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Friday, 23 December 2016

OasEksplorasi (Day 3)

We started our day by visiting the Javanese Brown Sugar Home Industry. Early in the morning, we met up in Gatotkoco Homestay and then set off to find the home industry. My group got there first, and while waiting for the other groups to catch up, we met an old man bringing buckets and a sickle about to do his morning routine: fetch "nira" from a coconut tree.

He was curious about us (where do we come from, what are we doing here, etc. etc) and eventually we found out that he is a Javanese Sugar maker. His morning routine is climbing up 7 coconut trees, each being more or less 17 years old, together with 2 buckets and his sickle, using cut-out footholds on the bark to help him climb up. Once at the top, he didn't harvest the coconuts, instead, he sliced the branch of the tree, so that a sweet sap, which we called "nira", could be drained into the buckets. He takes 5-7L every day.

If the flower of the coconut tree is tied in the morning, the Nira could be drained in the evening. If it was tied in the evening they could be drained in the morning.

The weather affects the amount of Nira that he could harvest. If it's dry season, there would much to harvest. If it's rainy season, not much were produced.

Nira could be made into sugar and Arak, a type of liquor.



If the Nira was taken later than the usual time, it won't be really good. But if it rains, the nira won't be affected, they won't mix together.

Pak Muhajir has been climbing the trees to harvest the nira since he's 15 y.o. In the past, more than 10 people made Javanese Brown Sugar in the village, but now he's the only one that makes it. His kids and other young people nowdays are not interested in making the brown sugar. 

Other than being a Javanese Brown Sugar maker, he works as a field worker. 

Next we went inside the home industry. The place was rather dim, but looks traditional at the same time. There, his wife Bu Kusnia was in the process of making the Javanese Sugar. She started learning how to make when she married Pak Muhajir. 

First, the Nira is mixed with active chalk (gamping) so that the Nira won't be sour. You can check the quality of the Nira from its colours too.  The best is a yellowish colour, though there are clear ones, and the whitish ones are bitter. 


After being mixed with the active chalk, the Nira is boiled, until the colour becomes brown (the original colour is clear), then stir it until it cools/thickens. It takes about 40 minutes to cool them if there's only a little amount of them, but if there are much to stir, it may take more than 40 minutes. If you don't stir it and just leave it, the cooling/thickening process will be longer. Once the Nira are thick they'll look like peanut butter.

Once it thickens, you must immeadiately pour them out into bowls, or they'll harden in 10 mins (if they're stirred, it may take longer if you didn't stir them at all). But first you must rinse the bowls, or the hardened sugar won't slide out of it. You fill only half of the bowls. The Nira that was poured first (and hardens first of course) are slided out immeadiately to put on top of the ones that are hardening, so they would look like the ones you see in the middle of the table. 



If the sugar wasn't slided out immeadiately, it would be hard to take them out, despite already rinsing the bowls. 

The sugars they made ever failed because the Nira was sour, so they didn't taste good.

When I first tasted the sugar, I took a big bite. so it was too sweet for me (in Indonesian it's called eneg). That made a bad impression of the sugar to me, but then I learned to nibble it bit by bit, although that halts me from writing down notes. After several minutes I start to appreciate the taste, and I regretted not buying some :v. 

After that we all went back to each of our homestays, and I rewrote my notes. In about 30 mins, we all met up in Gatotkoco Homestay to discuss our newest assignments.

Next we were asked to interview 3 home industries, and we were suggested to go to the Tempe, Peyek (a kind of chips), and Ceriping. While we were walking we were to pretend we didn't know each other. As we had went to the Tempe and Ceriping Home Industry yesterday, and had planned to go there too, we went off to the Ceriping, though taking the wrong way, causing Marimas Rasa Soto to take the place first. We couldn't be in one Home Industry with another group, so we decided to visit the Peyek maker, as there were still information that we needed. It was taken too though by Nasi Uduk, so we went off to the Tempe Home Industry (see if there are any more questions that we have). On the way there, we passed the Ceriping Home Industry, and Marimas Rasa Soto looked as if they were about to leave, so we waited and went in right after they left. Here are our interviews:

Bu Tika owns the Ceriping Home Industry with Pak Naim. They both worked together, with Pak Naim peeling and slicing the ketela, and Bu Tika frying them.

First, the Ketela (Cassava) were peeled, and the skins were used as the cattle's food. You can't use the Ketela if they're too old, and the ones that aren't good will be thrown away (given to the cattles I suppose) The good Ketelas were rinsed and sliced with a machine called Kacit. They were rinsed because there's tapioka starch in the sap, then  chalk water. The Kacit was used only for the Ketelas with small diameters, it's a manual machine, while the bigger ones were cut in an electric slicer. To know if you're cutting them well, the shape must be a bit curved. They were then seasoned with Royco (instant seasoning) and garlic, and in they went into the pan!

This is the manual machine called Kacit.

Bu Tika uses 6 packs of 200 grm Royco a day. 

The stove was made out of cement, but it looks more like an igloo, as there's a small hole on one side of the stove for the blower. Without the blower, it won't be hot enough, so it would be difficult if a black out happens. There's a large black wok on top of it, filled with coconut oil. The oil would be reused the next day, she would just add a little bit more when making the next production.

She usually buys 40 kg of oil, then keeps it.

Frying the sliced ketela must be done in a max 3 minutes, or they would burn if they were left in a longer time than that. There were 2 cockeries, one ladle and the other strainer  a bigger one to strain the oil, and a smaller one to mix while frying, so that it would be light and easier. They were then left into a bigger strainer so that the oil excess would drip down. 

Next they were cooled off on a long metal desk, then whisked into a large plastic bag below using something like a dustpan. She could make 25-30 bags a day, and each costs 70k. Smaller packs were made too, and each costs 3k each.

She ever tried frying the sliced Ketela from factories, but when fried the results were hard chips. 



Next we set off the the Peyek maker:

The data are combined from yesterday's interview:

Yesterday there was only Bu Dispriyati, but today we met another person with her, who I suspect as Bpk. Ramdan(?). Bu Dispriyati  made 2 kinds of Peyek, Peyek Kacang and Peyek Bayem, tempe chips included. She got the peanuts, tempe, and spinach from the Borobudur market. She used to own a Spinach garden in front of the part of her house where she made the Peyeks, although now that bare area was for the chickens. 

The Spinachs used were the ones that were harvested along with their roots. It meant the Spinachs were new. If we pluck the spinachs starting just from their stems, the leaves would regrow, and the same thing will happen over and over again, making the spinach "old". But if they were harvested along with their roots, and then replanted using only the seeds from, they would be "new" spinaches. 

The leaves of the Spinaches were dipped inside a mixture made from the combination of "aci" (tapioca starch) and rice flour, 1 ounce of garlic, 1 spoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of micin (MSG (Mono Sodium Glutamate)), and 2 teaspoons of grinded corriander. It took 10 minutes to make one mixture. The dipped spinaches were then put into a large wok filled with palm oil, put above a stove. The oil were bought in plastic jerry cans for 20 L, bought from the Borobudur market, while the stove looked like a really short well made out of cement and clay, with firewood in it. The oil that were left in the pan after the day ends will be used for tomorrow's production, all Bu Dispriyati had to do was add a little bit more of oil on the next production process. The amount of Peyek Bayem made were based on order, so if no one orders it, none of them would be made. 

Eating the Peyek Bayam will be a bit chewy because of the spinach.

It took 1 hour to make 2 kg of the Peyek/chips,

The tempe used to make the tempe chips were special tempes for chips, and the knives used for slicing them was modified from a saw.

They also showed us their main staple food, Gethuk, which we were allowed to try, and I really liked it, I wished I could have more.

Bu Dispriyati ever lived in Jakarta, around Pulau Gadung, and has been making Ceriping/chips for 10 years.

Our time were mostly spent answering Bu Dispriyati's and Bpk. Ramdan(?)'s questions about homeschooling though. Pak Ramdan also showed us the Gethuk that he use a a staple food (other than rice)

Next up we met up in the Criping Home Industry where we followed Pak Naim to harvest the Singkongs (Cassavas) from the Singkong plantation. It's really close to the village.

Pak Naim showed us how to do it, which is bending your legs with your back to the tree, then pull up the tree with your two hands. Don't make your legs close to each other. If you pull up the tree with your front to it, your back will most likely hurt, although I never experienced it before. It looks easy, but then it depends on the tree. If it's too hard to pull up, it would be hard, but sometimes it's relatively easy... 

We were only allowed to pull up the trees in one part of the area, one time we got carried away in the fun so some of us wanted to pull up the trees on the other side. However, after pulling up the trees, none of us tidy it up. We just left it then went to another tree. 


Next we were taught how to take the singkongs off. Pak Naim used a type of knife to cut off the Singkongs, while most of us just use our hands. I'm scared of the earthworms there, so I don't dare touch much of the mud covering the Singkong, but I do enjoy cracking the Singkong off.



We ate in Pak Pudi's house for lunch:



Next we went to fetch (more like borrow) our bikes at Pak Pedo's house and biked off to Candi Borobudur, starting with a warmup led by Yla. I thought that I could ride the bike well, although I haven't ridden it for a few years (maybe 3 or 4 years?), because I used to be a good biker who can do several tricks when I was younger (around 5 or 6 y.o.). It's OK at first, until we came to a ramp up road. It was too heavy for me but I refused to show any signs of tire, because I don't want to be the last person of the group. Why? Because I chose a sports bicycle even though I'm already offered the bicycle with basket on it (I presume that it's lighter?) but I refused. So.. well.. I have to keep up to my "reputation":p. Lesson learned though, because the next day I got a sore leg. 



When we reached Candi Borobudur it was so crowded and full with tourists and school students. We were given the choice of either exploring the Candi in a crowded situation (making the visit an unpleasant one) or going back to our village. We chose the latter. So off we went back to our village. 

On the way back to our village, we took the wrong way back, but we found it at last. We did not directly go to our village though. We stopped by Ibu Marsinah's rice field and some of us asked questions. I didn't really pay attention though. But I did try to plow the field.



On the way home we took photos. We used the way where we can see a little bit of Candi Borobudur.



After that we biked back to our homestay, bath, and prepared ourselves. Then off we go to Gatotkaca and discuss our personel assignments. In the middle of dicussing our assignments, the local boys came to play ball in front of Gatotkaca, They wanted to play with us, We were asked to make the decision of either playing with them or discussing our assignments. Our mentor said that if we wanted to play we could, but the consequence was that we may be tired and sleepy when discussing tonight. Or, we could do our discussion, and miss playing ball. We decided on discussing. 

We discussed about our personal assignments and we will do our research about them in the market we will go tomorrow. 



OasEksplorasi (Day 1&2)

So far my posts have been about challenges starting from knowing my strengths to traditional food. It's all practices and exercises for this one exploration that I just had starting from last Monday (December 12th, 2016) to the really early hours of Tuesday (December 20th, 2016).

First, let me give you a picture of what OasEksplorasi is. It was a Pramuka event made in Klub Oase (a homeschooler group), created by Kak Shanty, Kaysan's mother. There were 17 people in total, and they were divided into two groups which each of us can choose from. There were Tim Jahe (they went earlier in late November, you can read about it here), and Tim Kunyit. I joined the latter.


The participants of Tim Kunyit were divided into 3 groups:

Group Marimas Rasa Soto: Andro, Kaysan, Adinda
Group Nasi Uduk: Yudhis, Fattah, Yla
Group Rawon Ayam: Zaky, Ceca, Donna

In this journey, we explored about the local foods of Indonesia in Jogja (specifically in Magelang and Bantul). Together, the 8 of us (there are 9 participants in total for this exploration, one lives in Jogja) started from Stasiun Pasar Senen and rode the 10:30 p.m. Progo economic train. We printed our tickets ourselves before. We were to have no connection with the internet or smartphones at all, just 3 old style (Nokia) phones divided among us.



My stereotype of an economic train were: uncomfortable, dirty, and narrow. Looks like all of my stereotypes are wrong. Yes, the aisle is narrower than the executive one, but it's still ok. I sat together with everyone except Yla and Zaky, because their seat was at the other side of my seat. We joked around and had fun, and most of us slept really late, 'till other passengers scolded us motionally because we're too noisy. Everyone fell asleep in the end.

I woke up several times, so I hadn't much sleep, but when I reached Stasiun Lempuyangan, I felt fresh. We walked to the wrong gate, (West Gate), while we should have went to the East Gate. and met our mentors, where they gave us a guidebook filled with a map of the village where we're going to stay in, the homestays we're going to stay in, a mini Javanese dictionary filled with simple words to help us talk with the locals, our schedule, and ways to get to our villages. But first, we had breakfast. My group guarded the bags while the other groups ate lunch, then it'll be my group to have lunch. I had Indomie Goreng (-5k).






After the lunch we walked to SMP 7 Transjogja bus stop and rode the 2A bus to the Borobudur bus stop. I paid using the flazzcard. In Jakarta, the bus stops are quite wide, while the bus stop in SMA 7 is small and narrow. We waited for quite a long time for the bus, and when we rode the bus, we all stood. As I've never rode a Trans Jogja before, I didn't know that the bus sways extremely, so when I stood we kept on nearly falling against the direction the bus was moving, unlike in Jakarta. I think my friends got the same experience too.

We rode a public bus to the Borobudur bus stop after that, but we paid 20k for it, while actually the real fee was 15k. 20k is the price for tourists. From what I heard from my friends, the person at the front of the bus took out his/her wallet when he/she was about to pay, making the kenek (driver's assistant) raise up the cost to 20k. So next time we were to just take out 15k and say that that's the only money we have if the kenek asks for more.

After reaching the Borobudur bus station, my friends had lunch in a food court. Not the type that you'll find in malls, but more like a food court made up of simple food stalls (warung). I didn't eat because I wasn't hungry. While waiting for my friends eating, I ate one of my snacks and wrote my logbook.

Yudhis talked with a woman selling food while buying his food, and the woman said that an andong (horse cart) costs 30-40 k. We were planning to ride 2 andongs to reach Dusun Maitan, where we'll be staying. It was writen in our guidebooks too that 30-40 k is the average coast of an andong. Meanwhile, after my friends finished eating, an andong driver offered his andong for 100k. What!? Even though I didn't know about Yudhis's conversation with the woman, I still feel that it's to expensive. Their reason was because it's a long way to Dusun Maitan, bla bla bla. Yudhis tried too barter for a lower price, and so they reduced it to a lower price but not as low as 50k.  They said that the journey is 5 km. We all said "Ahhh, that's easy", making us sound like we were used to walking long distances, that we'd practiced before our trip. As we set off to leave, the andong driver called us and lowered the price to 40 k :D.

I stayed in the homestay "Antasena" together with all the girls. I didn't immeadiately unpack, but I read the book that I brought "The Mountain of Adventure" by Enid Blyton. We were told to meet up with the others in Gatotkoco homestay where the mentors were staying. We discussed about our upcoming assignments and after that each group did an exploration around the village to achieve each group's goal. My group was to find for home industries around the village and observe them. We interviewed two of what we found (the Tempe Home Industry and Peyek)



Towards the evening, the local kids played football right outside Gatotkoco homestay. At first we only watched, then one by one everyone started to join except Adinda. Nobody counted the goals each group made, so we didn't know who won ^_^.



Once we all bathed, we discussed our assignments in Gatotkoco again then sleep. That's the ending for the first day. I felt really happy on this day. :)



     







Friday, 2 December 2016

One Day in the Museum

On November 6th, "Museum Nasional" in Monas, Jakarta held a folklore festival, or known as "Festival Dongeng" in Bahasa Indonesia. We start at around 7 a.m, with my Dad sending me and my Mom to the nearest bus stop. Journeying through the crowded streets of Jakarta in the Transjakarta bus, it was pretty tiring, because I stood along the way there and back, and this is my second time riding a public bus.

We reached the Kelir booth (it's a children's books illustrator group, and my Mom is one of the members) at 8 a.m, and started unpacking. The booth was situated in a large room, alongside with the other booths, picture gallery and one of the storytelling areas. My Mom brought several Batik scarves that she illustrated, collaborating with Museum Batik Jogja to be sold alongside the Children's Books made by the Kelir illustrators. There were some Kelir illustrators volunteering there, like my Mom.  

Outside the room, there stood a large stage for storytelling. Among the storytelling, there was a Balinese dance performance:

Balinese Dance
The gallery
Posing with the styrofoam
I met my Ex-English teacher :). We were so surprised when we met each other.
While waiting for my Mom there, I did my work.

Caught playing my phone. :)

Sunday, 27 November 2016

My Latest Coursera Accomplishments.

So far I have accomplished 2 Coursera courses, and even though I already forgotten most of what I have learnt, I am proud of it :D

The first one is "Arch Of titus: Rome and the Menorah" from Yeshiva University. I often failed the last assignment of this course, that's why I have been participating in this course for over 6 months or even more....., and finally I got my grade:


The second one is Ancient Egypt and Its Civilization. This one is a recent one:


I can finish this so fast :p. I finished it 2 weeks before the deadline. I think it's because I learned a lot about Ancient Egypt when I was younger, the new ones are the only hard ones for me. 

I really love both of these courses, and I hope the informations that I received could be used for future uses!


Wednesday, 9 November 2016

Where Do Our Local Food Comes From (an interview in Festival Desa)

Last Sunday, I was assigned another challenge, which is to go to Ragunan, where a festival called "Festival Desa" was held. The topics there are all organic and local, as this festival aims to introduce people more to healthier foods. I had to interview a comitee and a booth. For the comitee, I have to find the reason why the festival was held, and for the booth, to find the reason why they sold each particular merchandise and find any interesting thing about it.



The first booth I visited was a booth of organic rice. The man that I interviewed was Pak Joharipin. He and his friends fight for the rights of local farmers to make their own seedling. Why? Because since the rule of former president Soeharto, all crop farmers should use hybrid seedlings that makes them depend on certain seedling companies. Chemical fertilizers and pesticide included.

Pak Joharipin mentioned that there are two kinds of seedlings. The first is inbred, and the other one is hybrid. Inbred seedlings are seeds that were carefully selected. They were saved and passed from generations to generations. While Hybrid seedlings were created in labs using high tech methods, as the seeds from hybrid plants won't produce uniform offspring, farmer must buy new seeds each time they want to plant.

How they fight are by developing local seeds for their own seedling and educating farmers by making "Sekolah Lapangan".





And this is the rice that we bought from Pak Joharipin.

The second booth that I visited was a booth from Kehati (Keaneka Ragaman Hayati), who introduced us to the variations of staple food that our ancestors used. We abandoned that tradition because of the rule from former President Soeharto to plant/eat rice, which wasn't their main local staple food. While actually, not all of the Indonesian land are suitable for planting rice, forcing them to buy the hybrid seedlings.

From the booth, I saw many kinds of flour such as banana flour, arrowroot flour, Sago flour, etc. The only absent flour was the wheat flour, as wheat couldn't grow here. The wheat are all imported.



This is buckwheat, a substitute for sugar. It has the same amount of sweetness, but less calories.


This is the buckwheat sugar.

Noodles made out of sago flour instead of wheat flour.

Buckwheat brownies.

Buckwheat brownies recipe

Various dried foods made from non-wheat flour.

The third person that I interviewed was Pak Tejo Wahyu Jatmiko, the head comittee. The reason why this annual festival is held is to make a "direct" connection between the food producer (farmers), and the consumers (in the city). This is the 5th time the annual festival was held.

Food is very important so we have to be independent on making our own local supply. One example of the danger of depending on other country was when Thailand got a massive flood that ruined their harvest, causing us not to get our food order, as they still have to feed themselves (although we've paid them). In the other hand, we cannot postpone our need.

From Pak Tejo, I knew that in the world, around the 1960s (and the 1970s in Indonesia), there's a movement called Green Revolution. The movement was said to raise more yield, and yes, there's more yield, but at the same time, it makes us dependent on other country's supplies for the seedlings and we are heavily in debt (for the building of water dams, large amounts of chemical fertilizer supplies, etc. etc) It was aimed to avoid the spread of Communism (it was during the cold war) and the theory was that people who were hungry were prone to rebelling (influenced by Communism/Uni Soviet). To prevent it, the US scientists improved the seeds in labs to raise the yield, so there would be more food. The improved seeds that we call hybrid, are "spoiled", as they want their surroundings to be exactly like the lab (more water, more chemical fertilizer, pesticide, etc. etc.) in the field, while originally, they could cope with the surroundings easily.

This Green Evolution concludes in a big factory that occupies 75% of the world's seedling supplies.

Conclusion:
I learned that I have to appreciate our local food more and the diversity of food. Besides that, I also learned about the hidden agenda behind the "amazing" Green Revolution movement.