here, there and everywhere

First I thought I’ll have another boring trip to Samarinda, but hhhmmmm I’ve got a funny experience.

It starts when I was on the plane to Balikpapan, on my left side sat an expatriate who’s talking with a mumbling accent to a person in front of him, and on my right side was an empty chair which surprised me cause it supposed to be a peak season.

I didn’t pay any attention of what they are talking about and continue reads Kite Runner, a must read book from Khaled Hosseini, but since I heard they discussed about Muhammadiyah and NU, and the person who sat in front of him gave a wrong perspective about it suddenly I pat his shoulder, interrupt the conversation and start to explained. For sure, it’s not me at all.

But the funny thing is after several minutes’ of discussion I found out that he’s an American born in Texas (that’s why he spoke like a cowboy), works for Chinese Company and based in Balikpapan, and he’s a friend of my half Dutch - Israelian friend who works closely with me in Istanbul, Turkey for Taiwannese Company. And now we met in Jakarta on the way to BPN, ‘we just like UN, he said”.
What a small world.

balikpapan
june 29, 2005
joeffry

breaking the shadow

What a bad coincidence when I must go to Palembang to attend a gov tender while my lovely girl must go back to spore the day after, for sure it vanished my dream to accompany her to the airport, to spent the time ‘till the last minute. But that’s life; you cannot always get what you want. We already spent a month together, and that’s more than enough for long distance relationship like us.

Btw, in Palembang we win more than US$ 250 K tender, although it’s an open tender we still must prepare some under table money for them. What a corrupt country that I lived in, but for sure we cannot avoid that, otherwise ‘till the judgement day we’ll never ever get the tender. It’s an unspeakable rule, TST (Tahu sama Tahu) in Indonesian terms. Sometimes it’s bothering me loads, but as long as I didn’t take any feedback (money or goods) from them, which I always refused, it can help me breath although punctuated by coughs.

And at the end of the tender I got good news from tender committee, they said according to our new gov policy for the next tender they are pushed to implement an e-auction, which is very good for both of us. I don’t need to spend my valuable time to go to Palembang and also I can breathe easily cause this e-auction will eliminate or at least narrowing the corruption / commission possibilities. It’s really a good will from our gov side, 2 thumbs up for SBY … salute, hope u can continued managed this country well.

I had another funny or should I call ironic thing when I had a dinner there. We go to a quite fancy restaurant to try a Palembang’s famous Pindang Ikan, the wall of the restaurant is full by an Arabic calligraphy but they also serve beer and liqueur. What a contradiction, when we ate they have a live music performance sung a Bimbo’s “Sajadah Panjang Terbentang” while my friend dranks a Bintang Beer. For sure we lived in a gray area, there is no black and white anymore.

palembang
june 15, 2005
joeffry

lamunan ... kepastian

lamunan ragu
hanyalah bayangan kelabu
bertangkai kabut semu

melangkahlah
tertatih jauh terlawan dekat menjelang
tepis bisik dan rayuan
pantang surut kebelakang

sendiri anak manusia ragu
berdua kita maju buang yang tak tentu
pasti

djakarta
june 09, 2005
djoeffry

stage 3 clear ...

alhamdulillah ...