Musing Over A Bowl Of Sekoteng

Musing Over A Bowl Of Sekoteng

He is perhaps one of the last wandering ‘sekoteng’ (gingerly drink) vendor with his wheel-cart, an oil lamp, sounding “ting-ting” along the road. In former times, villagers, common folk, enjoy a night, leisurely sitting together, squatting, sitting on a bench, on the side walk, near a village market, or alun-alun (plain), ... drinking warm ‘sekoteng’, while someone is playing the ‘kecapi’ (Indonesian zither) in the still, cool night, the moon rising, a starry sky, fire-flies, with soft, peaceful ‘pelita’ light (oil-lamp), ... There were no glaring city lights, no roaring cars and motor-cycles, no hard-rock music ... The people sometimes give him some cents. 

Just within a short life time of 60, 70, 80, ... years, so much, a lot has changed and many things, plants, insects, birds, animals, delicious folk cookies, drinks, ices, ... are gone, lost, I see no more ...

The “kue putu” (rice cake) vendor with its whistle in the night, the kue rangi, folk niceties, cakes, ...

Dragon-flies, damselflies visited, birds nest in our garden, there was dew on the grass. You could hear the gecko: “tekeh-tekeh, ...”    

There were  frogs’ concert after rain, a ‘gabus’ mother fish with almost a thousand babies of her brood, the ‘betok’, rice, paddy fields with a lot of fish ...

There were little snails like sailing boats or skiing on leaves and stalks, many kind of beetles in the Bogor Botanical Gardens ...

The eagle, herons sailing, circling in the sky, hooting owl, the ‘musang’, fireflies, ...

The sky in Jakarta was so clear the stars were visible.

What a loss, they almost are no more. And I’m not a scientist. It has become a fairy tale.

One day you could only see them in pictures, in a zoological-, botanical-museum. If fortunate, you could see them still “live”  in You Tube or a video. 
 

June 2011