Pondok si Boncel

"Looking up from underneath, fractured moonlight on the sea.

Reflections still look the same to me, as before I went under.

And it's peaceful in the deep Cathedral where you cannot breathe,

No need to pray no need to speak, now I'm under all.

And it's breaking over me, a thousand miles down to the sea bed,

found the place to rest my head.

Never let me go.

And the arms of the ocean are carrying me,

And all this devotion was rushing out of me,

In the crushes of heaven for a sinner like me,

But the arms of the ocean delivered me.

Though pressure's hard to take, it's the only way I can escape.

It seems a heavy choice to make, and now I'm under all.

Never let me go. Never let me go."

- Florence and the  Machine

"Never Let Me Go"

A few weeks ago, in celebration of Stella Rissa's birthday, we visited an orphanage at the outskirts of Jakarta. We were lucky because this orphanage has been around for 40 years and is managed by a private sector (the Catholic ministry in this case). So it was clean, very organized, and the kids there are used to getting visits from many people (there are many people who celebrated their birthdays there, or celebrated Christmas, or just do charity work there, etc). But still there was a sense of longing. A deep longing for affection, attention and love. There were around 80 kids altogether ranging from 0-6 years old. They transferred the older kids to another orphanage (still in one management) once it's time for them to enter first grade. 

The youngest whom we encountered when we visited was a 3-weeks-old boy. I forgot his name, but he was moved by his family immediately after the mother gave birth. The story was that he was a child out of wedlock, and many families here are still very taboo about that (even when the mother and father was almost in their 30s). There was also another story about how a teenage kid, around 15 or 16-years-old who didn't know she was pregnant, but carried the pregnancy anyways, then gave birth to a healthy baby boy. She cut her own umbilical cord with scissors and threw the baby out the window (a neighbour passing by noticed a baby by the bushes and immediately rushed it to a nearby clinic). 

That's why really feel strongly about giving teens proper sexual education. Like it or not, taboo or not, sex is part of life. It's part of our nature as human beings. And stories like uneducated kids throwing babies out the window shouldn't happen in this day and age. It's the age of information. So inform we should. And not information based on religious studies or fundamentalism, but mere factual, real information.

Aside from that, I'm not really sure what to do looking at 80 kids all grabbing for attention from a bunch of adults (who mostly never had any kids before). Personally, I'm not a kid-friendly person. I tend to shut myself and keep to myself in the presence of a child. And I'm not planning to have any children of my own in the future. But there was still something that didn't feel quite right. Yes, the orphanage is a necessity. These kids need to grow up in a safe environment, and the orphanage that we visited was very safe and quite a happy place. But what about other orphanages which isn't organised or funded properly? There are even some who have become a place for child trafficking. These kids need good, responsible, loving parents. Anyone want to adopt a baby?