Life In Obano

Obano is a village with beautiful view and cool temperature. Grace, Victor and I worked in Puskesmas (public health service) Obano from Monday to Saturday. Our patients consisted of Papuan and outsiders. Some Papuan, especially old Papuan, didn’t speak Indonesian, so we had many translators to help us. There were many outsiders in Obano who came from Sulawesi, Moluccas, Java, Sumatra, etc. We also had home visit for some patients. For me, it was great to visit the natives’ and the outsiders’ houses, besides to treat the patients, we saw their lifestyle, culture and habits too. Our neighbors in Obano were very nice to us (maybe because we are doctors, LOL). Every time we visit the outsiders’ house, they always ask us to eat meals together with them. So if we visited the Sulawesi family house, then we would eat Sulawesi food. If we visited the Javanese family house, then we would eat Javanese food and so on. We just had to choose random house and we didn’t have to cook in our kitchen anyway.  You can see Sulawesi food in my picture. Wow… it was so good :D 

Every morning at 6 AM, I always sit on the floor of my terrace. I watched the mist raising up. I looked at Paniai lake while I was drinking my warm milk and eating sweet potato or Gabin biscuits. After I finished my breakfast, I washed my dishes on a spring water on my back yard. Once again I saw the beautiful view of Paniai Lake. Ok everybody… I’m so proud to say that my house has a beautiful lake view. Hehehehe…   
In the picture below, you can see the view from my terrace. Look at the mountain in the picture. That mountain contains a lot of gold. No kidding!!!!

In our spare time, we used to hang around in the kios (a small store that provides daily needs). Sometimes my neighbor Anton and Kak Yos used to teach me to speak Papuan. I only able to speak a little bit Papuan. It was nice to learn new language and culture. Sometimes I played with the native kids around my house. If we get bored with our daily activities, we went to Kotomoma village or Mogea village to see the beautiful view. Sometimes I went to Paniai Lake for fishing in the afternoon.  Before we went for fishing, we had to dig the soil to take many big and fat worms. Hmmmmm... yummy. By the way, please don’t expect me to use a modern fishing stick. I just had a long string, a fishing hook, a tin as ballast, and a slim bamboo as the fishing stick. It was fun anyway, although I always get small fishes. Hahahaha…

Every Sunday I went to the Catholic Church in Obano to attend the morning mass. It was a small and very modest church but the people were very nice. We also had a Mosque in Obano, about 20 meters from Catholic Church. There were many Kingmi (Protestant) Churches in Obano.

I used to have many experiments with my food. Sometimes I mixed all vegetables together in a pan. Maybe I should call it “Tutti Veggie”.  Bahahahaha… Sometimes I made chocolate pudding, noodle balls, steamed tofu, fried banana with chocolate-cheese, fried cassava with sambal terasi, fried bread with raisins (just look on the picture, even Skuki our dog had to salivate when he was looking at my raw fried breads with raisins). One thing for sure, you will never get hungry if you’d stay with me. LOL.

By the way, there were two body scales in our Puskesmas but one of them was out of order. So I decided to fix the broken body scale. I borrowed one set of screwdrivers from Victor to fix the body scale. Victor asked me, "What would you do with the screwdrivers?" and I said, " I want to fix the body scale in Puskesmas".  And once again he asked me, "Are you sure you can do it?"  Victor just couldn't believe that I can fix the body scale, so I asked him, "Wanna bet?"  So I went to fix the body scale in Puskesmas. After I finished fixing the body scale, I returned the screwdrivers to him. Then he went to Puskesmas to check the body scale. He said, "Wow you did it. This body scale has become good now".  I know he was surprised to know that, and then he took my picture with the body scale as a good memory.

 

I used to sing Lady Gaga, Lenny Kravitz, Incognito, India Arie, Dave Matthews Band, INXS, Led Zeppelin, Muse, Sting, The Verve, and many more, while I was cleaning the bathroom, cooking and cleaning the house. Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah! Roma-roma-mamaa! Ga-ga-ooh-la-la! Want your bad romance… Sing it!!!!!!  It doesn’t matter where I live, even in the deepest jungle, I would still listening to my music. Ok maybe you guys are wondering how can I listen to my music? I listened to them from my mobile phone. I know it was not easy to get electric in Obano. Sometimes my boss (the head of Puskesmas) turned on the electric if he bought gasoline, but if he didn’t have any gasoline, I would go to my neighbor’s house who has gasoline and recharge my mobile battery there. Hehehehe… 

Sometimes I played with the kids in my neighborhood. There were too many kids in here.  The kids looked dirty, messy with their running nose, but I found them so cute when they were smiling. The smallest kid in the neighborhood is Nolin, she is the daughter of Anton (my staff). She used to come to our house in the morning or in the afternoon and called me “Doter”  (she can’t say doctor) and then she said “Kike” (means “This”). I used to carry her in my arms and I got so busy wiping her running nose while we were playing together.  She was so close with me. Besides Nolin, there was also a kid who used to play with me. She is Marlyn Boma and she lived in front of my house. In the picture, you can see that we were playing together with the Amoxicillin box. 

There were also Jubelina, John and Osea. They are the daughter and sons of Julianus (my male nurse). They lived right next door. So I hear them laughing and crying voice everyday. Sometimes I heard Jubelina was reading and pronouncing in English. They made our neighborhood so cheerful. One day, I heard Osea (2 years old) was crying, then I asked Jubelina his sister (10 years old), “Why is Osea crying?”  And then Jubelina answered me, “He doesn’t want to eat his lunch”. So I took a look at their lunch, and I got shocked to see that they only had stir fry celery for lunch. That was it, no rice, no fish, no egg. So I asked her, “Where is your mama?”  and Jubelina said, “She was gardening”.  In Papua, the oldest sister will take care all her sisters and brothers when their mother went for gardening or fishing.

How can children have a good growth and development only by eating stir fry celery?  And can you imagine they only had a medium bowl of stir fry celery for 3 kids?  It was so sad to see this situation, so I took Jubelina’s hand and asked her to come to my house. I gave her some cooked rice, raw eggs, a pack of chocolate biscuits and chocolate wafers. Im sure they never know how it feels to eat  Belgian chocolate :(  Have you ever imagined how blessed you are surrounded by comfort???

Anyway, we had a big yard in front of our house. I used to see Anton, his wife, Kak Yos and my boss were gardening in the afternoon. They planted sweet potatoes, taros, lemon grasses, celeries, cherry tomatoes, chilies, etc. They used to share the harvest to me and my friends.  There were times when we waited for a rain to fall in Obano. After the big rain, we got the beautiful rainbow. You can see in the picture, a beautiful rainbow on my back yard. It was so great to live in Obano

I want to insert some verse and a video of my favorite song "Bittersweet Symphony" by The Verve.

Bittersweet Symphony Lyrics

'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, that's life

Trying to make ends meet

You're a slave to money then you die

I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down

You know the one that takes you to the places

where all the veins meet...