Sahapikya again to take our luggage and had a lunch in Pak KADIS Venaha house. The rest villages were in different river and direction, so got back to Kampung Bade to spend our weekend there so that Alvin, ECe and drivers could go to church on Sunday. The Three hours trip felt short for a short vacation, we arrived on Kampung Bade, Edera District paralleled when the Adzhan Maghrib was called. Pak Heri and Pak Nor had their friends to stop by, but their places could not fitted for the three of patriot, so we decided to sleep in Masjid Al-Huda Bade, I tried to speak with one of Mosque jama’ah, Pak Akbar, who has house inside Mosque complex and he actually a teacher in school besides Mosque, He let me and ECe slept in one room, where he and Alvin slept in another. I got the permission to use his washing machines and he served us with more than enough such as bread, pisang goring, milk, nasi kuning etc. A lesson from pak Akbar to respect and kindly served his guest especially Mushafir without differentiated their religion. These moments really had me, I would love to build “rumah singgah” in my hometown for a family or mushafir to stay there (FREE) at least three days until they could secure financially and safety to find their own places.