that last road trip

Some of us were lucky enough to have the next chapter of life after college figured out even before you threw the graduation cap to the air with your families clapping in excitement from afar. Your first job will start the very next Monday, or the tickets to bigger cities were purchased for your departion next week. Some were done looking out for engagement rings and the ceremony is planned for next month. Ah, the joy of not having anxiety towards uncertainty at least for a year ahead. But let's not forget those who tend to jump into one chapter of life to another without knowing what's on the table—like me, or a great amount of us. I might have carried the must-stay-organized attitude with me everywhere I go (not to blame Virgo as my sun sign), and to always have plans for almost everything puts my mind at ease, but life after college kind of twisting that part of me. I'll turn 26 in a few months and I can say that uncertainty doesn't give me so much anxiety as it used to.

I remember graduating in October 2017 with no job offers or graduate school plans. However, I also remember the feeling of being so young and it was like the possibilities were endless. For a moment there it felt like I could do anything I wanted, as far as changing the world. I definitely am not exaggerating, and those who believed that their minds have been broadened wide by all the volunteering hours and model UN simulations during college years would relate. That also fueled me and my group of friends to take a 12-hour drive road trip to the eastern part of the island in December 2017.

We were a hopeful group of youth, we wanted to leave an impact. Becoming a corporate slave wasn’t a choice, because we wanted to create something from scratch. I’m not going to write down what we were planning to create out of that trip, but just imagine the spirits of four young fresh graduates with their idealistic minds and idealistic world—we were far more ambitious than Zuckeberg when he snitched the idea of Facebook from the Winklevoss twins (or at least that’s what I saw on the movie, though). It didn’t take long to plan out, we did a bit of research and preparation then we grabbed our stuff and shoved it to the very back of the car. I’ve been on a longer road trip before—the trip from Sioux Falls to Chicago a year before was taking the whole 20 hours, but that one didn’t involve narrow roads or trying to overtake gigantic trucks and buses.

The village was still very much in its original state—everything feels like it’s blending with nature. The lake was magical and terrifying at the same time. The people were nice, and I don’t know if the universe was pretty supportive towards us because the weather was perfect for the whole week. Electricity was available from 6pm to 6am, because the people will go attending their farms or fishing during the day. Our alarm sound in the morning was the Hornbill bird’s call from deep inside the forest (or as the guy from WWF whose house we were staying at, told us—hornbills are extremely rare nowadays, as their status is now endangered species). 

To this day, I’m thankful for the fire that fueled our spirits and ambitions, pushing us to go on that trip without any hesitation. Maybe it is common for young adults to have confidence within themselves that they do have the capabilities of doing big things, or maybe it was just us—I remember how I loved all of our meetings and brainstorming sessions. I remember the late night get-together jamming into rap music, scribbling down ideas and rough sketches, falling asleep on the floor with pizza crumbs on our hair.

As years went by, I realized that what I miss the most from our adolescence years is our big dreams. No doubts clouding up our minds, no hesitation to throw ourselves into life-changing experiences freely. I can’t lie that the thought of maybe everything we were planning on will eventually fall apart as we grow up lingered inside my mind back then, but I also wouldn’t be willing to trade those magical moments with anything. I’m glad we decided to go, because who would’ve thought that the trip would be our last road trip ever?

This is a footnote (I’m aware of what a footnote is, but I don’t have any idea what to call this, so-):

The Lanjak village, the village I went with my friends I just wrote about, is located in the most eastern part of the West Borneo Province. I would say that the access to that village is still horrendous—even after four years since I set my feet there. The infrastructure of the road which became the only access to go there is poorly built, or maybe it wasn’t built at all, the locals just opened up a way cutting through the dense rainforest.

However, the people who live there are mostly the Dayak Tribe that still hold their cultural customs and traditions tightly. Those traditions produce arts and crafts that are considered priceless, such as kain tenun (naturally-colored woven fabrics), also handmade necklaces and bracelets which materials are 100% natural. They are priceless because the process of creating them can be traced back to the people’s ancestors’ legacy from hundreds of years ago, and those crafts are still used for cultural ceremonies. It is unfortunate that those people can’t make a living out of those crafts because for the local market the demand is too low for numerous factors, one of them is the crafts considered as raw materials that can be developed into more versatile stuff but the location of the village making it hard to do so. 

If you happened to represent an NGO, or maybe an investment agency, and interested to know more about the products of Lanjak village, I will be more than happy to be in contact. It is also worth knowing that any further progress of developing those products won’t make any profits for me, I just want to be the source of information (and a helpful one, I hope!) for them.