Flood Days

Jakarta was flooded in the beginning of Feb.Oh yeah.... It happened at the end of a governor's era. Not surprisingly that the issue of flood became political, almost for everybody. I live in an area where people say that it is the end tail of the 'dragon'. If you guess that it is a chinese belief, well, you're right. They believe that in the upper part of Jakarta stretching from Pluit to Kelapa Gading lies a 'dragon. Pluit area is the head and my area, Kelapa Gading, is the tail. The belief also includes a notion that both areas, the head and the tail, will forever be flooded during rainy seasons and the flood is at its worst condition every five years. This year is worst, alright. Much worst than the one in 2002.

It came so unexpectedly. That morning, a local security man woke us up and asked us to move our cars to a safer place. Even when I was returning from the place where I put my car, in the rain, I found it hard to believe that I was out there and that the water had started to reach my knees.

The water quickly reached the front porch and I sadly watched the water coming in the bathroom through its holes. Not too long afterwards, water was all over the floor in the house. We managed to move some furniture, television, water dispenser. But not the refrigerator, cupboards and some of Mom's clothes.

We quickly moved to the second floor and tried to make ourselves comfortable with whatever we had. At 11, the electricity was out. Nothing else to do in the dark but to listen to the small radio. Exactly the same radio we had listened to during the flood in 2002. Talk about durability, eh?Hehehe....

The first thing I asked to my father was how much medication he had with him. He usually needs to take 6 kinds of pills and capsules for his various health problems. He told me that he had ordered a supply of it for a month. A month!Phew!

The next thing was to warn my brother not to go home after he returned from Denpasar. After we asked him not to go home, he decided to stay at a friend's house. So, that's settled. For the time being, everything seemed OK.

We were thankful that water was not one of the problems. Food and drink were. We did not have much rice or water gallons. My dad then asked help from the local security man to buy us some rice and instant noodles. To avoid having the instant noodles day by day, we went for 'shopping'. It was not an easy journey since we had to pass the flood just to get to the main road. Of course there were self-made special means of transportation, but they cost o-my-God a lot!

We did the cooking on the second floor, we took a bath there,too. When it got so bored at night, we would try to find an interesting subject to talk about, e.g. the food we've ever eaten, weird places we've visited. I felt we'd gone back to the Dark Ages when nothing else to do at night except sleep or talk with your family members.

During our trip from shopping, we found this burger vendor. Hmm... talk about making money.

It's an ordeal involving creativity, tolerance, perseverance, not to mention patience. Without even really realizing it, we had lived in refuge on the second floor for 10 days. It definitely was an experience but don't ask me to be in that same situation ever again. I do hope that the new governor will show more determination in dealing with the flood problem and anticipating its causes.