Joys And Delight Of A Picnic Just To UI Depok

Joys And Delight Of A Picnic Just To UI Depok

I started from home walking still dark in the morning, then took a microlette to the train station. The driver got no passengers, you know? I asked him, how much? Two and a half. I gave him a note of five. Keep the change, I said and I got a precious happy, grateful smile for free besides.

The train fare, so cheap just six to Depok. Anyone would gladly pay, even he’d to stand, hanging on the rings and not grumble. And it was still so cold of the AC when there were but few passengers, so anyone was drawn to visit the toilet while there’s no toilet. Imagine, what torture, what a relief when  I could get off in Depok, what, were I to wait as far as Bogor?

I got a lovely smile from a university girl student passing by in the campus. What a present to a scarecrow. Don’t you be piqued, you jealous wife.

Then I visited the river. It was so serene at the river side of the UI (University of Indonesia) campus. It was Ramadhan, the month of the fast. Fortunately there were no city’s noisy visitors who often leave their garbage carelessly behind.  And I thought of the agony of having to hear, to share badly, noisy performed music, speech, a noisy crowd, ...  but this was so peaceful.

Picture me on the shady side where I’m sitting having my picnic on the trunk of a tree, feasting my eyes on what’s just around me. It was as though owning a private park which I never bought. I watched the soft rippling surface of the river, the lovely waving grass flowers near my face, the beautiful flowers of a tree in front of me, felt, enjoyed the wind so cool, so calm, ... And I waited for the birds to return to capture them with my camera but they didn’t and as I saw something writhing on the grass, it was a cat fish that still survived after having been left a long time which I rescued. Am I not a good man, husband?

I could watch far away, cars and motor cars passing by through the trees, intriguing, captivating like ants, almost noiselessly. I didn’t care to go any further. How I longed to get all these in my home page soon lest I lose, forget it, though poorly recorded.

On my way home in the as usually overcrowded train in Depok, a kind man took my arm and have me sit in his place while I watched a little child playing, trying to make his father wink by clapping in front of his eyes. As he didn’d succeed he took his father’s face, pinched his cheeks and nose and ears, ...

In the microlette back home I was sitting next to the driver and imagine, I enjoyed watching a scarecrow making faces at me in the car’s side mirror. Ha.Ha.

Wow! What a lot I’ve got. Though I didn’t tour the world. I’m so rich. Don’t you envy me? And what’s so special is that I haven’t to stand on ceremony to hold up my social standing, my appearance, as I travel uncombed,  just in shorts, you know?

And on top of all,  this is now to pay my debt for the picnic, you, dear little fool, prepared for me, as Opa Johan kissed his wife.

August 2012