This part of the program just become the one of best memories I ever had.. I had gone to several villages before about four times, three times when I was in senior high school and one time when I was first year university student. The four village-visits I joined before were social visits. That’s why the houses that I lived in the four villages were unsophisticated: there was a house which the bathroom was located beside cowshed and there was a house which had an open-air bathroom.. But, in Papitusulem I got good facilities even better than facilities in UM 😛
Let me start telling the precious memory from the very beginning…
Briefing
The briefing took place on Thursday, 7th July 2011 about 9pm near Kolej cafeteria. Ms. Leena explained some activities that we would do in the Homestay. I just remembered a few activities that actually were canceled: taking a bath at the river (wow!), eating nasi somewhat (I think the name was Nasi Krawu..am I right? ), seeing firefly, and dancing Poco-Poco (I learned this dance on elementary school 😛 ). For joining those activities, we were asked to bring several things mentioned in the checklist. Two important things that I didn’t have were torch lamp and mosquito repeller. Well I just hate mosquito as well as walking in the night without light. I thought I had a kind of trauma with walking in the night without light…
Preparation
My ITB friends and I went to mini market and bookstore at Perdanasiswa building while Fang and Lawrence went outside the campus. My ITB friends and I reached Perdanasiswa building by walking.. kinda far, right? I bought Panadol at mini market and torch lamp at the book store Pekan Buku. The torch lamp was quite expensive, but I still bought it because I really needed it. We only found one mosquito repeller and no one wanted to buy the last one. Dea bought about 10 roll of tissue and she gave me one roll. Thank you Dea 🙂
We came back to Kolej 10 with a taxi because we were tired of walking 
Before 11 am, Fang, Dea, and I leaved our rooms together. Chee Lit were helping Fang bringing her luggage when Dea and I realized that our ITB male friends should help us also. Haha.. Maybe the-women-empowerment-day made our ITB male friends thought that women were as strong as men. 
Trip to Papitusulem
We from AOTULE program had our own bus together with our facilitators. As usual, I took a seat beside Dea, but the chair beside Dea was broken so I took a seat beside Tika. During the trip, there was a movie showed, a super irrational movie that made me laugh a lot. Tika woke up because hearing me laugh. How can’t I laugh… the movie translated baby (means darling) into bayi ! 
I captured this photo inside the bus
About 1 or 2 pm, the bus stopped.. giving us time to have lunch and pray. Actually Dea and I had our lunch before, so we just went to mini market, masjid, wandering around, and buying mosquito repeller on the drugstore. Andreas, Syamsudin, Dea, and I went back to the bus while waiting for our friends. We had some chit-chat in Indonesia when the bus driver suddenly told us that he came from Indonesia, to be specific: Java (maybe Surabaya). He said like this (PS: sorry, I don’t have a strong recall 
): “saya merantau ke sini karena dihina oleh paman dan tante. Saya dulu tak punya apa-apa tapi sekarang saya punya bisnis transportasi” (translated: I came here because I was insulted by my uncles and aunties. I was poor but now I had my own transportation business). He mentioned that he already had about 4 buses (CMIIW). He could fund his siblings and his children’s education fees. Good luck, Pak Cik! 😀
The bus continued moving, Ridhwan joined into our bus, Tika moved to the seat in front of me, and Chee Lit take a seat beside me. “It’s ok if I sit here?” Chee Lit asked. Yes, Chee Lit.. I won’t bit you like crocodiles and snakes bit people in the movie. As the bus moved, the first movie ended and the second movie showed. The second movie was a Thailand movie.. a good one but I can’t remember the title. The movie started with a super-comel-girl playing with a giant and the entire people in the bus said “cuteeeeee!”.
Arrival
Jowo Ketoro
We had an arrival ceremony at a gathering place in the village. The villagers gave us Rosella drink, cakes and kacang hijau aka green beans. I was surprised because the villagers could speak Javanese. “Your foster parents can’t talk in English.. ” said someone from UM (maybe Ms. Leena) then I heard a loud laughter behind me… (Quiz: who did laugh a loud?).
On the arrival ceremony, we were called one by one and assigned as foster children to villagers. I was waiting and waiting for a calling but my name wasn’t called. Huhu. There was something wrong.. I was supposed to have same home with Dea, Chisato, and a lot of boys. But Dea’s name was printed twice then they thought Chisato was the only girl who stayed with such a lot of boys and they moved Chisato. I was left.. I was just like “Putri yang Ditukar” 
But fortunately, Ms. Leena said that I could stay with her, together with Ms. Tay, Ms. Mas, Mila, and Tika. The house we stayed was just near the boys’ house. We got a lot of people staying in a group of houses. The house we stayed had an air conditioner, a television, and a refrigerator. Aaaaa, so happy 
First Day Activities
Photo at Paddy Field
We (females) reached the house using foster parent’s car but our male friends walked, hehe. Soon after arriving at the house, Tika and Mila asked me to help the foster parent preparing dinner. But the foster parent reject it..hue. Our males friends were busy picking, spliting, and eating coconut and we decided to join them.
After eating coconut, we wandered around the paddy field and went back when we heard adzan maghrib. After maghrib, we had dinner together, using our hand to eat, no spoon. The food was good, better than Kolej food 😛
Then we spent our night taking jumping photos and playing game. The game was introducing ourselves using body movements and all of us must repeat those names with the same body movements. This game helped us to remember our friend’s name 🙂 Because we were tired after this game, we rejected Mahmood’s request to play more game. Tika, Mila, and I watch television before we went to slept. I shared a bed with Tika. Mila used a bed near the television (and also near the air conditioner).
Second Day Activities
We had breakfast before doing our activities. The foster parent prepared noodle (or nasi lemak, I forget) for us. Then a truck came to picked us. We went to a somewhere using the truck together.. so interesting! During the trip, we waved our hands to people we met and I listened to Mila’s singing “Ku Tak Sanggup” 😀
Dea and I did Kayaking
The truck stopped, I saw a river with several boats. Wow.. we would do kayaking! I never tried kayaking before. I got Dea to be my partner in kayaking 🙂 While waiting for our turn, accidentally I dropped my left slipper to the river. Hua 
After being “Putri yang Ditukar”, I was just like Cinderella who lost her left slipper 😦 Lucky me, Guangkai helped to take the slipper using a paddle… Thank you Guangkai. You were the hero of the day 🙂
Kayaking was not as easy as I thought, we had to keep our balance and movement. Dea and I used our voices to synchronize our movement: “left-right-left-right”. After kayaking, we used another boat to go around the river and take some photos… Before afternoon, the truck brought us to cookies house. We saw how villager made cookies and tasted some cookies 
I found several kinds of cookies that also sold in Indonesia. Malaysia and Indonesia had a lot of similarity in food. I bought some cookies and got discount! Terima kasih 🙂
After buying some cookies, we went back to house. My foster dad asked me to bring the food from inside to outside the house. He asked in Javanese 
just like this: “nduk, rewangi ibune nggowo panganan nang njobo” (daughter, help mom bringing the food outside the house). After bringing the food with Chee Lit’s and Bai’s help, the foster dad asked me again in Javanese, “wis dipindah panganane?” (have you moved the food). I answered, “sampun” (done). “Lek wis rampung, koncone ajak mangan” (if you finished moved it, tell your friends to eat). Ok guys, lunch time!!!
While taking the food, Chee Lit said “do you know that this fish in the food were a kind of fish that we saw in the river?”. “Hah? Which river?” I surprised. “The river where we did kayaking,” said Chee Lit. Wew, what a multipurpose river! Just wondering if I didn’t take my slipper, would the fish eat my slipper? 
#wild-imagination (but FYI, Tika had wilder imagination 😛 )
We had a break time after lunch until afternoon. Mila, Tika, and I watched bollywood movie inside the house. Hahaha. After watching television, our foster parent took us to the beach nearby. The beach was not so good but we had fun there, especially Yusuke who used mud for natural-facial! We wrote our names in the sand and took photos there 🙂
Cute Girls feat Mahmood
Yusuke's Facial Treatment
Hwang-Shui-Fang-Chisato-Guangkai-Kohei at The Beach
At the evening, we ate roasted corn together then had BBQ time while watching a traditional wedding ceremony. The groom, the bride, and the bridesmaid were Taiwanese students who also had student exchange program in UM . Yusuke was asked to be the best man of the wedding which mean he had to stand for several hours beside the groom with no break to eat. The BBQ was delicious, poor Yusuke :p
In the traditional wedding, there was traditional performance, Pencak Silat. Guest who want to congratulate the bride and the groom had to do several steps: giving a kind of leaves to bride and groom, giving yellow rice to bride and groom, throwing yellow rice to the back, splash water to bride and groom, and finally shaking hands. Guest who congratulated the bride and groom got the souvenir 🙂
My Beloved UM Friends and I - this photo was taken by our foster dad
The Bride and The Groom
The Souvenirs
After the artificial traditional wedding, we went back to our house. Since Ms. Leena had to bring Gu Yun to get some medicine (Gu Yun got allergy at the time 😦 ), we had some conversation while waiting for Ms. Leena coming with the key. The conversation was interesting, we talked about music. It was started with a discussion about Hotel California song then moved to another countries’ songs. “Every time I hear this song, I want to cry,” said Mahmood before playing a mp3 Parsi’s song. Then Mahmood sang a song. But I felt sleepy so I left the conversation. It was about 12 pm.
Third Day Activities
This was the last day staying in Papitusulem (we want more! we want more! hehe). In the morning, our foster parent prepared breakfast for us. The breakfast was nasi lemak (or noodle, I forget :P). Some boys really woke up late. Haha. Someone told that those boys had conversation until very late in the night. I wondered what they talked about…
At Fish Pond
After having breakfast, we went to a coconut farm to drink and eat fresh coconut Then we walked to fish ponds that were not really clean. Ahaha. There we saw fishes in the ponds (of course!). I tried to feed the fishes then I saw Mahmood and Ridhwan were trying to catch fishes. Ridhwan got a fish. Mahmood tried but failed. Mahmood tried again but failed again. Ridhwan told Mahmood how to catch a fish. Mahmood tried and Ms. Leena called. We should go back to house. If there was a lot of time, I would like to try catching fish, too. Hehe 😀
Ms. Leena vs Yagoub
It was raining when we arrived at the house. But the rain couldn’t stop us to buy ice cream, hehe 😀 After the rain stopped, some friends played traditional games. I didn’t join them because I was kinda tired. Then I took photos of them.
So everything that has a beginning, must has an ending… our foster parent sent us back to the gathering place we first came to had a closing ceremony. Huhu.. But, I asked my foster parent address and phone number so I could keep in touch with them 🙂 My foster dad said, “salam kanggo wong tua” (give my greeting for your parent). Ah, I didn’t even live one house with my parent.. but I would tell my parent when I meet them. Thank you, Pak Cik Nan 🙂
With Foster Dad
It seemed that we came too early at the gathering place. We had to wait but we could eat the food they prepared. Haha. While waiting for another friends, Tika accompanied me to bought cookies again. Then we took some photos with Taiwanese students. When taking photos, I just learnt a new word “kimochi” from Yusuke. Kohei told me that kimochi mean feeling good. But I was not feeling good to hear the word. Haha..the meaning should be “feeling good” instead of feeling good. 
At closing ceremony, each country had a representative to give some speech.. Dea was giving the speech to represent us from Indonesia, hehe. You were awesome, Dea! The closing ceremony ended. Before went into our bus and leaved Papitusulem, villagers gave us souvenir: a bag with cookies inside. Terima kasih 🙂
We really leaved Papitusulem. Sad 😦 But I must be grateful because the Homestay’s schedule was moved so I could join the Homestay Program. If the schedule wasn’t moved to one week earlier, I won’t have such a great memory in Papitusulem 🙂
Later I’ll tell why I might not be able to join the Homestay if the schedule wasn’t moved..
… to be continued…
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rest-cycle bin 