My Little Trace

“Splash!” Blast of water immediately made my face and clothes wet when our long boat went across rapids against the swift of Kapuas River, the longest river in Indonesia. Cold wind attacked through the journey, accompanied by sound of water and various creatures’ sound. Crocodilles, monkeys, sometimes hornbill and eagles seen color the land and the sky. So beautiful.
Bungan Jaya, the most upper village of Kapuas River. That’s my destination this time. There are just water track to reach the village. No telephone signal at all, the village almost totally isolated from the outside world. A job bring me to the Borneo Island, and adventure spirit made me anxious. I have to go there! After eight hours of tough trip, stood in front of me a long suspension-bridge which connects two sides of village, each at the left and right side of the river. It just wow! Trees and hills spread around us, made a perfect natural frame under the sunset. The air felt so fresh, no pollution at all.“Selamat Datang di Bungan Jaya. Welcome to Bungan Jaya,” said red letters along the bridge.
I stayed at my friend’s house, a post-graduated alumnus from Germany who was on duty as elementary teacher there for a year. Approximately all people in Bungan are Dayak Punan tribe, he said. Except the comers such as teacher and priest. Punan people have pretty face with fishing nose and slanting eyes. Their character is tough, typical of remote tribe who rarely have contacts with outsider and have to survive in wild life. You still can found beasts there : boar, deer, snake, bear, crocodille, and many more. Dangerous, but also being their protein source, beside the abundance of river fish.
I am very impressed about their strong local wisdom. They live with nature, depend and protect nature as part of their breath. Their children grow up under blazing equator sun, struggle with the speed of lucent rivers, merge with forests and dancing in the rain. They don’t think to damage nature, because they have realized that all of lives depend on the nature. That is a wise mind, I think, compared with ours which like to think how to build another office, another town, or another metropilitan to show the world how success us as a human. Sometimes we forget that human is part of the nature, sometimes we forget that we are the nature itself. And Punan people remind me about that. Thank you.