ola 2014.
yet another wet beginning of the year. for the second year in a row. splendid. only this time we still have electricity. and the road right in front of our gate is still quite dry. no safety boats and make-shift-rafts going back and forth carrying refugees. but we are pretty much isolated.
last year i didn’t see it coming at all. one morning i woke up and yaick, the house was already surrounded by flood water, electricity had been cut, no tv, no news, no telephone.
there were not much that i could do at that time so it appeared that i was going through all that quite calmly. but actually it was a really traumatic experience. being cut out from the world, worrying all the time about hygiene and stuffs, constantly running out out water and candle sticks, doing nothing, and finally doing something which was escaping the neighborhood with lusia. but even that escape was a lil bit traumatic too, getting to the highway on a very unreliable-raft-made-of-bathroom-door (from my neighborhood this highway was the only accessible road to somewhere dry), the yucky flood water that we had to plow through, the highway fence that we had to climb. Actually on hindsight they were pretty cool, something that i could brag about, not everyday i could climb a highway fence and get away with it, right :D. but please..so yucky and there was also the uncertainty that anyone would pull over and let our wet selves get into their car or cab (yes, instead of calling SAR boat we chose to hitch-hiked haha; oh yea we didn’t have phone connection so that’s the reason why). anyway we managed to get a cab.
this year is different. actually the neighborhood is still quite relatively dry, and this flood is not that 5-year-cycle flood that the people of Jakarta dreads. but in several areas in Jakarta the flood has been going on for more than a week, and still there is no sign of letting up. and everyday the cloud is haunting us, moreover the news of this and that flood gate being opened really get to my nerve. last year when i got out of the flood i was quite surprised at people’s indifference, then i understood that parts of jakarta which were not flooded was absolutely normal so they didn’t have any idea. funny how this year i am actually in their position and not directly affected by flood but i am more panic than last year. maybe i am overreacting. but i just don’t want to get through all that again.
dinadays 