Me and People I’ve Met Today

My watch show it already 21.29 WIB, I decide to grab a taxi from office to Sudirman Station. Due to all day long Jakarta has been heavy rain I thought I can take a shortcut considering train schedule is only on 22.03 and 23.00.

I take on TransCab on 21.32. The driver quite friendly, his name is Suyanto. I think his age is 40 something, coming from small village in Bondowoso. He has been in Jakarta around 15 years, driving from one to another vehicle. “I can only driving, miss, I have no other skill,” he said. He starts driving starting from around 12.00 until dawn around 04.00.

“If I may know, where is the pool?” I ask.

“In Cibinong, miss, I lived there too.”

I nodded.

Conversation then moved about his family. After two years in Jakarta, he married a woman then decided to stay.

“You can speak Javanese?” I ask politely.

“Oh, I speak Maduranese, miss. At home I also speak Maduranese with my wife and children.”

“Oh, so your wife Eastern Javanese also? Can coming back together then I suppose.”

He laughs….

“My wife is native, Betawi,” he said with still a bit laugh.

I wonder….

“So she can speak Maduranese?”

“I teach her. I want her also can teach our child speak Maduranese.”

Why?

Then he speaks about his anxiety on the urbanization in the big city.

“It’s like they forget their roots. Too long live in Jakarta then forgot due to high cost to return, their kids lose their roots. I want my kids know where they come from, though I can’t bring them back to the village, their origins. Therefore I make them used with Madura culture, where I was born.”

22.05, and yet the train not coming.

This remind me with my students was. Much of them coming from Javanese but only few can speak barely with Javanese language even with the simplest word. Jakarta’s relation, study in the international school. And at home? Their parents were too busy to teach them their mother language. Or even, these kids rose by maid or nurse, to make it worst, raised by television. It could be television series (sinetron) with slang language raised them every day.

Sad, isn’t it?

When I open the door, Mr. Suyanto said, “Be careful miss, hope you have a nice day.”

Hopefully, Mr. And I will careful to raise my children so they not cut loose their root culture. So they understand where they come from.

Thank you, Sir. I learn something new tonight. Thank you God.

Shalihah S Prabarani, 23 Januari 2015