#la_vie

Working with orangutans will always be pleasantful and is a wonderful experience for me to have. Now I work with orphan orangutans in the rehabiitation center to have them ready for the reintroduction into the wild.

Basically we teach them to have forest skills in order for them to survive and thrive in the wild. And being their teachers is new to me!

We have three classes of orphans, divided by the age and the skills they need to acquire at that age. In the morning they wake up, the babies will get milk and breakfast, meanwhile the infants and jouveniles only get breakfast. They’ll get low proteins breakfast in the morning so they’ll starve and go looking for food in the forest. In the late afternoon, they get snacks and dinner.

I always reflect the current behaviour they have now with the behaviour they should show in the wild-forest (release site) later, ones of those are climbing the tree and use the tree as a safe and comfort place. However, human-raised orangutans can never get the same education from the wild-born ones. Humans are handicapped with what they only have. We don’t have long fingers to hold on to the branch, to climb, to swing by the canopy like they do. Meanwhile, wild mother orangutans always carry their babies as they move from one canopy to the others.

In that way, we can only stimulate the orphans to behave like that, to be always up in the tree, build a nest, forage for food, roam broadly. 

Another case, wild-born orangutans will always have one mother who’ll take care of them. But with humans, they will have several mothers, because we can’t always nurture them all the time. We have different lifestyle and therefore it’ll affects their psychological aspect as well. Sometimes they need to share the mom, if we don’t have enough caretakers in a day. I believe it’ll very difficult for them, to not have one exclusive mother only for them.  

Deep inside, I always want for them to have the best and most similar education they can get from the wild mother, but us, humans, cannot to that. The least we can do is climbing the not so high tree, teach them how to build a sleeping nest and if we want to go higher we need to put our tree climbing gear, which not everyone can do that. 

In orangutans’ forest school here, we want to provide and give the maximum efforts but they can never get 100% ideal education from humans. Even when they want to play the way they play, we won’t reach their standards and they need to understand that humans are not they should be having social contact with, but they need to play with their mothers!

Being a surrogate mother for an orphan is challenging and full of responsibility. It’s like you raise a child but you talk different language. We need to think how we can deliver our messages and they understand what we mean. 

Reality hits me harder than I ever thought it would be.

Fuck.

I never thought I would be surrounded by desperation. Fuck, again.

((Sorry for my words))

Saya rasa, dalam proses setiap manusia menjadi dewasa, ada kesulitan-kesulitan baru di setiap tahapan yang akan membawa kita ke kesulitan berikutnya.

Bagi saya saat ini, kesulitan tersebut adalah perasaan kesepian.

Namun, bukanlah tentang perasaannya yang paling berat bagi saya saat ini but how I cope with the feelings. I barely adapt in this new environment: work, friends, colleagues, and pressure. The problems sure arise, not that big tho, but still, this whole new things makes me to cope differently with my problems.

For example, I used to have a cup of coffee, go to a bookstore, or meeting my friend(s) to talk it out.

But, I don’t have that all in here. This is really hard for me. Now I don’t know how to alter the feelings. The only choice for me now is to choose not to have the feelings. But again, that is very hard. I’m all alone and I don’t have friends to talk with, or places to go to.

Fuck.

I’m longing for that deep talk in the late of night, to engage in a deep conversation with  a right person, or people. I’m longing to have that feeling which my soul feels complete. I want to have that friend.

Sure loneliness is the most unbearable thing for me right now. I don’t deny the fact that a human being will always be alone no matter how many friends they have, how broad they socialize, when we die, we don’t bring our friends into the grave. However, this loneliness is really hard to cope with for me.

That doesn’t mean I need to get married soon, tho. I believe even in the present of other people, loneliness can still exists. It’s just we need to find the right person or situation to not feel that. To feel complete. 

I wish I will feel it soon.

I wish I will find ways to cope with this soon.

Beberapa minggu terakhir ini saya baru saja mengalami transisi. Setelah keluar dari hutan dan akhirnya memutuskan untuk kembali pulang ke rumah, saya membutuhkan banyak sekali adaptasi di lingkungan urban.

But surprisingly, I like it more to live in the forest. Like, literally in the middle of the forest, in the remote area. Saya merasakan banyak sekali perubahan dalam cara saya memandang dunia dan kehidupan sosial ini. Tbh, saya kaget sekali melihat cara orang bersosialisasi akhir-akhir ini. Apalagi media sosial yang dibanjiri dengan berbagai hal yang sangat materialistis. Banyak sekali saya temukan orang-orang senang membagikan hal-hal yang menyenangkan dan terkesan materialistis disana. Awalnya, saya kira ya orang-orang tersebut memang sekedar senang saja berbagi. Ternyata, itu adalah salah satu bagian dari panjat sosial. Media sosial menjadi ajang pamer bagi segelintir orang agar diterima di lingkungan sosialnya. Dan untuk beberapa lagi, mungkin itu salah satu cara untuk tetap bertahan hidup.

Namun, bagi saya, cara seperti itu bukanlah cara yang benar dan tepat untuk bertahan hidup. Materi tak selamanya menjamin keberlangsungan hidup manusia. Well, I learnt a lot in the forest. To survive means I have to be able to make connections and engagement with people. Its not necessarily to have money, kita hanya perlu bisa menjalin hubungan dan berusaha mempertahankan hubungan baik tersebut. Dalam hal ini, menjadi orang yang baik adalah penting, karena beberapa hal dihitung dari kebaikan kita. Contoh, in order to survive in a harsh life in the forest, I need to maintain good connections and friendship with people there. I need to make friends, I need to be a good friend and person. Without that, no one would bother befriended me. Because when I’m in help, who else will save me? Ketika saya harus masuk hutan dengan segala risiko bencana dan binatang buas, siapa lagi yang bisa saya andalkan untuk pertolongan? Bagaimana saya bisa bertahan hidup di hutan tanpa bantuan dan pertolongan teman-teman saya? Disanalah saya merasa bahwa materi bukanlah hal yang sangat penting dalam bertahan hidup connection is. Engagement is. Even though in some cases we need money to maintain the relations. But again, it’s not necessarily. Kita tidak mesti jadi orang kaya, menjadi orang baik sangatlah cukup.