Midroad in Jakarta, I saw a deviant writing on the wall:
Susah
Bensin
Ya
Jalan
Kaki
Which means “If fuel is difficult (expensive), just walk!”. The funny thing is that the words are designed so that it can be abbreviated to “SBY-JK”, the current leaders of the country (Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono-Jusuf Kalla). It’s certainly a form of protest against the recent price increase in fuel.
In this era of uber-connectedness, there are actually still regions of our vast world remote to us modern humans. A few days ago, aerial photos of one of the last uncontacted tribes surfaced over the internet. The tribe that lives on the Amazon forest near the Brazil-Peru border can be seen trying to shoot down the heli with arrows. Seeing the photos was amazing to the point of not believing it, since my mind instinctively denied that it was anything but a screenshot from an RTS game.
Yesterday night, the television began announcing that starting from May 24th the new prices of fuel will take effect. My parents immediately asked me to fill the almost-empty tank of the car. Accompanied by my youngest brother, we took the ride to the closest gas station.
It was not far off, but we got halted by the one and only traffic light between my house and the station. The counter showed that we had to wait for 50 seconds. On our left and right were motorcycles with their riders dressed in all sort of thick clothing to protect them from the fierce coldness of the night. “Hurry up!”, I said to myself as if it would speed things up. I knew people everywhere are now rushing to the station, so I better arrive soon to prevent being the tail of a long line.