To My Mother and My MP

This is something that I wrote for my Mum right from the bottom of my heart

To           : Dr.Ir. Hetifah Sjaifudian, MPP

• Member of the RI (Republic of Indonesia) Parliament
• Mother of Kaca, Amanda, Nilta, and Nahla.
• Wife of Siswanda Harso Sumarto

Dear Mum,

This morning you have been inaugurated as a Member of RI Parliament. It is such a blissful moment. We are delighted to see you achieving success. However, being a Member of Parliament means that you do not only belong to me and the family but you also belong to so 230 millions of Indonesian citizens. Your time and your capacity just like all human beings are limited. I realised that I can’t always be your priority anymore now.

Of course I will not let my egocentric “daughterish” selfishness of always wanting a mother to nurture me, to take care of bits & pieces of everything I need, prevents Indonesia of having one of its brightest citizens to serve its people. After all for all of this time you have proven that balancing concern and struggle for society with commitment for family isn’t something impossible. So whoever stated that women with influential roles in society or efficacious careers have questionable performances as mothers, definitely never know Hetifah Sjaifudian.

I believe making this world and this nation a better place is a vision of many, including both of us. You have the chance of doing such thing in your hand now. Don’t let it go to waste. I plead to you to set me an example how to make this nation a better place. Show me how to lead because that’s one of the most precious things that a mother can ever give to her daughter.

I am very content to have you serving something much larger than myself. It is auspicious to gain the opportunity of sharing such an incredible mother with the people of the nation that she loves.

I know that you will always commit to your memory that our sacrifice of letting you go is within the purpose of ameliorating the condition of this country and I believe within the next 5 years that is exactly what you are going to do. Also remember that in doing so everyone in your family including me will always support you. Your concerns and your struggles are also ours.

For the nation we both love so dearly.

Your daughter,

Amirah Kaca S.

 

A great loss

Saya yakin kebanyakan warga Bandung mengalami sakit hati yang sama seperti saya begitu mengetahui bahwa Babakan Siliwangi akan segera dikomersialisasikan. Saya sudah tidak perlu menuliskan lagi pelanggaran-pelanggaran yang dilakukan oleh pemerintah kota dengan membuat kebijakan ini atau dampak-dampak buruk yang akan terjadi karena sudah banyak orang yang mengetahui hal tersebut. Bahkan bila tidak mengetahui secara pasti, bisa langsung dibayangkan dampak-dampak buruk tersebut.
Tidakkah aneh bila seorang pengambil kebijakan di kota sebesar Bandung tidak bisa menyadari kebutuhan warganya? Para ahli tata kota, lingkungan, sosial yang ingin ikut serta membicarakan hal ini atau ingin mencari informasi dihalang-halangi (saya tahu dari seseorang). Apakah kurang jelas bahwa dampak buruk lingkungan yang akan terjadi tidak sebanding dengan pendapatan yang akan diterima pemerintah dari investasi (kalau Bandung jadi hancur karena banjir dan air habis apa masih ada yang mau investasi!!!!)? Apakah kurang jelas juga bahwa warga lebih membutuhkan ruang terbuka yang inklusif dibandingkan dengan mall yang sudah tidak terhitung lagi jumlahnya? Saya rasa pejabat-pejabat kota Bandung tidak sebodoh itu.. Sepertinya mereka tidak melakukan ini untuk kesejahteraan warganya dan tentu saja ada aspek politis dari isu ini. Mengapa walikota kita menahan izin pembangunan di babakan siliwangi saat periode pemilu walikota, tetapi setelah terpilih kembali dan dilantik, langsung memberikan izin? I think we all can see clearly what happened. I guess people can do anything for power, even if it means the destruction of others..
PS: Saya sudah lihat bahwa banyak teman-teman saya yang menuliskan tentang Babakan Siliwangi di blog mereka. Saya rasa kita semua peduli dan sedih akan hal yang sama.

By the way, you can read about my Mum’s opinion on this issue here

 

Printing 3200 Photos

Yesterday (09/09/2007) I spent almost 7 hours in the “Seni Abadi” photo studio which is a small (not exactly small, but smaller than Jonas) located in the corner of Jl. Merdeka and Jl…. (I forgot) and next to the railway. Let’s follow my day chronologically:

I came to the photo studio at about 12 pm, sat down at the digital photo section which was on the left of the entrance door, talked to a smiling lady who welcomed me right away and asked her how much is it to print some picture. She told me that it was Rp.800 for each 3R (postcard) photo printed. I asked her to give me at a lower rate. She insisted that she couldn’t give a lower price, still with a smiling face, and said they only give lower price to special customers.

“I will print more than 1000 photos.”, I told her.

She paused and get the manager right away.

After a negotiation with the manager of the store, I got the price that I wanted… Firstly he gave me Rp.750,00, I asked for less.. He then give me Rp.600,00, I asked for Rp.500,00… and it was a deal right away.. =D

My job doesn’t stop there, because in my laptop I have so many photos that my Dad asked me to print, and they weren’t sorted. My next job was to sort out those pictures. It was meant to be really a tedious job staring staring at the computer screen for that long time, along with one of the staff there, sorting out the photos like deleting blurred ones and fixing red eyes and choosing each ones, but it wasn’t really. I got to have some flashbacks of “my life with my family” for the past four years and realising that my Dad SLR camera actually came into use (I kept thinking Daddy bought that thousand dollar SLR camera to look cool because he doesn’t knows much about photography – sorry Dad =P). I got to laugh together with the staff seeing my sisters making funny faces camera and had fun sharing stories about our family holiday skiing at Mt.Buller, Melbourne and my parents’ “2nd honeymoon” in Cambodia & Bangkok (in which they didn’t get any of us to come, sight), and the renovating of my grandmother’s house in a village at Klaten, and so on. Hours passed with a headache and hurting eyes for staring at the computer screen for song long and lots of fun.

I am glad finally about my Dad’s little obsession on documenting events. We sometimes get embarassed when our Dad kept insisting to stop and take photos so often on so many occassions, but hey it’s all worth it. Seeing those photos again make me tremendously happy to feel all the memories of what we had been through this time and realise how precious all those time we spent together (even though I somehow get irritated to realise how hideous I used to look 4 years ago).

One time my Dad asked me and Amanda (my sister), “If the house burnt down, what would you save first?”

We answered, “Money, passport, important documents, expensive electronics etc etc”

Then my Dad said, ” No, what you are supposed to save first are photos and other products of memories. Money you can regain, Important documents you can remake, expensive electronics you can rebuy. However, photos and other things with a value that cannot be found anywhere else cannot be regain..”

Fair enough, now I remember what to save fist when our house is on fire: My postcard and letter collection from friends, scrapbook made by my Aussie friends along with other albums, last not least the book “To Kill a Mockingbird” ( I will want to save the whole shelves if possible though)

 

Another story about shoes

A few days ago, I was cleaning my stack of shoes and realised that I do own plenty of shoes, but then again I realised, that more than half of the amount I’ve got in there are broken… What? What? What? I don’t know what’s exactly wrong with me but I really want to know why my shoes don’t last very long.. it doesn’t matter whether I buy the shoes for 30.000 at Kota Kembang/Gasibu or 200.000 from Metro… It’s always the same case.. My shoes don’t last…

Sadly, I 10 to 12 pairs of shoes that can be catagorized as broken. After throwing out those pairs, I decided that I deserved to buy some new shoes. Luckily, last night my lovely Mum agreed to go shopping at Metro.. I was glad to find that it was 20% off most items in there… I couldn’t be more happy except for the fact that I couldn’t choose which pair I actually want. I have a rule that you need at least one white, one black, one brown and one coloured pair of shoes. At this moment I only had a few coloured ones, no black, no brown and no white shoes. I was facing a dilema between choosing black, white or brown shoes.. After hours and hours looking around… I decided to pick a new pair of black shoes..

I was happy enough until when I got home and looked at the receipt I realised… THEY WEREN’T ON DISCOUNT… I could have got other pair for cheaper (sight)…