For me, an Indonesian who has never gone to Merauke, hearing their story about the border regency in Indonesia is like hearing about the splendor of the New York metropolis.
By
Agustinus Wibowo
·5 minutes read
AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
Mrs Singai (yellow shirt) while teaching in Tais, Papua New Guinea.
As a rule, school starts at 8 a.m. and ends at noon. But no one — including Mrs. Singai, the only teacher in this remote village on the southern coast of West Province, Papua New Guinea (PNG) — has a watch.
However, Mrs. Singai knows the right time to start the class: after cooking cassava at home and when the sun is already high enough. She then goes around the village and shouts to call her students. The children then follow her like a line of ducks to the school building at the end of the village. Without a watch, Mrs. Singai also knows when to end class, namely, if most of the students are already loudly whining with hunger or her own stomach is growling.
Mrs. Singai thinks it would be nice if she could split the class. The 50 students in this village are all under her responsibility. The school building, which is made of wooden slats and walled with tree bark, is divided into two rooms. One room is for kindergarten and the other is for grades 1 and 2.
When Mrs. Singai teaches the younger students sitting on the sandy ground or on woven palm-leaf mats to spell A-B-C-D, the older students in the next room scream and stumble and run out of the classroom. When Mrs. Singai goes into the next room, which has only six tables and swaying wooden benches to calm the big students, it is the little students\' turn to scream and cry when the centipedes crawled on the ground in their classroom.
***
That day, Mrs. Singai invited me to the class and introduced me as a markai (white man) who came from the neighboring country, Indonesia. Most of the students were afraid of me.
I started by asking, “What is your dream?”
AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
Classroom atmosphere in a school in Tais, Papua New Guinea.
Mrs. Singai, dressed in a gown and in flip-flops, translated my question from English into the local Na. Not a single child answered.
"What do you want to do when you grow up?" I repeated.
There was still no answer from the students, who were all barefoot. My questions were like a stone thrown into the bottom of a lake.
"They have no dreams," said Mrs. Singai disappointedly. "In our education system, these students have been thwarted by their own parents."
Finally, Mrs. Singai on behalf of her students answered my question, “We want to go to Indonesia. We want to learn Malay.”
She then told her students at length that Indonesia is a great country that can make anything: clothes, trucks, food, airplanes; whereas here they cannot make anything because they do not study and do not work hard.
It was only after that, one by one, the oldest school students (second-grade elementary school, but the age is equivalent to junior high school students in our country) raised their hands and told me their dream: to become a pilot, or a driver, or a doctor or a journalist who could travel to see the world.
***
Mrs. Singai herself had never seen Merauke, Papua. She only heard about Merauke from her husband who had been there several times.
That day, I sat on the bench of the family house of Singai Suku, Mrs. Singai\'s husband who was the head of Tais village. We talked about Merauke, their dreamland.
“If you go to Merauke, then you will see a very good place, very good. It\'s not just about cars and tall buildings, where everyone is busy working, producing something. There, women from Java work on the fields from morning until noon, then after having lunch, they return to work in the fields until dusk. You won\'t see someone as diligent as them here," Singai said.
AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
Grade I and II students at a school in Tais, Papua New Guinea.
Singai is the fattest man in this village. He wears flip-flops only on his left foot because his right sandal has been missing for years. Though it is already blackened, the one sandal reflects a higher social status than the people in the village, who are mostly barefoot.
“I have seen and understood Merauke,” Singai said proudly.
He then drew a circle in my notebook.
"This is the city of Merauke, the center, where tall buildings are located."
Then, he drew another circle encircling the first circle.
"This is a half-city area."
Then the big circle that encircles the previous circle.
“And this is the village. Look how smart they are in organizing the city!”
"Next time you must take me there," Mrs. Singai said in awe.
"Certainly. I will show you how smart the people of Merauke are,” Singai answered.
For me, an Indonesian who has never gone to Merauke, hearing their story about the border regency in Indonesia is like hearing about the splendor of the New York metropolis.
Last year, Singai Suku had the opportunity to go to Merauke and returned home with venison jerky.
