Mangkang Camp – Day 7, 8, 9, 10

Other story about my first work camp

Tuesday, 22nd February, the seventh day in Mangkang. We woke up very early, because we had to go to Kudus City, where the Djarum company is. We were picked by 2 cars from the company. It takes about 2-3 hours from our camp to Djarum Company. We were greeted by the Manager of Public Relational department and 2 Beswan student. Because it was already time to lunch, the Manager treated us to eat soto kudus, one of the delicious dish in Kudus. The difference is soto kudus use buffalo’s meat, not cow’s. It was because of Sunan Kudus really respect about local people who were Hindu.

After that, we went to IPAL (Instalasi Pengolahan Air Limbah), where the waste from factory would be processed. Then, we went to PPT (Pusat Pembibitan Tanaman), where they are seeding tree or vegetables. We went back to IPAL to meet Beswan with the local children too. Beswan are the students who received scholarship from Djarum company. They are obligated to teach the local children in IPAL. There, I thought I met my soul mate, but because we really had a short time, I could not managed to acquaint with her. But it’s okay, because I still try to reach her with someone’s help. Hehe..

We went back to Semarang, and try to enter the Lawang Sewu, a historical building that appeared to have so many ghost. But it was closed. Then we went to eat dinner and back home. Really exhausting but exciting day.

Wednesday! The eight day, or first day of planting mangrove. We went to seashore using boat. Some university students helped us to plant. Yeah, I got new friends again. We had to plant 6 thousand mangrove seeds, that divided into 3 days. 2 thousand seeds each day. 10-20 minutes on boat to go to the seashore. The river and the beach that we visited were really dirty. Garbage everywhere. Really disgusting. But we have to go.

The field we had to plant was polluted by “kayu lapis” from the boat overseas that thrown the waste without concerning about environment. So, we had to be careful with our feet. And of course, some feet got hurt by that. The weather was really hot. After finishing the planting, we were comparing our skin. The Japanese went brown from white. He said, “now I am Indonesian”. And the Switzerland said to me “now you are an african”. Haha..

We were really exhausted. At night, the Japanese needed to change the dead lamp. We had no ladder. So we compared our weight. I was the lightest, 54kilograms. So, I sat on the back of tallest Japanese, and try to replace the lamp. Our teamwork was really good, we did it!

The ninth day was same, we had to plant 2 thousand more mangrove seeds. Nothing special that day. Just like the day before. Except, we were finding shells at the beach. Really easy to find that. Just sat at the beach, dug a little with hands, and if you were lucky, you would find one shell. Yeah, we got so many shells and we cooked it for dinner. Oh yeah, we also had lunch at the beach. Really exciting. At the night, we prepared for the day after activity: school visit. Again.

The tenth day, Friday 25th March. We went to SD Mangunharjo. I thought that this would be the same as the previous schools. But it was really different. This was the worst school we ever visited. Because not only the student really crowded, they were really coward to go to the front. I was little upset too. But, it’s okay.

At noon, we were doing composting. Our garbage from campsite we had collected would be buried and recycled. The organic one was buried. But, we were really disappointed when we had to burn the inorganic one, because we had no way to recycle it.

At night, we also prepare for the next day, because we would have a free day. We would go to somewhere that will be told in the next post. Hehe..

All the photos can be viewed here