Anak TK di Bld ngumpulin duit buat korban tsunami

Cerita nih, Aylian, adiknya Astrid, 4 th, sekolahnya hari Jumat nanti akan mengadakan acara buat fund raising. Sekolahnya mau ngumpulin dana buat disumbangkan ke sebuah sekolah yatim piatu (panti asuhan + sekolah) di India yg jadi korban tsunami.

Caranya gini: anak2 itu dan gurunya akan jalan muterin lapangan sekolah (dlm 1.5 hrs). Seminggu sebelumnya anak2 itu diterangin di sekolah, trus ortunya dikasih surat. Ada formulir yg hrs diisi, anak2 itu disuruh nyari sponsor. Sponsor maksudnya org2 yg mau ngasih duit, tiap putaran anak itu jalan dia mau ngasih berapa.

Trus hari Jumat nanti, orang2 tua diminta bantuannya untuk hadir, mbantuin ngasih minum / makanan dan ngasih stempel di tangan anak2, serta memberi semangat. Jadi tiap satu putaran tangan anak2 itu dikasih 1 stempel. Nanti di akhir dihitung berapa stempel. Trus dia keliling lg ke sponsornya, nagih duitnya.

Aku terus terang aja kagum sama idenya. Maksudku, anak2 itu biarpun sekecil itu sdh diajarin buat 'do something to get the money', 'earn money'. And not money for themselves but buat disumbangkan.

Satu lg, salah satu channel TV yg milik pemerintah, NL 3, punya acara berita buat anak2. Jadi ya berita, tp dlm bhs untuk anak2. Si Aylian ini meskipun nggak ngerti seutuhnya, tp sejak hari pertama kejadian tsunami udah ngerti apa yg terjadi.

Barcelona is beautiful!!!

Barcelona is beautiful! Aku ke sana tgl 30, sampai di rumahnya Audra udah jam 8 malam kira2. 31 pagi oom Hong pulang ke Jkt.

31 siang, aku jalan2 di La Rambla. Ini jalan plg terkenal di Barcelona. Pedestrian tuh jalannya di tengah2, lebar. Ada yg banyak 'patung hidup', 'bird market', etc. Isinya turis melulu.

Malam thn baru, kami diundang makan di rumah mertuanya Audra. Senang punya kesempatan liat tradisi Spanyol menyambut tahun baru, kan langka tuh kesempatan mengalami sendiri. Tgl 1-nya lunch di rumah kakaknya Guillem. Org Spanyol tuh jadwal makannya telat bgt, makan siang sekitar jam 3 dan makan malam not earlier than 10pm. Kalau pesta kayak thn baru gini, makannya sekitar 2 jam lamanya. Pokoknya makan sampai kekenyangan bgt deh.

Tgl 2 Jan, first Sunday of the month, Museum Picasso gratis masuknya. Even though I'm not a big fan of paintings, but namanya jg gratis ... ke sanalah aku. Nggak banyak ngerti sih, tulisan2nya jg cuma sedikit yg ada English-nya. Abis dr sana aku jalan2 aja, sempat nyasar (cukup memalukan krn aku bawa peta:p) tp nyasarnya ke nice place kok:) Trus aku wander di daerah kota tua. Masuk ke Katedral.

Gereja di Spain modelnya beda dg di Bld or di Italy. Hiasan2 yg bikin 'wow' itu bukan di interiornya, tp di architecturenya. Segala rupa detil2nya. Di atasnya tempat choir itu kayu2nya penuh ukiran. etc etc.

Tgl 3 Jan, aku ke La Sagrada Familia. Architect nya Gaudi. A real must see if you're ever be in Barcelona. Project ambisius. Megah bgt. Gaudi itu architect hebat, aku bisa blg. Dia ngerjain semua perhitungannya sendiri. Trus berdasarkan beban yg hrs disangga, dia menentukan
material yg digunakan buat tiap bagian gereja. Jadi gerejanya itu materialnya beda2 di tiap tempat. Ada tiang yg dr bahan yg satu, sedang tiang yg lain dr bahan yg lain lg.

Tgl 4 sih aku di rumah aja, kerja. Tgl 5 nya pulang ke Bld pagi2 buta. Di jalan sempat kaget pas jam 12 kereta berhenti, 3 minutes silence. Diumumin sih, tp aku nggak ngerti alasannya. Ternyata seluruh Uni Eropa berhenti tepat tengah hari, mengheningkan cipta buat tragedi
tsunami.

Satu hal yg bikin aku merenung liat gereja2 di sana: bangunan2 megah ini, seberapa banyakkah fungsinya? Apakah hanya obyek wisata? Katedralnya msh digunakan, ada jadwal misa yg terpampang. La Sagrada bangunannya blm selesai, pembangunannya udah dimulai dr 1882. Apa gunanya sbg gereja? Apakah hanya sbg proyek mercusuar?

Menurut Tante Hing n Audra, di Spanyol gereja isinya hanya org2 tua. Aku blg di Bld jg. Tp menurut Tt Hing, dia pernah ke gereja di Bld dan msh lbh banyak org mudanya dibanding gereja di Spain. Well, I'm in no position to say, fact is: in Europe people are turning their back to
God, and that's very sad.

Aku trenyuh baca berita ttg aksi2 sosial di Bld buat korban2 tsunami. gimana mereka ngumpulin duit buat disumbangkan ke sana. Aku dpt high priority emails dr university & dr department, sbg org Indonesia, mrk merasa perlu tahu apakah aku baik2 aja. Sempat terpikir sih: andaikan aku kuliah di Indonesia dan aku org Aceh, akankah pihak universitas bertanya apakah aku selamat?

Horse Riding 3

Just got home from horse riding lesson. I was riding on Nina. Quite suspicious when Daphne said she'll saddle her (not that she'll help me saddle her.) Fact is: Nina is quite a young horse and doesn't like people in the stabble. I was not even allowed to come to her stabble.

Nina is so much different with Zeddam, more like Ricky. I have to use a whip, in case she doesn't obey my kick. She's beautiful actually, white horse (oops, Daphne will correct me: she's not a horse, she's a pony - but ah, boeie, I'm Indonesian, she's a horse :D). So many things to remember: Nina doesn't like to ride alone, she must stay close to another horse. Nina and Hem (?) doesn't like each other, Nina can ride behind Hem but not in front of Hem. Nina is quite lazy, when we took a break, she lower her head so low that Daphne ordered me to kick, otherwise she might lay down on the sand. Finally I stayed behind Vienna - the granny, she's 25.

Oh ya, one progress: I managed to jump to Nina without help! woehoe!

At a certain point, there was a 'chaos'. Mizuki was riding on Organza. Somehow they managed to scare each other. I'm not kidding, they scared each other, and then, they scared others. I didn't know what happened to others (of course, I was busy with Nina), but this is what happened to me: my butt was not on Nina, it was hanging on her left, my legs were still in the 'beugel' (what's the english word? itu, tempat naruh kaki), I held the range (tali kekang, dutch: teugel) dearly. But I survived, so as others, nobody fell down.

Then Daphne ordered Mizuki and Kirsten to change horses. Then again, Kirsten was quite nervous and even though they didn't scared others, they rode on their own, as if Kirsten was not able to control Organza. Then Darryl rode on Organza and he was good on her.

Horse Riding 2

Kalau minggu lalu aku naik Ricky, Kamis lalu aku naik Zeddam. I didn't need to saddle this time as another girl was riding him before me. Zeddam is BIG! And he was quite different than Ricky. Zeddam is quite a typical 'manage' horse, he'll do whatever the horse in front of him does, even before I told him to do so. At a certain point it just seems that I don't need to give him instructions (unless to keep him from chasing other horse's tail :p)

Let me tell you about how Zeddam is different with Ricky. First of all, Ricky is quite stubborn, he's quite lazy. Whenever we're trotting, after a certain time (he decides), he started to walk. And when I want to start trotting, I have to kick him very hard - quite difficult to get it hard enough. With Zeddam, when he saw the other horses started to trot, he just start to trot - he doesn't even wait for me to kick him. Ricky is quite a chicken, he got scared easily, that's why we can only jump on (or jump off) him in the corner, when no other horse is nearby). Zeddam on the other hand, is quite afraid of his blanket, Simone told me because once his previous owner sent his blanket to a 'penatu' and apparantly Zeddam was allergic to the washing liquid they use.

So, in conclusion, Zeddam is much bigger than Ricky, but I feel safer on Zeddam (except when at a certain moment he kicked the horse behind him - it was quite scary though, and as I know myself, I just went mute.)

I think I managed to stand and sit better than last week, kali ini nggak sakit2 pantat. Far from perfect, but I see a progress.