On Saturday afternoon, September 4th 2010 I went to Bank Mandiri museum in Kota Tua for breakfasting with Indonesia Historian Community, KHI. I went there with my son Rio, along with my twin students Panji and Pandu. After arriving soon we were in meeting room located in the museum. We watched movies about old Jakarta or Jakarta Tempo dulu of the year of 19 17, 1937 and 1941. In that year Jakarta was a good city under the Dutch colonialism. The roads were clean, not as crowdie as nowadays. Now Jakarta is a thickly populated and packed urban city . A metropolitan city the people can best say. There were trams for the public transportation in those days. The Japanese colonialism ruined all those. They were two types of trams, one is for the Dutch people and the other for the Pribumi or irlander. It is normal that the Pribumi was the second citizen that time though they own the country. Its colonialism!! In the movie I can see the Lapangan Banteng or Lapangan Singa, old church, and the parks with beautiful statues, standing nicely in old Jakarta. All those buildings and statues were also destroyed by the Japanese during World War II.
After watching movies we had a good discussions about histories and other matters, which are actually hot issues in this country. While we had the discussions some needy and street children entered the room. We stopped our discussions for a while to allow them to come in and sit nicely on the front chairs in the room. They were invited as the purpose of this meeting is to give donation to those children in order to celebrate the coming Idul Fitri festival.
The person who led the discussion is Asep Kambali, use to be called Kang Asep. He is the founder of KHI, Indonesia Historian Community. It is nice to listen and talk with him. I know him personally. Now the time for breakfasting came. So we stopped our discussions and started to break our fasting. First we start having fruits cocktails, dates and water. Panji and Pandu helped to distribute the drinks to the children. After that Kang Asep announced that we will give them donation. The donations were received from the different donators and the KHI members. After making brief speech, he distributed the donations to those dhuafas. Rio, Panji and Pandu also helped him in distributing donations.
We continued with our dinner, next we were having rice. The menu was a Japanese food; rice, salad, and special fried chicken. All food were tasted delicious and yummy when we were too much hungry. So everybody enjoyed with the meals.After breakfasting we went for shalat magrib (evening prayer). I went to mushalla, the place for praying, it is at the back part and on the ground floor of the museum. Upon my enquiry, the security guided me to the mushalla . The museum is rather spooky to me. Frankly speaking I was too much scared, so that I went back to the meeting room, and asked for anyone to accompany me to mushalla. Luckily some other members of KHI were going to pray too, so I joined them, and the elevator took us down the place where I prayed. Alhamdulillah I can cope with the fasting. Little more days it will be Idul Fitri, the festival which the Muslims all over the world celebrate with fervor.
The kids already back to the meeting room and I hurried too. I went back to the meeting room alone. In the elevator I pressed the wrong button and the door opened to an empty and dark room. I was in horror, hurried back into the lift and tried to press the right button and finally I did, and thank God I was in the meeting room without any harm. I write this story so that I can remember… that being too much scary of things is not good but I can’t help it. To tell the truth I’m scared for being alone...hiyyyy
Back to the meeting room I saw many people coming in. Those people came to join Kota Tua Night Trail. First, They will go around and explore the Bank Mandiri museum. After that they will go around Kota Tua, Jakarta old town. How nice! They will have a good time for that. Too bad I can’t join them tonight coz Panji and Pandu will have a family gathering that night . Well it’s ok. I can do it some other time...maybe next year...I hope Allah will give me another chance. Knowing that I will not join the night trails I better ask permission to Kang Asep and other KHI members. I have to tell my reason why I’m not joining the next activities after breakfasting. The night trails will start at 7:30 till 10 pm or more, so I decided better to go home.
It was a lovely evening. Discussing about history and sharing with the needy on the holy month of Ramadan …. I love those all….I hope I can do it next year…Insha Allah…
Jakarta, 6 September 2010
By: Sita Rahmah and Son
