West Timor 5 & 6

Expediting Kupang

Day 5: 15th March 2006
This was D-Day. The day we ate and breathed Semen Kupang. Relax..it’s cement. After breakfast, we were all packed onto the lorry, affectionately called the Kijang, and headed to our first home.

After levelling sand on the floor, we then learnt how to mix cement from Pak Budi’s workers, who were there to help us. Duh! Without them, I couldn’t imagine how the whole process would be like.


First you dig the sand.


Then you pour sand to level the floor.


Make sure that every hole is covered.


Then you pour cement.

Respect goes out to the bangla workers. It’s a back-breaking job and well, it’s not healthy to inhale the cement. Anyway, we worked till afternoon..managed to go to the second house even. Just like the first house, we started by digging sand.


Dare you say I am not working?


At the second house, many other villagers had gathered to look at us. I guess by then, we already had our presence felt in Penfui (the village). They were looking at us play volleyball and football during our break. Then, Marinah and I somehow got the village kids together and I taught them how to play dog-and-bone. Honestly, I was proud of myself. Didn’t know I was capable of explaining EVERYTHING in Bahasa Indonesia.


The game got heated when Pak Teoh, one of Pak Budi’s friends, decided to offer monetary reward. You could see parents shouting at their kids to win. Kiasu? Well, this is survival.

Couldn’t really recall what we did that night but one thing for sure, everyone was god damn tired.


xxxxx


Day 6: 16th March 2006
After breakfast, we went back to the 1st cemented house to do the final touch up of adding the top coat. We weren’t of much help as Pak Budi’s workers were the ones who did it for the final layer need a bit of an expertise (which we obviously didn’t have).


Obviously, hard work didnt sit in well with Adrian, who was so injury-prone throughout the trip. Here, he hurt his back while ...erm ... shovelling. :P

After lunch, we got ready for a dialogue session with university students held in a Catholic church.


Posing outside the church: Adrian, Anis (our great helper who became part of SF), Shuxiang, Marinah, meself and Wan.

The students asked us a lot of questions. In Bahasa Indonesia. It was difficult for the rest to understand and therefore Pak Budi had to keep on translating for everyone. Hey..it was hard for me too okay. Their Bahasa Indon was spoken too fast and too erm..cheem.

But anyway, it was great to share insights with other youths. I was only glad to share my culture with the rest. They really had no idea how Singaporeans lived their lives and well, I found that quite humbling. I always thought that Singapore culture is very well-known. I think they also found it amusing that beneath all the modern exterior, we were also just like them.



Dinner time was always the best time for me. Food aside, it was the perfect bonding time for all of us.

Sadly for this night, we had a heated debrief session after dinner. It was bad but well, I was glad that it was soon over and Seedling Fission (the name of our group) still managed to be one single entity.

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