My Plan

“Betapa banyak nikmat yang aku lupakan dan aku anggap wajar dan biasa. Seakan-akan aku berhak mendapat nikmat itu tanpa usaha. Karena itu betapa sesatnya aku kalau sampai bermalas-malasan.” 
― Ahmad Fuadi

In the past three months, I've had the privilege of going to 3 different countries. Each experience reinvigorating my love for travelling. Each experience feeling more and more like a dream that even I hadn't been able to compose in my wildest imaginations. Each experience a lesson as to how much there still is for me to learn from other people around the world. Each experience a reminder of just how lucky I am to be so blessed, and how great of a debt I have to make sure that those blessings aren't just experienced in vain.

At times, those experiences were tinged with dashes of fear and apprehension, pretty understandable considering the latest one involved my first 30 hour flight all the way across the world by myself. But in each of my journeys across the boundaries of my beloved Indonesia, I discovered more about my capabilities and about my religion than what I probably would've acquired had I stayed here. In Singapore, I saw how Muslims can live and thrive in a Muslim minority country, without fear or strange looks from the overall population, instead with the tolerance and understanding for Muslim values the likes of which I haven't seen in any other Muslim minority country. In Japan, I met a girl two years my senior, whose life was saved by her discovery of Islam, and who even though she still continues to experience challenges unlike anything I've ever had to endure even while living in Muslim minority countries (among them being the fact that her commitment to become Muslim and wear a veil is still frowned upon by her family and her fellow Japanese citizens who don't consider her to even be Japanese anymore, the difficulty she has in going to a mosque daily since the closest one is in a different town from her campus, the commitment she has in eating only seafood for fear of eating meat products that aren't halal, and the fact that at times she's had to perform sholat in the middle of the street just for lack of finding any other place to pray), her belief in Islam and Allah is still stronger than most Muslims I've ever met here in Indonesia; parting with her was like parting from a real sister, I don't think I've met or ever will meet anyone as amazing as she is. And in Venezuela, I realized just how weak the foundations of my own belief were when I was asked questions regarding why I did the things that Islam instructed me to do (Why did I wear a veil? Why can't I eat pork?). My lack of answers to these outbursts of Venezuelan curiosity were a slap in my face, reminding me just how much I still have to learn about my own religion, before being able to teach others about it as well.

This is why I've always loved this life on the road. While some people would rather be safely settled in one place for the rest of their lives, get married and raise their children in the places where they themselves were raised up, I would rather live my life and have my children experience theirs in a never ending adventure where the journey becomes our destination. I know it's pretty utopic, and the chances of me being able to give them that life, as my father gave to me and my sisters isn't something that can be as easily repeated as I hope for. But, there's always that hope. I want my children to know just how similar yet different people can be several thousand miles away from where they live. I want them to learn second, third, or even fourth languages, so that they may understand the books that give a more intimate look inside cultures different from theirs. I want them to understand that their religion, Islam, is meant to be a world religion and even though it still might be a long way from becoming so again, it is part of their duty to make it happen.

I've made friends with Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, heck when I was in New York most of my friends and next-door neighbors were Jews; it was only when I returned to Indonesia that I learned how 'evil' they were 'supposed' to be. I'm not saying I'm a pluralist, but what I do know is that I am a pacifist. Peace is easier to maintain, economically speaking that is, than conflict, so why make yourself at a loss? Didn't the Prophet (PBUH) live in tolerance with Christians and Jews when the Muslims ruled in Arabia?

I've just realized how close I'm coming to that fork in my journey. That vital impasse whereby I will have to choose once and for all where I'm going to take myself, and what I'm going to devote my life to. My religion and my duty to spread it and make it known of course is something that I'll never ever forget insyaAllah for as long as I still have the strength to tread the path I choose. But as for the other thing, which is my career choice, or even my choice to have a career, is something I still haven't figured out yet. What I am certain about though, is that I still want to continue my studies. My father's BBM a couple of days ago was really quite tempting: he told me that there was a scholarship offer for undergrads with a GPA above 3.5 to immediately be accepted at a masters degree at S2 HI UNPAD during their seventh semester. If all went well, then I'd have my undergraduate degree and then my masters in just one year after that. Tempting I know, especially with the fact that my GPA (for now at least) still suffices for that scholarship. But, what I really want is to take up an old dream of mine: study abroad on a scholarship or at least with my own money. The scarcity of scholarships to study abroad for undergraduates was one of the main reasons why I eventually resigned my self to accept my study opportunity at UNPAD. But masters scholarships are far more plenty and I am determined to snatch one for myself. ANU or UBC's social sciences program are still top on my list, and the IMLI in Malta is definitely something that I will try, for the sake of Indonesia's international maritime law which is in sore need of experts. If those don't work out then I guess I'll try for a masters in journalistic studies and try treading that path towards becoming a journalist.

I still want my travels to continue, at least until I get my masters degree. I still want to learn so much more about this world that Allah has created with meticulous care. About the people that are so different yet similar to me at the same time. About how I can become a force in either reconciling those differences or help care for the wellbeing of this world and its inhabitants. I don't want to live a normal life. I don't want to get married right after I graduate, have kids and stay stuck inside a house for years and years on end; even though I know this is a noble job as well. If I have to be a wife, at least I want to become like my mother, one that still has the opportunity to show her children just how vast this world is, how diverse its peoples are, how they can find a friend in those different from them, and how they can become Islamic agents of change on an international scale. I am an international relations student, and I hope to make my mark on international history, so that when I return back to my Creator, I can give proof that all of the blessed opportunities and skills bestowed upon me were not wasted or used in vain.

Chevere Caracas!

"Quien sabe que pensaran de lo que vieron, de esta ciudad salvaje, sucia, de colores brillantes y clima amable. De sus chicas pulcras hasta la frivolidad. De su pueblo, consumista y esnob, como pocos. De seguro se fueron un poco desencantados de que este pueblo anfitrion del foro, se sienta tan indiferente ante esas abstracciones ajenas a la fiesta, a ganarse el pan, a la furiosa epica de llegar a casa vivo, cada noche, en esta ciudad alucinante.." - Hector Torres, Caracas Muerde

Caracas. Statistically speaking, the most dangerous city in the world to live in. With at least 50 bodies per week piling up at the city's Bello Monte morgue, it's easy to see why. And yet, the only danger I encountered during my 1 month stay in this wild city was that of falling in love with it so much that I wouldn't be able to part with it when my time came to go. True, there is an undeclared 6 o'clock curfew for those still wishing to live another day intact in this unpredictable city of midday robberies and drunken nights. True, there are barrios that even Caraqueños are afraid of entering and furiously warn stubborn foreigners to not push their luck in trying to do so. True, the average Caraqueñan intake of alcohol on a daily basis provides a deadly mixture with the general ownership of guns scattered in this city. But it is also true that beneath its morbid exterior, there lies a character of people that make you forget just how dangerous this city is.

Violence is Caracas' biggest vice really. The bang of gunshots have become a regular, albeit quite morbid, addition to the background music here in Caracas. Along with the whistle of the biting wind blowing from dawn to dusk, and the chorus of reggaeton blasting out from the windows of neighboring apartments or houses, the occasional bang of gunshots provide that steady thump in the melody, like the slow yet sure pulse of a drumbeat. The pulse of Caracas. This phenomenon was somewhat shocking to me at first, since these bangs really did occur with worrying regularity. With the amount of bangs that I heard, there should've been at least 10 deaths per day - and these were just the ones I heard, mind you. But to my relief, it turns out that the bangs that occurred weren't always caused by the firing of some armed weapon on the streets, but also came from fireworks traditionally set off every time a new couple was bonded in holy matrimony. Yes, in Caracas, both life and death start with a bang.

But, unlike my own country, at least the violence here is not fueled by anger, rather by necessity. The crimes committed on a daily basis are mostly robberies, which have become a near-legitimate way of 'ganarse el pan' in this city that's continuously being molded into the model of socialistic utopia, but at the cost of adequate jobs for its people. A pretty bloody slice of bread indeed, but as long as it's still edible I guess for them it's good enough. So long as you're holding the trigger that is, instead of staring at the barrel.

Take away these violent tendencies caused by economic need, and you're left with regular people brimming with ambition, curiosity, hopes, desires, sefish whims, but most of all, friendliness. Expat confessions have always said that my country's citizens are the ones that most deserve this title, and yet, when compared to Caraqueños, or just latinos in general, I can't even begin to describe how much they are worthy of this title as well, perhaps more so than us Indonesians. Unless you're living on some isolated patch of the Avila mountains, there isn't a day here in Caracas that you won't say 'Buenos dias!' or 'Buenas tardes' or 'Hasta luego'. These simple two word greetings are practically ingrained into the minds of not only Caraqueños, but also Venezuelans in general. Even people who are complete strangers can expect to be greeted this way. And even me, with my veiled face obviously marking me out not only as a stranger but also a complete foreigner in this country, was greeted with the same amount of warmth and amiability that any other Caraqueño would receive, although keeping up with the conversations and curious questions about my veil that followed these greetings weren't always easy to reply to, solely due to my lack of Spanish of course.

It's quite the paradox really, considering that in a city where even hospitals get robbed for what little medications they have in stock, people should be as introverted as possible, protecting every vulnerable vestibule from potentially dangerous strangers. And yet, what most Caraqueños do is the complete opposite: they greet everyone they meet. I'm not sure if this is some kind of survival strategy that they've adopted, but in a city where danger can literally come at you from the next corner, I guess it's better to turn the next stranger you meet into a friend rather than a potentially dangerous foe. And this, I think is probably the reason why I love Caracas and Venezuela so much, for even its vices can be turned into virtues by its people that face danger with a smile.

Joyous.

Daring.

Colorful.

Caracas.

This was the little piece of Venezuela that I had the privilege to know and fall in love with. Can't wait to explore more of you next year :)