June 23, 2011. That the date of the last post I wrote on
this blog. That’s almost exactly 1 year. Not that I don’t have story to tell,
there a shit load of them but I just didn’t write them down, don’t know why may
be I’m just simply not a writer.
Ok where do I start, which story should I tell first.
Let’s start on last year around August 2011.
I’ve been longing to work in Indonesia as “Expatriate” for a
long time. How good is that, to be “Expatriate worker” in my own country. I got
to live in my own country, close with my families and friends buuuuuuttt with
Australian salary...AWESOME!!!
And on August 2011, to be exact 3 August 2011, my company
sent me to Banjarmasin, Kalimantan Indonesia with one of the manager to find
some coal mine assets...SWEET!! Here we go, Dave and me off to Banjarmasin.
For the first couple of weeks we’re staying in this fancy 4
stars hotel. It’s very nice hotel, big room, and clean, awesome hotel. The food
was average, but hey.... who am I to
complain, I wasn’t paying for it, so all good.
One thing that made me “realise” that I’m Indonesia other
that the traffic and the people off course, is the timing. Not that I consider
myself too good (even though everyone knows that I’m AWESOME) for Indonesia,
but 8 o’clock doesn’t mean 8 o’clock in Indonesia. We made an appointment to
see one of our local partners in the hotel lobby at 8am, but he didn’t freaking
arrived until about 11.30, no “sorry i was late because my dog use my car to go
shopping” or any other excuses. He just came as if nothing wrong. By the time
we met, chat etc, it was lunch time already. We had lunch, shollat, etc we
didn’t start our “actual” meeting until around 1.30 – 2 o’clock. So in Indonesia
8 am meeting can become 2 pm, it just like a time warp.
Our partner is actually not Indonesian, he’s Malaysian. To
protect his privacy from the fan (you’ll know what I mean in the minute) or future
fan (I told you, I’ll tell you why in the minute, and no he’s not a celebrity,
at least not that I know of), let’s just called him Syed (this is his real name by the way, hehehe).
He’s been working as coal trader in Indonesia for about 4 years, and he’s only
3 years older than me. Here come the good part, he has 2 wives, but...here come
the best one, his 2 wives are live in the same area (only 1 block away), and
they are best friends. HOW GOOD IS THAT!!! Now you see why I said he got huge
fan club (I think), I’m pretty sure you want to become one as well right? Want
to learn how he does it? hahaha.. Typical Man. For women reader, ..... i don’t
know what to say, except keep reading... J.
But any way lets back to MY story because this is MY blog.
Cut the story short, eventually we got contact of
“potential” assets that we’re looking for. Dave and I went to Batulicin to meet
with this “so called” owner.
Our contact sent us his driver to pick us up. As usual, they
said he’ll be at the hotel at 7 am, Dave and I was ready to go and waited since
6.45 at the lobby. He turned up around 10 am with maroon red Toyota avanza.
Same like before no “I’m sorry, I was dead and buried and had to dig myself out
again” or other more reasonable excuses. They got us every time on this “jam
karet” game. The driver name is..... sh*t I forgot his name, but let’s just
call him Pak Roni....that’s right, he’s name is Pak Roni. He’s about late 60’s
early 70’s years old. Yes he’s old and he’s driving us. The trip from
Banjarmasin to Batulicin normally takes around 6 hours to drive. I was thinking,
with this old man driver, it could be 16 hours. I was wrong. He was driving as
he’s one of the pilot at star wars movie, dodging trucks, other cars,
motorbike, pedestrian etc etc. He didn’t want to change gear if the RPM didn’t
go to at least 7000 rpm, he must think he’s a F1 driver. He was taking over a
truck.... yes a freaking truck from a blind spot. I almost crap myself. Do I
need to explain what I mean by blind spot? Ok... for you reader that might only
have IQ of an idiot donkey (nope, it’s not you) I’ll explained. This guy, Pak
Roni, we called him Yoda, took over everyone on the road with warp speed even
when the road on a curve, he couldn’t see if it’s there anything heading on the
other way, or if there’s something at the front of the truck his trying to took
over. He’s with “THE FORCE”,...eerr nope, he actually is “THE FORCE”. Yup, that
what Dave and I concluded, Yoda is THE FORCE. I’m Indonesian, I know how to
drive “skilfully”, but what Yoda did, just pure magic, it was miracle that we
arrived safe and sound. And you would think that we arrived in record time
wouldn’t you? Oh well you thought wrong, we only get there 10 minutes earlier,
so all those “Yoda daredevil being THE FORCE” act is only save us 10
minutes.... very worth it, very fucking worth it.
Any way since our job
is to do “Due Diligent” on the assets, we start working. We went to site visit,
made contact with government etc etc. Everything that can be checked visually, all
checked and good, and I requested some more detail data for our report, other
than that Dave also seems happy with everything. The owner, let just call him
Pak Kiki (it’s his actual nick name) very eager to get the ball rolling. The
agreement is, we (Australian investor) will provide the funding, and Pak Kiki
(local) just need to give us permission to mine on his assets and we divide the
profit 70-30 (aus 70, Indo 30). All party happy with the agreement. I was
like..”COOL BANANA”. I would be doing 2 weeks on 2 weeks off rosters, as Mine
Manager. And Dave was going to do the same as my back to back, and also looking
for other assets. The big picture was, we have 3-5 small mines, with me
overseeing all of them, that’s mean I needed to find 3-5 local Indonesian guys
that I can trust that can run the mine for me, AWESOMEEE.
Pak Kiki, want us to deposit $40K for sourcing equipment,
“pay” the local government and police etc etc. And I pass it on to my boss in
Perth, every day we have Skype meeting, feel like I have LDR girlfriend
hahahah. Within 1 week my boss transfers the deposit to Pak Kiki Account. By
the time the money arrived, it was end of Ramadhan, so everyone in Indonesia
were on holyday for Idul Fitri, including me... yippie.
That the first Idul Fitri I spent with my family in
Indonesia since i moved to Australia. Alhamdulillah. I had around 2 weeks off,
it was AWESOME.
After 2 weeks, I went back to Banjarmasin. At this time, I
stayed in guess house instead to cut cost. It’s not bad, actually it’s good and
I liked it. It just a normal rooms with TV, aircon, and shower. Very close with
Musholla, only about 2 houses away. The owner as well as the cleaner, as well
as the care taker, as well as the receptionist, as well as the manager is a
very wonderful woman. We call her “mum”. She knocked on our door every morning
for breakfast, and we ordered lunch or dinner from her, and she would go and
find the closest “warung” for us. She looked after us... I miss mum.
Back to work story, we went to Pak Kiki office to check on
progress, and collect more data. He promised us one week after Ramadhan holiday
over, he’ll bring in some heavy machinery to start mining. One week passed, no
machines being deployed. So I asked Pak Kiki what’s going on. He always came up
with some excuses. We smell something wasn’t right, and no I wasn’t
farted.....oh well may be a little tiny bit, but it shouldn’t smell. After I
put my Sherlock Holmes hat on, I started doing some investigation. Again cut
the story short, Pak Kiki is not the legal owner of the assets, he was the one
who funded the asset for exploration etc (that what he said), but his name was
never in the legal paper of the assets.
So basically we’re Fucked, my boss and Dave felt that they
got scammed, and I felt very embarrassed. My country, my country man, do that.
I just couldn’t believe it. I might be too naive.
But we didn’t give up. We tried again, it just going to be
hard for my boss in Perth to explain about the $40K. Dave had to go back to
Perth to raise more fund. And I continued my adventure in Banjarmasin by myself....and
Syed, trying to find more assets.
My company gave me 2 more weeks to find other assets. So
after about 1 week, Syed and i found couple assets that worth to look at. So
off we went again for site visit, this time Syed was driving. But it was not
better, he thought himself “Luke Skywalker”. He did the same thing as Yoda. I
was started to think maybe this is how you have to drive here in Banjarmasin,
need to be at the edge of your death all the time.
It was Friday 23th September 2011, so we had to stop in a
village called Sungai danau, Banjar baru. We parked the car directly at front
of a grocery shop across the masjid. We went to do Friday prayer. After we did
the Friday Prayer, we went back to our car just to find the car had been broken
in to. The thief used a special tool to open the passenger side door. How did I
know it? Because that fuckwit left the tool in the car!! I lost my camera,
iphone, galaxy tab, and blackberry. The other guys also lost their phone etc,
but I got the most damage. But oh well, if it’s not mean to be, it’s not mean
to be. We spend most of the day in the police station writing up a report. I
can show you the report if you want, but what for?... we decided to go back to
the guess house and start again the next day.
We went to see the new assets, and they look really good.
However, later that week, my boss from Perth rang me and asked me to go back to
Perth. The Australian investor pulled the pin, they don’t want to risk the
money in Indonesia again. That’s a really slap on the face for me, I tried to
bring Australian investor to invest their money to my country, and I know the
Australian company is not just going to rip Indonesian off, because I would be
the one who manage it, but I got let down by my own countrymen, by the people
that I was trying to help. I feel really disappointed and sick.
So any way, the “Indonesian” dream need to be put aside for
now.
I went back to Perth, showed my face to the office. And off
to go to the next project the very next day. My client and I went to dead town
called Wittenoom to inspect the prospectus job. We stay for 4 days. After we
gather all information we needed, we flew back to Perth.
It was Friday 7th October 2011 when I came back
from Wittenoom. So I decided to stay back in Perth, stay in brother place for
the weekend. All my friend told me why didn’t I just move to Perth, and rent
out the house I have in Mandurah (well...it’s not really my house; it’s the
bank’s house). I wanted to, but where can I put my stuff. My brother place is
not big enough to hold all my stuff.
And anyway, we went to Perth royal show that weekend, all
fun. And on Sunday I asked my brother to drive me back to my house at Mandurah,
it’s about 1 hour drive. I want to do some cleaning, washing etc, because last
time I was there; I was only stayed for one night after I left the house for
almost 3 months and have to go to Wittenoom the next day.
I opened the front door, and while I was still trying to
lift my luggage. My brother when in, and as i got inside the house, he told me,”
Sadik (that’s how he called me), lawang kocomu kok pecah (why your glass door
broken)?” and I just realised that my house got broken in to, everything I had
was gone, stolen, missing. When I said everything, I mean everything, my 42”TV,2x
computers, macbook pro, home theatre, jewellery, mobile phones, transformers
collection (yes I did collect transformers toys), zippo collection, watch etc
etc etc...except the big stuff like fridge washing machine and sofa, because
that would be too much and silly. Even my car and my motorbike are gone as
well.
I just sat there on the floor, light a cigarette and start
laughing. Within a month, I lost almost everything I had, I used to own almost
everything and down to own almost nothing...except the house, the sofa, fridge,
washing machine.
And the thing that make me laugh that day, for some reason I
didn’t feel stress, I didn’t feel depressed, it’s actually the other way
around. I felt relive, that’s mean I can move in to my brother place without
too much things to pack hahahaha..
That makes me think, GOD do exist, and GOD do listen to you.
We can make plan however we want, but in the end he’s the one who decide. He
can give you everything you want, but also He can take them all away just like
that.
Oh well that’s enough story for one day. I’ll write again
next time, if I want to when I want to.
P.S.
I could put pictures in it to make it look interesting but I
couldn’t be bothered.
And...FAAAARKKKK this is the longest i wrote something in english :)
