It's better to have a good neighbour than a friend far away.

As I’m sitting on my favorite spot again, outside on my balcony. I hear the beat of the drums coming out of one of the mosks. It’s already dark for a few hours. And when the evening comes people hide in their houses, mostly the men will hang out on the streets. But tonight has been busy and I wonder why as the beat of the drums continues and I recognize the typicle Sundanese rithme.

The water problem in the kampong is still not fixed, but I’m already used to it. I know my water supply normaly will be empty 1 or 2 a week. The only surprise is when it happens. In the beginning it was a challenge to find out how the water system works here. But now I know the water will only run through the pipes from 9am – 2pm. So if your water supply is empty after 2pm you just wait till the other day. But if the water is not coming for a few days… how to fix that problem? Well, as I told you I’m familiar with empty water supplies, so from my water supply on my roof runs a hose down to the house of my neighbor. They have the water from the city, (I have the water from the mountains, which mostly poor people have, cause it’s cheap) that hardly causes any trouble. So in  that case I get my water out of theirs. I learned through the time that when I open the tab downstairs and the water that comes out is very little or when my toilet doesn’t flush that there are 2 possibilities: 1: I have to open the tab because its dirty 2: my water supply is almost empty. If so, I have to climb up to my water supply (and I won’t tell you how I do that,  just pray for some angels to protect me;p) when it’s empty I talk to my neighbours and they fill my water supply again, and I pay them at the end of the month. I'm so happy with my friendly neighbours! It's better to have a good neighbour than a friend far away! I got reminded a lot by that phrase lately. 

So 80% of the people that live here, don’t have water. Already for 3 weeks they are walking around with buckets and I see people tapping the water from the pipes. You have to know that the pipes are not under the ground like in Holland. But they are above the ground, just at the side of the road, or attached to the walls in very creative ways, with very creative material. The pipes on the ground often leak, or are disconnected. And if someone is walking by and sees that the pipes are disconnected they will connect it again. If I see the water flowing down the ground I always wonder who’s pipeline it will be ;) I still didn’t figure  out which one is mine ;p

Anyways so as I’m walking through the kampong I find people open the pipelines and fill their buckets and nobody who starts yelling to them or is telling them that’s not allowed. I don’t hope it’s my pipeline all the time, ;)  since we still have to pay for the water that comes through your pipeline haha. But it is so beautiful to see that these people are so helping one another, so generous and willing. I think it is a beautiful side of this culture. They are always willing to help. Relationship is something that is the most important, it stands above time. In my culture it’s the opposite. Which gives some very funny situations.  In the beginning I did not understand and found myself being frustrated, but now I rather be amazed by their understanding of relationship, time and appointments. And sometimes I catch myself thinking: If it’s not coming today, it will come tomorrow, very laidback haha. So I try to learn to think their way, that’s a good thing!  And again it can’t all be done without love. Because where relationship is, there is some kind of love.

Through the time I saw that we from the western culture like our privacy and rest, where Indonesians don’t like it at all. If they go for a picknick, they go for the most crowded places.. that is very strange to me. I noticed that they don’t like the lonely places and today in school I learned that the most awful and painful thing that can happen to an Indonesian is when someone tell them that they don’t want to be friends anymore.

That tells me something very important about this culture. And as I’m reflecting my day and the things I learned last week, I feel joy and a stirring inside, I wanna know more about this culture and learn from the people around me and through that gaze upon true beauty!