Monday, December 12, 2011

December, the fifth, two thousand and eleven


Two thousand and eleven years Anno Domini. Today is our last working day in TL, to undertake the capacity assessment as part of the consultancy job. It all went well, I can simply say. In the morning we encountered the guy from the Bank once more, after a long conversation yesterday, spanned from the topic of nuclear physics to theism and atheism, from NASA’s artificial intelligent project to reincarnation and religion; the difference between monotheistic and non-monotheistic.

It was an interesting talk, everyone left with their heads full of thought I suppose, -including me. This morning we exchanged some small talks about weather and cities in Indonesia and supporting capacity of the environment, over the monotonous hotel breakfast. Five days in a row, -number of days we stayed there, we have only three choices of breakfast: tropical fruits with yoghurt, toast with number of spreads like butter, jams, marmalades and errr…. Vegemite, and some cereals (all sweet, I regret) and some fruit juices. Well, cannot complain more, but imagine the service one can get with US $80/night in Indonesia, yes, that will include swimming pool!
Shortly after that, our host organization in TL came and picked us up to shop for wine and coffee, two most important commodities in there. The presentation went well, everyone seemed to be all right with the findings. After question and answer and feedback session, we bade everyone goodbye, signaling that we will come again next year.
I recalled that tonight I’ve gotta go to pharmacy to purchase Dio’s medicines. I forgot whether I really prayed (or not) that morning, but what made this day special was the way too many, too many indeed, coincidences and fortunate moments that I encountered. I listed down some as follow:
1.      The immigration asked me to put the bottle of wine that I carried to cabin on my luggage. Could have been frustrating to find mine because they have strolled the trolley on the lane to the plane, but strange enough, mine was on top of piles of luggage, just like waiting for me to come. So it was easy to unzip my luggage and put the bottle inside.
2.      The flight was on time, unlike the previous week when it was said to delay for 5 hours!
3.      The transit in Bali did not take much time; unlike when we just came.
4.       After taking out our luggage, I saw that the queue for cabs was way too long. That wasn’t good, I thought, so decided to run to the bus line and whoop! There the Pasar Minggu bus came first, first, like never before..so I jumped in.
5.      Fortunately, it was around 4 pm, and whoa, no traffic jam on the way! So I arrived at home when day was still bright.
6.      I took an ojek from the last stop to my place, and when the ojek stopped, he said ‘alhamdulilah’ for the very short trip, and said thank you and again ‘alhamdulilah’ because I said he can take the change. I could not stop myself from mumbling, following him to say ‘alhamdulilah’, or thanks God (whichever language my mind can speak to God who understands all languages I suppose). If he was able to say thank you for the IDR 10,000 that I paid him, what more should I do other than give thousand thanks for the abundant blessings God has given to me?
7.      I put all the luggage in my room and soon got to get the public transport to the pharmacy, and guess what, no traffic in the street! The street is well-known as ‘jalur neraka’ or ‘hell’s lane’ due to its unstoppable congestion, day and night, weekend or weekday.  So again, I considered myself lucky.
8.      I took the medicines and returned to my place.
Against all odds, I believe that there’s an invisible hand guided me, brought me there and made everything just all right in time. Knowing that, I’m glad that I’m not alone. That the Divine Being is always be there for me, for the good cause that He intended me to do. Ever since the world began.

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