OasEksplorasi Day 8

I went to watch sunrise that morning and then went back home at 3 p.m.

OasEksplorasi Day 7

I went to learn about tempe making from Bu Cicil and interviewed the tofu home industry. That night I packed up my bags and went to sleep. I won't write details because I have no energy to write the details. I'll write them next time.

OasEksplorasi Day 6

After breakfast we all rode an Angkudes droven by one of the mentor's friend. Angkudes was like Angkot (Angkutan Kota), a public transportation, but Angkot is for the city, while Angkudes ( Angkutan Desa) is only for around the village. It was a private Angkudes though :p

We were all heading to Pantai Depok , and my group was to research about  Penangkapan. So when we reached there, we directly went out to the beach and searched for fishermans that we could interview.

The first fishermen we interviewed was Mas Jogi, 18 y.o. He became a fisherman because he had no option other than being a fisherman, in which he was self-taught. Despite that, he had been fishing for 3 years now.

He worked from 10-11 a.m, but he said that most fishermen worked at 11 a.m. We interviewed him around 10, so there wasn't much fishermen seen yet. Some fishermen started work from 5 a.m. to 12 though. Using nets and fishing rods, Mas Jogi had finished fishing and had caught crabs and several fishes. He only went fishing once a day, and that's it. The fish that fishermen caught depended on the season and weather. They would be sent to the collector where they would be put into ice and either sold somewhere or made into snacks by other people to be sold. The fishes won't smell and rot until the evening.

The boats were powered by machine, or else it couldn't float. It's on only at sea though, as they were given something like a wheelbarrow below it either when sending it off to the water or taking it back from the water so that the bottom side won't rip, as the boat's made out of fiber. When on sea, 2 people handle the boat, but when sending it off or taking it back, many fishermen helped.

When interviewing Mas Jogi, there are 3 local tourists who also asked questions, so mostly here we observe the boat around.

The next person we interviewed was Mas Sulis. He just came back from the sea, and had caught Patin and fishes, stingray, and one big Jambal fish (Ikan Patin, Ikan Pari dan Ikan Jambal). The one big Ikan Jambal would be sold in one big piece, it won't be sliced into smaller pieces.

When it's Ikan Bawal season, fishermen could earn from 2 million up to 15 million. It depends on the season too though, the amount of money they could earn.
Strong wind, big waves, and rain were some of the factors that makes fishing hard. It could damage or break the boat.

It's been a long time since I went to the beach, so when I was there I felt really happy and went to dip my feet in the seawater. We actually were not allowed to go near the waves because of the big waves. Well, when I just reached there and started looking for fishermen, I was still allowed, watched by Kak Kukuh from afar. But when waiting for some of the boys to come back, and went to dip my feet again, I was called by Kak Inu. I walked around barefoot though, except when we're about to go back.

We waited for the boys to finish their interview, then off we went to the Mi Lethek factory. But before that, we ate in a simple food stall that served Mie Lethek so that we know how it looked and tasted like. At first I didn't want to eat because I was worried that I would run out of money for paying transportation and other things, but then my mentors told me that I won't be eating for a long time, so I finally agreed to eat fried Mie Lethek and cold lime juice. Most ordered Noodle soup. I was really surprised by the taste, it tasted so fresh, unlike the ones that we often see in the city. When the Noodle soup came, our first impression was that it looked dull, and light grey not the whitish transparent vermicelli.

The fried ones came after a really loong time, until the ones who ordered the Noodle soup finished long before us. All those waiting made me really hungry, so when I got it, I quickly finished mine and shared with Zaky. But then I got full so I finally shared with Yla :p. 

After that we rode the Angkudes to the factory. Along the way, our mentors told us that President Soekarno was a customer there along his presidential year. I will tell the whole story of it in another article, as I have a lot to talk about. :v. But my part was finding about the history of the factory, alongside Yudhis and Kaysan. We were the history group.

After that we went back home with the Angkudes. We reached our homestay, and wrote our logbooks.

We went to church (except Ceca), the Ganjuran church at 5:30 p.m. (the Bahasa Indonesian one).

I'll stop here and I'll continue next time. 

OasEksplorasi Day 5

I woke up earlier than the alarm today :) and I prepared my pack. It was this morning that I just realized that my pencil case was missing. I tried to look around the house for it, among the girls' things on the floor, in Gatotkaca, but it wasn't there. It was then I just realized that it was missing, and I either left it in the market or in Rumah Ketela. After the girls woke up I asked them if they'd seen my pencil case, but non of them did. Well, I didn't really remember the way to the market, nor to Rumah Ketela, so I just accepted it and got ready.

I ate breakfast and made sure that nothing was left behind in the room, tidied it up, and at this time I "lost" my Ceriping gelombang :(. So Adinda and me were discussing about how to, well, in my point of view was how to bring the Ceriping that we bought in an easier way, but maybe in Adinda's view it's how to give the Ceriping to our host in a nice way together with the bag that I bought in which Adinda and Yla painted among those 3 days that we stay in Dusun Maitan. We thought that the other was thinking the same. My plan was to put the Ceriping into the unused bag (the bag that they hadn't painted on, for the one in Dusun Palbapang). Adinda's plan was to put it in the painted bag. Well, in the end when we're about to leave, my Ceriping was in the painted bag, and if I asked for the Ceriping......

Well, it's another "loss" :). But anyway, my family  rarely ate chips, because we considered it unhealthy (especially when I bought a lot. My plan was 1/4 for me and 1/4 for my family, and I ate none). So well....

After we all had metup in Gatotkoco, our mentors were to take our photos with our hosts. Actually the girls didn't plan on taking a photo with our host, but as everyone did it...... We were the last to take though.

Overalll my experience in Dusun Maitan is OK, the only thing that I have to get used to was the crouching toilet and eating the really spicy vegetable. I couldn't handle the vegetables served by every host that I went to, but I didn't dare say/complain anything about it, because that's what I got from every host, so it's like their local food. So if I complain, I thought that it would be like, "insulting" them. But then I was told by my mentors that it's okay to complain that the vegetabls are too spicy.  

After the photo session the Andongs arrived, we were all still waiting for the (always late) Zaky and Ceca who stayed in one Homestay.

We rode the Andong and then walked to Terminal Borobudur. We then rode the bus to Jombor, from Halte Jombor we then took the Transjogja to SMA 7.

In Transjogja, a funny event happened. Ceca was debating with a man. I didn't know how he looked like because I sat rather far from where the funny event happened, but from my friends' description, he looked like a person from an institute. This was what happened (translated to English):

Man: Which school are you from?
C: Oh, we're homeschooled Sir.
Man: If I were Indonesia's president, I would make Homeschooling illegal!
C: Why sir?
Man: Why homeschool when you'll try to get a certificate in the end?
C: Because we're forced to Sir.
Man: You can have a lot of friends in school.
C: As school students you only have limited friends, while homeschooled children could make lots and lots of friends.
Man: School kids can find friends in the holidays.
C: For homeschoolers, holiday is everyday!

And then the man changed the topic. Yudhis, who sat near them, was already putting a sour look. He couldn't bare listening to the conversation :D. Too bad I was sitting far away from them.

We reached Desa Palbapang with a local bus. A woman who sat next to me asked where we were heading and we said Desa Palbapang. She said in a rude tone that we already passed Desa Palbapang. I don't like people like that so I just kept silent after answering a few of her remarks.

We met 2 old women when we were dropped outside Dusun Ngringinan, where we were going to stay. They were from Dusun Ngringinan, and were actually on their way home from the market. Yudhis offered to carry her bag at that time. He thought that it would be light, seeing that she's an old woman. When he tried to carry it, he said it was soo heavy, it's unbelievable that the old woman could carry that much. Yudhis finally took turns with Zaky and Yla when carrying the bag.

One of the old woman.

The old women led and directed us to our respective homestays. Some of the boys' homestay were changed because of certain reasons. We girls stayed together with our mentors in Bu Gun's house. But before we went to our homestays, we all went to Bu Cicil's house, a tempe maker. We were given refreshments, and all of them were organic and handmade, or just plain fruit.

I thought at first that the peanuts were the fried/baked ones, but this one was steamed, so it's soft. It's delicious though, but it's new for me. The purple liquid that you see was actually boiled Telang flower mixed with lime. If you don't mix it with lime, the colour would be blue. It's purple if mixed with lime. Nice though!

We all relaxed (I fixed my broken strap) ourselves because the walk we had just now was so tiring. We also just knew that Bu Cicil's husband's name was Pak Gun, there were a lot of people named Gun there, that's why when the girls said we're going to Pak Gun's house, the old woman became confused. And I think she directed us to Bu Cicil's house too. We relaxed until the bike that we ordered came. We were then allowed to go to our respective homestay and agreed to meetup in Bu Gun's house (where the girls and mentors stayed. We made it as basecamp).We were also allowed to bike around and explore around before the meetup. 

Before the meetup, we helped peel Bu Gun's Hibrid corn, which were mainly there for the chicken's food.

 After the meetup, we then decided to visit the reservoir, but most of us took the wrong way and only Zaky and Kaysan made it into the reservoir. The rest of us went to the dove training place, where they trained the doves for a racing competition, by letting the male flew to a chosen place, then called to go back by holding (more like trapping) a female one. So it's like the male flies back as fast as he could to "save" the female. Even though we didn't go to the reservoir, the scenery was just so beautiful, I wished I had brought my camera. 

After that we went back to our homestays to have dinner then meetup in Bu Gun's house to write our logbooks. I noticed that there's 52k missing from my money, and so I was helped by Kak Kukuh to count. Zaky and me were still doing our logbooks, while the others that had done their logbook played Werewolf, including Kak Inu and Kak Melly. I really wanted to play too, so I ended the discusion quickly (the conclusion from the discussion with Kak Kukuh was that 52k was missing) and in the end everyone played. 

After playing werewolf, our mentors said that they had a surprise for us, that's why they let us had a great time first. I thought it was something really special. Well, the surprise was that our groups were changed. Here are the new groups:

Group 1: Yudhis, Andro, Ceca

Group 2: Kaysan, Zaky, Fattah

Group 3: Yla, Donna, Adinda

My reaction was just usual, because I'm sleepy :)

P.S. We saw fireflies there too which made us look like kids who'd never seen fireflies before :p.

OasEksplorasi Day 4

We met up in Gatotkaca in the morning to review our project that we were going to do in the market. Then off we go! with our bikes. Even though my leg was hurt, it was fun riding the bike, so no hesitation. I learned to stand up on the bike when there's a ramp up, but I rarely did it, because cycling already made my leg more tired. Yes, standing up makes things easier, but I really had no energy to stand up anymore :p

When we reached the market, we were to seperate and did our interviews alone. We were to meetup at the place where we parked our bikes at 8:30.

My personal project was searching more about Ketela. I was actually interested in Gethuk, and still am, since Pak Ramdan(?) showed us his Gethuk. But Kak Kukuh said that we might not have much time in researching about Gethuk. So we moved the topic backwards toward the bigger picture, Ketela.

I was given a phone so that I could know the time. I found Ibu Sutia, who was 60 y.o and had been selling in the market for 30 years. She sold many types of vegetables and tubers. She got the tubers that she sold from farmers. They sent it to her, sometimes 1/2 kwintal, sometimes 1 kwintal, and the lightest being 25 kg. It just depends on how much she needs.

Each part of the Ketela tree are used. The young leaves will be their vegetable, the old ones for the livestock. The trunk could either be used as firewood, or they could be planted again. While the roots are what we know as Ketela. The flour, known as mocaf could be made into many kinds of snacks. Some examples are Geblek, Tiwul, and even cakes. You also can make tapioka flour.

There are three types of tubers: Singkong (Cassava), Tales, and Ubi (sweet potato). From Singkong, there's Singkong Kuning, Singkong Mertega (this one is from Sumatra). From Ubi there's Ubi Kuning (yellow sweet potato), Ubi Ungu (purple sweet potato), Ubi Merah (red sweet potato), and Ubi Putih (yellowish sweet potato). They are all from Jawa. I'll  tell you later how to differentiate which is which.

Those tubers could be made into thousands of different kinds of food. She said the fastest snack to make is Gethuk. Another example was Geblek, which she gave the recipe of how to make it:

First shred the Singkong and squeeze the water out. Mix it with tapioca starch then shape them into what you call Geblek:

https://yiskandar.wordpress.com/tag/geblek/

After finishing my interview, I wanted to buy 1 Singkong, 1 Ubi, and 1 Tales, but Ibu Sutia misunderstood and gave me 3 Singkong, 3 Ubi, and 3 Tales. How could all of those fit into my bag? So I said no and tried to repeat what I wanted. As I still didn't know which is which (they all look the same for me) she packed 6. 2 Singkong, 2 Ubi, and 2 Tales. No wonder they didn't really fit into my bag but they fit anyhow.

I lost Rp.50k (kept in my pencil case. I lost my pencil case too in this case, but luckily I had taken out my pencil and eraser already) on this day. I forgot either I left it in the market or in "Rumah Ketela" (I'm more sure I left it here), the place where we would be going to after this. If I left it in the market, this is the theory of how I left it:

While rearranging my bag to make the the 2 Singkong, 2 Ubi, and 2 Tales fit, Adinda passed and warned me to be aware because there's a pickpocket. I hurriedly put back my things and probably left my pencil case behind, even though as I remembered when I checked again there's nothing left behind.

I planned to go to 2 different places after this stall to buy Geblek and Gethuk, because in the middle of interviewing Ibu Sutia, someone liked the manager of the market came and talked to me, wanting to know what we were doing. I told him the usual stuff "we're homeschoolers, we came here to explore about local food, bla bla bla" and he told me there was Gethuk in one stall, and Geblek in another stall.

There were plenty of customers ordering large amounts of vegetables when I interviewed Bu Sutia so it was quite difficult to interview her. Maybe because she's already rather old, I didn't really understand her well. 

I went to the stall in the front first to get Geblek. I interviewed Bu Dah (55 y.o) and Bu Yah(35 y.o). They sold many types of traditional snacks and some vegetables. I asked for Geblek and Gethuk, as I want to see if the other stall sells a different kind of Geblek (I didn't know if there are various types of Geblek at that time). When I got the Geblek, it's totally different from Geblek in the Peyek Industry. It's a snack type of Geblek, not the staple food kind. I got more information about how to make the snacks instead about Ketela, but at least it's related.

Other than the recipes of how to make some of the snacks, she told me that there were 3 types of Gethuk: Gethuk karet, Gethuk Lindri, and Gethuk Ubi Jalar. She also told me that the way to differentiate Singkong, Talas, and Ubi is from the plants. 

I felt more comfortable interviewing them because they were so friendly and not..... boring compared to Bu Sutia.

I wanted to go the other stall but I ran out of time, so I just went to walk to the place where we parked our bikes.

Our next destination was Rumah Ketela, but before we left, Yudhis and Andro ordered Andongs first to pick us up from Dusun Maitan to Terminal Borobudur, to catch the bus to Dusun Palbapang, as we're leaving tomorrow.

In Rumah Ketela, we were served with warm sweet tea and 4 kinds of snacks. They was so yummy. I guess everyone was enjoying them really much, until most of us forget what what their names were. All of them were really delicious, but for me, the purple one was the most delicious one.

There's Papaya jam in the bottle. They called it Papaya jam, but it's actually
 papaya mixed with pineapple. They were poured when they're still really hot
so that it would be sterile.

While we were eating the refreshments, Pak Ariswara Sutomo, the founder of Rumah Ketela gave us an introduction of Rumah Ketela and some of it's history. 

Rumah Ketela was created to return the use of tubers. In the past, not all Indonesian people ate rice as their main staple food. Some ate corn, but the one most known were tubers. But because of the green evolution (you can check my article about it here), they all changed to rice. Rumah Ketela didn't force us to eat tubers as our staple food, they're just showing us one of the ways to make organic food from tubers, and how to reduce the use of wheat flour. 

I just knew that importing wheat costs up to 16 trillion! Well, mostly are for making instant noodles, such as Indomie and its friends and more are coming. It's wasting a lot of money while we actually can use tubers (mainly Ubi and Singkong), a food that we can easily get from anywhere in Indonesia, from Sabang to Merauke! 

Mocaf is easy to keep and they last a long time. They also don't have gluten in them, which some people have trouble with. They also could be made into ice cream. Not only mocaf, they also made different types of flour such as corn flour, Ubi flour, etc. etc. They all looked really interesting. 

Next off we went to watch how the eggroll being made. We were allowed to try making them. I didn't try, because I was afraid I would ruin it. They just put the mixture onto a frying pan, then once it's fried, they just roll it with a stick as guidance:

After that we were showed how they made the mocaf. They used a machine powered by petrol in where they just put in the dried Singkong. The way to make mocaf is: washing them, peel them, cut them into pieces, then dried them up. After that they were immersed in clean waater for 3 days and 3 nights, and every 24 hours the water was changed. After that they were fermented, dried, then grinded with the machine. Mocaf could stay in good condition from 1-6 months. I tried touching them, they felt so smooth, it's hard for me to believe that they were the rough pieces before.

Next we went on a tour around their garden. It was a really big garden filled with all kinds of plants. Not the flowery ones, of course, but tubers, and I saw several fruits too, such as pineapples and durian. 

After that we went to their shop because we wanted to buy some snacks. There they sold flour, some snacks (such as eggroll) and ice cream. This was the first time I saw ice cream made out of purple Ubi and corn. I didn't try them though. I bought the eggroll made out of Suwek.

The strange looking thing with a sprout above it is called Suweg.

This is the theory of how I (could) have left my pencil case here:

My bag zipper broke because of the tubers I bought from the market (they didn't really fit! It was hard to put my things in) so while rearranging my things (which means taking out all my things) my friends all were ready to take a photo together, and I'm the only one left behind. So I rushed and didn't check. That's why I'm more sure I left it here.

Next off we went to the Tofu Home Industry. We got lost along the way and in a way or another we reached the Tofu Home Industry in another village, not the one we were assigned to. We completely went out of radar :v. The village we went to is Dusun Kretek, while we actually should go to the one in Dusun Maitan, near the Jetcoolet Home Industry. 

We were met by very eager workers there. They were all so friendly. 

It was a Home Industry owned from generation to generation, and it had been established for 25 years. The recent generation was Ibu Nafsiyah (45 y.o) and her husband Bpk. Romidi (43 y.o). She has been making tofu for 8 years now (in her Home Industry) and they start working from 3 a.m. and finish at 2 p.m. Before working in their own Home Industry, they worked in someone's place to get experience.

They used American Soy bean instead of local ones because the local ones weren't really good. 

First, the soy beans were soaked for 4.5 or 5 hours. After that they skinned and grinded the Soya by a petrol powered machine. Next it was boiled in a big well like place, using clean firewood, or else they would be smelly. It was then strained then put into a rectangular mould. Cut it with a wooden ruler's help to make the tofu's size similar, then fry it. After frying, they were soaked for a day in cold water so they won't be dense.

When cutting the tofu, the sides were cut and they were fried into "Tahu Usus". They were really crispy. 

They only sold two types of tofu though in the market, which were fried tofu and fresh tofu.

Next we went to the Jetcoolet Home Industry:

In the Jetcoolet Home Industry, they made both Jetcoolet and Criping Gelombang (wavy chips). First the Singkong was peeled manually, washed, then steamed for 15 minutes. They were steamed on clay stoves, and they could steam from 30-35 kg.  After they cooled (I think it was cooled in the fridge, I didn't really pay attention on the fridge part) they were then sliced with a machine, then fried. That's for the normal flavour. For the Balado one, they were put into one giant "tank" filled with Balado seasoning and mixed together by an electric mixer.

I then bought 1/2 kg of the Balado flavoured Ceriping Gelombang.

After that we went back to Gatotkaca. Riding all those distances made me feel unhealthy, so I was allowed to take a nap and skip the next programme, make someone less stranger, which was making friends with the local people around there. 

After the refreshing nap, we set off to Candi Mendut in the evening around 6:30. 

We intentionally went there to see how the Buddhism monks meditate, but sadly there was no meditation happening. So we just went inside and walked and looked around the statues. Yla told several myths and stories related to the Candi and about Gereja Ayam. 

We biked back and packed up our things. I slept late because we dawdled.