Resilient Spirit to Realize Dreams in the Borderlands

Kompas/Emanuel Edi Saputra

Children of Lama Badat village, Sanggau regency, West Kalimantan, on the Indonesia-Malaysia border, walk a total of 6 kilometers every day to attend SD Negeri 14 Badat elementary school in Badat Baru village. Their route takes them along a hilly path with a 30- to 40-degree slope. Sometimes they cry from hunger and thirst, and slip on the ground when it rains.

Children of Badat Lama hamlet on the Indonesia-Malaysia border walk along hilly terrain with 30- to 40-degree slopes for 6 kilometers to get to school and back. Not infrequently, they cry from hunger, slip on the ground, and fight their fears.

Nia, 9, a fourth grader at AD Negeri 14 Badat state elementary school in Sanggau regency, West Kalimantan, was ready to leave from Badat Lama hamlet to her school in Badat Baru hamlet on Tuesday (15/6) at 6 a.m. Nia left her house carrying her food in a black plastic bag. Her books are also tightly tied in plastic bags before they are put in her school bag, so they won’t get wet if it rains.

The distance between Badat Lama and Badat  Baru is about 3 kilometers. Of this distance, 90 percent are composed of slopes. Badat Lama only has a lower-level elementary school for the first and second grades. If the children want to continue to the third through fifth grades, they have to go to Badat Baru, the nearest hamlet.

Wearing worn-out flip-flops, Nia walks together with seven other students. The route is winding and climbs down. At the end of their kampong, they start down a steep and narrow concrete path of 30-40 degrees. The path is about a meter wide and runs for 2 kilometers, often becoming slippery after rain. As the path is covered in moss, they have to be careful. When they pass the mossy section, they slow down and walk hand in hand.

At times, Nia saw that the sky was overcast. She feared it would rain, which would make the path even more slippery. "Me and my friends used to slip and fall," she said.

To their left is a cliff of 50-80 degrees that is prone to landslides, thick with tropical vegetation.

That morning, mud from a recent landslide covered a 2-meter length of the path, mixed with broken trees measuring 70 centimeters in diameter. They walked slowly. To their right, several meters from where they walked, was a ravine 10 to 15 meters deep.

Parents are unable to drive their children to school on motorcycles after rain or because they have to go to work at the pepper farm. During severe weather, they do not allow their children to go to school for safety reasons.

Fortunately, the weather that morning was good, so the children could arrive at their school by 7:10 a.m. SD Negeri 14 Badat state elementary school starts classes at 8 a.m., but the school didn’t have classes that day because it was preparing a ceremony to commemorate the 72nd anniversary of Indonesian independence.

Hunger

By 11:30 a.m., the rehearsal for the ceremony was over. The students rushed to leave because their journey home was harder. The winding return route is now an uphill climb.

Several meters from the schoolyard, the children started up a slope of 30-40 degrees. They had to walk slowly, bending their bodies so they could climb more easily. They climbed on their toes so that their small feet started to stiffen. By about 200 meters from the school, they were soaked in sweat from the heat.

They always went home together. If something happened, they could help each other. "We sometimes cry because we get thirsty and hungry during the journey, especially the third graders who go to the school for the first time," said Nia, wiping sweat from her forehead.

Even though most of the children brought food and drinking water before leaving home, they had finished them at school. Their pocket money of only Rp 2,000-Rp 2,500 each was enough only to buy bottled water at the school. They earned their allowance from carrying wood at the pepper farm.

"Whenever one of us cannot continue the journey, we have to carry him or her together. Besides, the path is said to be haunted. Several years ago, there was a resident of the kampong who died mysteriously here," said Petrus, 8, a third grader.

The steep route drains their energy, causing them to become thirsty and hungry. Petrus was once forced to take sugarcane from the side of the path to quench his thirst.

After 15 minutes, the children’s faces were red. Their breath came faster. Justin, 8, another third grader, stopped under a tree and took off his shirt. His friends joined him and they took a break together, resting under trees several times during their journey home. A few children entered the brush in search for water.

Badat Lama hamlet head Agius Asip said it was harder in 1984-1985, when he went to school in Malaysia because their hamlet had no school. Asip lived in the home of his relatives in Malaysia because he could not go to the school on foot every day. However, he only went to school there for two years.

Realizing dreams

Despite the difficulties, none of the children had any intention to stop going to school. They have dreams, like Nia. From the first through fourth grades, she was always at the top of her class. "I want to become a teacher so I can teach in my kampong," she said.

Meliana, a teacher at SD Negeri 14 Badat, said that of the 110 students at the school, 70 percent were from Badat Lama. During planting season, there were students who came to school straight from the farm. The students are persistent because they have strong motivation. The teachers there always encourage the belief that education is important to realize their dreams.

Learning also requires some sacrifice: The school only has three classrooms. The first, second and fifth graders share one classroom. The fourth and sixth graders are in another classroom. Only the third graders are in a classroom of their own. The teachers and students have to work hard to keep focused during the learning process.