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. :)