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It was an honor indeed
Life. Four character that brings so many definition, some are simple, some are complex. People have their own definition about this word. Some find the definition of life in earlier age, some find it near to his grave. Yet somehow, a comedian said ‘we only live once, and it is more than enough’.
There are places I’ll remember
All my life, though some have change
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life, I loved them all
For me, I never thought I am going to spend this big picture of my life here, on 17.000 km away from my home, to live a piece of my age here in a warm, beautiful city, but then, I am here, in Braga, Portugal. Life has its own secret, and the thing we can do is to be prepared and be ready to face what it is.
I am going to be here for five months, it is not quite long nor so fast, but I am sure this is going to be a great experience, like in 15th of March, I decided to go to Porto, I went to Porto, to attend an event named ‘Indonesian Cultural Night’ held by an Indonesian student. Just after three days I arrived here and I miss Indonesia already, the city, the people, especially the food. So, I went there, to heal my premature missing of Indonesian food. I took train from Braga to Porto which only 45 minutes, and it costed 3.25 euro.
Arrived at Porto, I found the place of the event, said hi to some people, enjoyed how enthusiastic the visitors are about Indonesian culture.
Time flied so fast, I did not even know the last train that should take me back to Braga departure one and half hours ago, it made me think ‘I am a homeless already, and in this city of Porto’, but God brought me to another scenario, that terrible thing did not happen, fortunately one of Indonesian student offered me to stay with him that night. See that’s how important to not lose hope. Another God scenario happened to me again, while I was waiting for the guy who offered me to sleep over at his house, another guy asked me ‘are you a Chinese?’ and I was like ‘really am I look like a Chinese?’
His name was, Carvalho, I called him ‘bang nany’, he was an exs Indonesian, I mean he came from East Timor, he lives in Portugal because he took a master degree in a university in Porto. I was quite enjoying talking to him, we talked for hours, we talked so many things, politics, history, life, and so on, he is a very nice guy and then I found myself in his house, we planned to play football the next day.
The very next day, I went to football game with his friends. He introduced me to some of his friends, they are all from East Timor, and some of them can speak Bahasa Indonesia, it was very fun, we played football, and then we stopped the game, because an old guy approached us, he had grey hair, with a good suit, he walked towards the field slowly, first impression, he was a charismatic person. Then some person started to shake his hand, they respected the old man very much. He also spoke to me, asked my name and told me to enjoy each other at the field. Then when I got back home to catch the train to Braga, at the station I asked bang Nany who was the old guy we met the field? And bang Nany started to explain about him, he is Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, a bishop of East Timorese Roman Catholic. His religious life openly denounced the brutal Indonesian occupation of his country, the surprising thing about him was, he won a Nobel Peace Prize with José Ramos-Horta for working “towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor.
It was very a good experience then.
So, like the way the Beatles spread the idea about how wonder life is, yes it is true, …all the places have their moment… like me I went to meet Indonesian people when I go to Porto yet I ended up to know a nice Timorese guy, slept over at his house, met people from his community, and a living legend like him, it was an honor indeed.
