Indonesia, my home country celebrated its 64th Independence Day just two days ago on August 17, 2009. I will not go too deep in history here to keep things on a lighter note.
After being outside the country for about 4 years, this year marked my first Independence Day here and I was pretty excited hoping to see some celebration like any other Indonesians are used to when they’re growing up.
Unfortunately, the complex my parents live had nothing, nada, zero…you get the point, to commemorate the special day other than the regular raising your flags starting in early August. Made me wonder if it’s because this area is a tad more upscale to perform such traditions? Or simply because most people around here went out of town due to the 3 days weekend and the upcoming Ramadan month?
I remember all the fun I used to had when I was little, seeing the colorful and full of laughter’s traditional event such as panjat pinang (some kind of a sport to climb up a slippery betel nut tree usually covered with oil), sack race, tug of war, bakiak racing (Bakiak is a traditional long wooden sandals with rubber straps usually made to fit 3 persons. To make it to the finish line, the team must ‘walk in harmony’ per say or else they’ll stumble and fall). These are just to name a few of plenty more festivities during the Independence Day celebration.
Well, hopefully for the next Independence Day I can proudly introduce Lil’ A to these traditional festivities since we will be living here for a couple of years. Oh I haven’t told you about that right? I will post something soon.
Happy Independence Day, Indonesia! I can only pray that this country will walk to the right path and let freedom rings.
Pic courtesy of: Mikzack at DeviantArt
