Launch Event of Rainbow Reading Gardens for Kids in Flores

Saturday, 13 March 2010

It was a beautiful morning in Melo Village, Flores, Indonesia. Kids had gathered in a nice garden overlooking the hills and the view of Komodo National Park, some guests had arrived on time and mingled with each other, the morning breeze comforted everyone and whispered them to enjoy the happy moment. It was a special day. What's going on?

It was the day when the Rainbow Reading Gardens ("Taman Bacaan Pelangi") was officially launched!

I've been writing about the Rainbow Reading Gardens in my previous posts. So, please read them first to get a better idea of this project. Click here.

I must say, the launch event of the Rainbow Reading Gardens ("Taman Bacaan Pelangi") held in "Panorama", Compang To'e cultural group's center, was a big success! A number of guests, starting from the local governments, head of villages, school headmasters and teachers, local communities and NGOs, and also.. students from the villages.. attended the event.

Students from SDK Roe performed some traditional dances, such as "Tek Tek Alu". They also performed poetries and made my tears dropped at some point :P. Not only that, students from SDK Melo also performed traditional dances and some songs. Omigod.. .they're sooo cute!!! I didn't expect they would perform such things! I felt so touched.

The best was a "Caci" dance performance by SDK Roe. "Caci" is a whip fight between two rivals. Usually, it's performed by a group of adults. So, it was very interesting to see a "Caci" performance carried by kids!!! And they're so good, too! Everyone loved their performance!!!

The Deputy Head of the Parliament said that he supported the presence of "Taman Bacaan Pelangi" in West Manggarai District, Flores. He hoped that "Taman Bacaan Pelangi" could also open in more villages in West Manggarai district, Flores, so that there would be more kids have the access to good books!

Wow. Thank you for such a good support. Everyone who came to the event also expressed their supports to "Taman Bacaan Pelangi". I felt so happy and excited!!!

At the end of the event, we saw another "Caci" performance, but this time was performed by "Compang To'e" cultural group.

Since that day, the "Rainbow Reading Gardens" was officially running in four villages in West Flores, which were at Roe Village, Melo Village, Komodo Village and Nampar Macing Village.

We thanked everyone who has been supporting "Taman Bacaan Pelangi", for all the donations and moral supports given, too. These reading gardens wouldn't establish without your supports. Personally, I thanked everyone from the deepest of my heart.

March 14th

March 14th.

This date has a special meaning for me. This date reminds me of two of my loved ones who were no longer with me, but still close to my heart.

March 14th, 2010.

17 years ago, my Dad passed away. I was almost 17 years old by then. Wish I could be with him longer. Wish he could see me growing up. Wish I could make him happy and take him around the world. Wish we could spend more time to chat about life

March 14th, 2010 is Morgan’s 40th birthday. He could have been 40 if he’s still around today. Wish I could celebrate his birthday together and see him smiling happily. But I’m sure he’s smiling happily… from up there, above the sky… above all the stars and clouds… As he told me once in my dream, he said he really loved it there, in his new place. I could see his face shining vibrantly. “He’s happy”, I said to myself. He said that he loved the surf there. And I’m sure it must be nice to surf in heaven. Surfing the sky… in between the clouds...

March 14th, 2010. I picked up some flowers from the neighborhood where I stayed in Labuan Bajo, Flores, as there’s no florist around. It was actually much nicer this way. I never picked up flowers for someone or any occasion myself as usually there were always some florist shops around. Anyway, it felt really nice to be able to pick some flowers in the garden. Especially when we knew that those flowers were for our loved ones :)

After having enough colorful flowers in my bag, I walked down to the beach to scatter them. It was sunset. The sky was pretty. And there I was… praying for my Dad and sending a birthday prayer for Morgan. I prayed for them a peaceful life in heaven. I prayed to God that He would take care of them and let them have a good time in his Kingdom. I prayed for their happiness in heaven… and said that I missed them so much.

March 14th, 2010. I was having brunch at my terrace overlooking the sea when there were two white butterflies flying circling my body. It reminded me of what my Mom said when we cremated my Dad. There was a white butterfly flying around her when she was praying at the crematorium. The white butterfly flying & circling her body until it laid on her hand. When she finished her prayer, the butterfly flew away…

It also reminded me of what happened on...

March 14th, 2007. Me and Mom went to the sea in the North of Jakarta to scatter some flowers for Dad & Morgan. I cried a lot. We sent our prayers for them. After that, our boat started to sail back to the shore and that's when I saw 2 butterflies flying… at the back of our boat… And those two butterflies followed us until we reached the shore.. as if they guided us til we arrived safely to the land… (read the full story here)

A few weeks later, I was in Sydney, Australia, sailing with Morgan's good friends. The sky was blue and the sun was shining brightly. At one point, I looked up to the sky and there I saw... a butterfly flying around the sail, in the middle of the sea! Wow. Was it a coincidence?

March 14th, 2010. Would these white butterflies be my Dad’s and Morgan’s spirits wanting to drop by & say hi to me? Maybe.

March 14th, 2010. I felt mellow and I thought of them a lot. I missed them dearly. And I wished them a peaceful life in heaven…

This was how the sky looked like on March 14th, 2010.


Simply beautiful :)

Meeting Orang Utan Crab in Komodo National Park

Almost everyone who is into scuba-diving addict wants to go to Komodo National Park to witness the beauty of the underwater world. Komodo National Park has a reputation as one of the most beautiful dive places in the world. With 1,000 species of fish, 385 species of reef building corals, a home to sharks, manta rays, turtles, and many more! I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to entertain myself every weekend to enjoy this underwater beauty.

Today, I went to the middle part of Komodo National Park with Dive Komodo and a group of divers. First dive, we went to Wainilu, nearby Rinca Island. The water temperature was a bit cold today (well, at least, cold for my standard!). It was 25 degrees Celcius. Brrrrr!!! Wainilu is a dive spot, special for muck dive. I saw a tiny pipe fish, zebra crab, many shrimps, tiny yellow boxfish (so cute!), a lot of razor fish, cuttle fish, several nudibranchs with different colors & species, a weird-looking scorpion fish and many more. We went down to 16.6 meters, the total dive time was 53 minutes. Enough to make me feel cold under my 3 mm wetsuit.

After doing surface interval, we went to another dive site, called Penga Kecil. The water temperature was 26 degrees, slightly “better” than the first dive. We went down to 22.1 meters and saw some turtles, many nudibranchs, orang utan crab looking pretty on bubble corals (my fave!), some white tip reef sharks – including one shark hiding under a table coral as if it was playing hide and seek with its other fellow sharks, some giant trevallys and really BIG jack fish! Wow. I almost shocked when I was looking around quietly and suddenly the giant jack fish, around 1 meter, swam in front of me! Wow. What was that???! Hahhaha… After 55 minutes, we decided to go up and warm ourselves under the sun. Brrr… even 26 degrees Celcius still too cold for me! :p

Third dive was in Karang Makassar. This site is famous for its manta rays. Yayyyy!!! The water temperature was 26 degrees, visibility wasn’t great, around 10 – 15 meters. We went down and swam around, suddenly we saw 1 manta ray from far. We swam closer and there he was, hovering at the cleaning station, surrounded by small fish whose happily cleaning his body. After enjoying the amazing creature, we continued our dive and stopped again as soon as we saw another manta ray hovering above some corals. So cool! In total, we saw 5 to 6 manta rays on this dive. Everyone’s happy ☺. Obviously, divers couldn’t get enough of manta rays, could they? At the end of the dive, we bumped into a school of bumphead parrotfish! OMigod… they’re around 50 of them and all in big size! Soooo nice!!! We also saw a napoleon wrasse swimming in between a school of oriental sweetlips. The napoleon wrasse looked like “a guardian angel” for the sweetlips. Hehehe..

What a nice day. All dives that I did in Komodo National Park never failed. There was always something new, something exciting. Every dive was always different and beautiful. That’s why I fell in love with this place…