Opa Johan And A Waterfowl
“Guess, what something special have I bought on my trip to Cipondoh lake.” So said opa Johan to his wife.
“Iced, pressed sugar cane juice.”
“Wrong! That’s not very special.”
“Is it food, a drink?”
“No, I bought a captured waterfowl from a fisherman. I saw it fluttering, hanging on a long pole trying to free itself. I asked him what he would do with such a very small bird.”
“He said ‘Cook and eat it.’ Remember he is a poor villager.
“And I thought of the captured turtle a week before. I’m always slow to decide, it came upon me when I had left the fisherman and was far away when the thought turns up to buy it and set it free in the lake. So this time I know what to do and bought the bird. He offered it for Rp.10.000.-, not one dollar yet. I didn’t haggle much about the price, for her life is for her even more worth than the whole world.
“I got the bird, but it wasn’t yet free. First the “chains” on the pole must be broken and he tried to break it with his cigarette fire, then again the “chains” fastening its legs. And he was so rough as he held the little creature on its legs upside down. He wondered how I ever would take it with me on my bike back home without a cage. When I examined the bird more carefully, I saw that its beak was also in a delicate “chain”. “She would peck you. But it’s easy to remove it.” He ascertained.
“So I went away. I tried to unfasten the plastic thread from its beak, it was so strong I couldn’t break or remove it. What if I free it now, it would certainly starve, so I quickly ran back and the man luckily was still there. It wasn’t easy for him either. He handled in a very indifferent way,- he could injure the bird by forcefully breaking the thin string on its beak – yet he managed to do so.
“I sought an open area with low grass where I would free and see the occasion. It did not fly away but immediately ran so fast that within a second it was hidden in the bushes.
“Certainly am I very happy and a lucky man to ever see and have the bird in my hands. Perhaps that’s a waterfowl that is able to walk on floating water plants. Tenths of years I’ve not seen it. What a loss if it would become extinct. It’s a pity that I didn’t ask for its name.
“What is so incredible is that during a heavy drought I once walked in the lake that was as dry as a barren plain, there couldn’t be any fish survive, but now after more than ten years I saw these fishermen with a lot of huge fish, not common to me, captured with their long nets. How could these fish come to be there? But I didn’t rescue them and they were still alive, though.
“And so I celebrated the occasion with drinking iced cincau (jelly cake of cincau leaves) on the road back home some thirty km, a heavenly drink of just Rp.1.000.-, imagine, not yet one dollar cent.
“Aren’t you proud of your fine husband? I deserve a kiss.”
June 2009
July 2011
