The Sharp Root (Part Two)

Part Two

The breeze of morning wind, when the sun just about to give it’s best shot to dry up our land and Gaplek. My mind doesn’t feel calm and steady like the breeze. It goes everywhere trying to figure out what happens. Am I too young to except all of this? No, my friends, in fact all the kids in this village,  realize at the first place that high school is impossible. So, not having high education is something as natural as eating or  taking pee. But for me, I need more time to get use to it.

He cannot afford for the school tuition, find scholarship? Oh, where will I find it. Do I have to go? I do not have any relative outside this village. I need more than guts to do that. If I go, what about father, mother, and the goat. Sell the goat? I wish I could. Father lended some money for my junior  high school. Now everything that I could think of disappeared.

I decided to walk outside. Just walk around, see how the people live and living their dreams on this bared land. The myth, religious side which is no one knows where all the toutghts came from. Everything is done by saying “ the old says”. I love this place, I love the people, but I don’t want to spend all my life to live like them. Can I go to a better place?

The grass field isn’t green anymore. Yesterday the sun burned this land into dry land. The yellow grass, the heat of the sun, but the boy with his goat lays under Randu tree peacefuly. And other boys come one after another. With their goats or just to cut some grass. I sit on the dry grass. Smell of land, grass, and goats mixed and spreaded by the wind. Is it the smell of hope?

“Subur?”

I look up to the kid called my name.

“Wanto, whose goat is that?” he holds a robe which ties the goat’s neck. His family is to poor to have a goat, they even live by being workers for other’s rice field. He tied the goat to the Randu trunk and sits next to me.

“Mang Goder. He can’t feed his goat today, so he paid me to feed him.”

Wanto, he is seven years, and he knows how to make money. In the life like this who needs education if youcan actually survive. But is it enough to survive? Phisically, yes we are all survive. With gaplek or a bit rice if we are lucky but we survive.

“Don’t you want to have your own goat?”

“Of course. Subur, where is your goat. You came here to feed he right?”

“My father will sell her today. He owed som money to Hj. Jamal.”

“Too bad.” Yes, it is too bad.

“Hey, you don’t go to school but you can read right?”

“No, I know money and the number.”

Yes, it is enough for you only to recognize the number of money. Wanto moves to  find more comfortable position. He sits quitely for a while, and says, “what should I need to read. If at the end, I’m stucked here. Bejo went to the city, but look at him now.”

“Oh, Bejo.”  He is a boy three years older than me. He graduated elementary school and two years after, he went to  Bandung to find a job. But then he went back. He failed, he said he worked as a street singer. It is tough to get a job in a big city. And, yes, he can read.

“Subur, I have to bring the goat to another site. Maybe I can find more grass for him.”

Why do we need higher education if we can live by cultivating rice or peanuts. Why do we need higher education if I can survive with gaplek and water? But is it enough? If it is not enough then what do I have to get to make it enough. Being a slum like Bejo?

Wanto smiled at me before he left. I watch him leading the goat to a better place. The place where they can find more grass. His smile showed me that he survives. Yes, he smiled.

The Sharp Root

( I don’t know what it would be, but just posted the part one. Enjoy!)

Part one

Sunlight breaks the grey morning. Will it be rain? People say rain is a bless from God, but for this moment, rain means a curse. Like father, we hope rain is not coming today. This unpredictable weather kills us, father, the villagers, and me.

 

The green bean we thought should have been harvested yesterday , destroyed by a sudden rain. People put all their underwears upon the roofs to keep the day as bright as possible. For the next three days, we have to save this field.  This people rely their income on this green bean, I rely my future on it. If this fails, then I have to wait until next year to go to the senior high school. My parents will send me to Pesantren, but without the money, how could they accept me. Forgive my stupid brain, I cannot have any scholarship, oh wait we have no scholarship in this small world.

 

I see my skinny goat in her cage. She lost her kids, because we can barely find grass, and she has no enough milk to fed her kids. The rain yesterday was a bless for her, but for us, it was a disaster. I smile at this suffer. I smile at her, at least I can find something for her. This smelly creatre is our investment. My parents bought her so they can send me to college. Pesantren, is my first step to work on my scholarship for college.

 

I go to a field, an empty open area, full of grass. Every time I put the wet grass on my bag, I think about how happy my goat will be. “If this harvest fails, I sell you”, I wisper in my heart. If green beans cannto send me to school then the goat has to be fat. This morning, too much grass, I think if it is sunny, I can keep the rest of them. The remnant of dry grass hiding under the green one. After this, I will cut the fetch in the field and fed my goat with it.

 

On the way home, I see the people walk with their bags full of grass. But for who does not have goat or chickens, or ducks, they only can wait. Wait the sun soaks up the water of the field. This poverty sicken me, but for some people, they already get used to it. In 1997, some families sold their daughters to survive the economy crisis. When whatever we sell, nobody would buy.

 

The ground will be so wet when the rain comes and cracks when it comes to dry season. People smile and talk to each other along my way home. Talking about their field, and some talk about they might sell  their daughters. I do grateful we do not have daughter in my family, so we will sell the goat.

“Mentok, mentok, tak kandani, mung rupamu……………”

I sing a song about duck while feeding my goat. I can see my mother sweeps the backyard, where we keep the goat.

“ Thank God, it is sunny day. I can dry gaplek for us.”

Gaplek is food made by dry cassava. We cannot afford rice, or meat. Cassava grows in this hard land. Just like us, we are skinny and dirty to survive this dry land. My mother lives in this poverty  since she was born. But being illetarate does not make her give up on me. I owe my life to my parents. Even when I have to try hard to stay awake in school with my other friends, because we have malnutrition, I will not put my book. This is for them.

“Bu! Come here!” My father calls  my mother. Is time to eat? It is to early, we can only eat twice a day, we cannot eat too early.

“Subur! Let us eat.”

“But it is still early. What about this afternoon?”

“Come here, let’s eat.”

Bale-bale, that is all we have in living room. The bamboo will be creaking when we sit on it. No need glass plates, mother serve the breakfast in a basket. Today breakfast is boiled bananas. We need time until noon to dry the gaplek.

I am starving but I’m always affraid of demanding food. I am the only child, I have to show my parents that i am not a burden. Like now, I eat anything is served for me.

I see my father eats. In certain way he shows nerveouness by his unconcious gestures.

“This are bananas from our back yard? I don’t know father cut them.”

“You were at the grass field when I did it.” He clears the throat.

“Subur, what will you do if we cannot send you to high school?”