This sentence was probably so familiar for everyone, especially those who have kids as this sentence was said first to me by my mum when I was a little girl. Not so long ago that is, ha! Alright, seriously now. When I was in Grade School, both of my parents were working so they tended to abandoned me and my sister a little bit. Okay, maybe not that bad but they were always skipped picking us up of school. Back then, my dad had this guy named Karjo worked for him as a driver so this guy was the one who had the responsible to do these so called 'picking up and dropping off' kind of job. But, of course, since my beloved daddy was the boss so his needs came first. When he needed him at work, there where Karjo went. So, as a precaution act, my super mum who was the smart-ass in the family taught us on how to get home using public transportation such as buses or this thing called 'Metro Mini'. My sister and I had these note which we kept in our bags where our mum wrote the number of the buses we should take to get home in case if Karjo can not pick us up. And, she added these words at the bottom of her notes, 'Don't talk to stranger'.
So yeah, at the age of 8 and 9 years old, me and my sister were already knew how to used public transportation, can you believe that? I mean, come on...this was big! Imagine if this happened nowadays in the country such as the US, my parents would probably had to handed us to the state as they were most likely would ended up in jail for abandoning their kids, ha! But of course, this was way back when the situation was completely different with the situation we deal with today. This was when the street was still kids friendly, where less child molesters walk around and no one even think of kidnapping children just because they can. And even though I once took a wrong bus when my sister had an extra class hence I went home by myself, but that was still acceptable as I managed to undo the mistake then safely arrived home an hour late. So yeah, compared to kids nowadays, for me to be able to be an independent kid at that young age was beyond cool. But actually what makes me had no complain whatsoever was because of this certain boy, my sister's classmate who was my childhood crushed whom joined us for the ride. Honestly, I was like praying everyday for my dad to not sending Karjo to pick us up from school. I mean, I was a loner and an awkward girl back then, so this thing was my only chance to eventually talked to him. OMG, I was so lame!
Okay, enough about my childhood thingy, let us get serious for change. When a few years ago I first came to Bali, I was kind of surprised with the way people live their life here. As a girl who raised by this dogma that stranger means trouble, I found it weird when everyone here says hello to everybody on the street even though they don't know each other at all. That was like just one of those genuine things they normally done here and it was kind of overwhelming to be honest. Although at first, my then boyfriend always ended up reminding me to smile back to everyone on the street as it takes time for me to get used to this thing, but in the end I was a OK and started to be a super friendly girl just like everyone else here. I mean, I still feel weird sometime to just even smile as I don't even know who were the people I smiled to, but am adjusting alright. I even say hello back whenever someone said hello to me on the street and this was not the thing I ever think of doing before I came to Bali.
Okay, it's true that we all probably knew already that Bali lives its life from the tourism. People here depend so bad on this thing. This island has no sources of nature whatsoever hence every aspect that you could think of here was clinging to every tourist that comes to visit and spending their money here. Therefore they have to be super seriously friendly to maintain the visitors to feel like home. I remember one once said to me that if you were drunk at 3 o'clock in morning riding your bike home from the club and had an accident on the way, no need to worry as there were always someone who would be happy to help you out. First I was like, yeah-yeah...whatever. But then my ex told a story that made me realized that this was not a hoax at all. Want to hear his story?
Alright, alright...I'll tell you! Gosh, you guys are so impatient, aren't you? So here is the thing, my ex was a wild boy and a party animal type of guy before he met me. One night, his friends and him went out for a party and for some reasons they went separated. My ex ended up in this shady-shit club not knowing on how or why did he even there at first place. And it was 7 in the morning when he redeemed conscious and realized that he has got to be at work by 8.30 for a very important meeting, so he ran out to get a taxi home when he found out that he had lost his wallet and had no mobile phone with him. So yeah, there he was somewhere 40 kilometers away from home, drunk, had no money at all, and couldn't call anyone either. On top of that, he had this so called life and dead kind of meeting to attend in one and a half hours time. What a disastrous!
So, he went out to the street where bunch of taxi drivers parked up their vehicles, and of course, they tackled each other to get him using their services. For real, a drunk tourist? Perfect! But, there was this one guy who for some reasons knew that something wasn't quite alright, so he pulled my ex's hand and asked him what happened. My ex then told him his situation and guess what, the guy then politely open his taxi's door to let my ex in and took him home, wait for him to get ready, then took him to work. To make it even more amazeballs, he then told my ex to not to worry about the payment as he was always there at that shady-shit club anyway so my ex can always find him whenever he wants to pay. What a good Samaritan the guy was! He was not just saved my ex's life from who knows what would happened to him, but also helped him getting one of the biggest deals he ever had! So yeah, he then became our taxi driver for a very-very long time. Even though now am not with my ex anymore (duh...obviously!) nor even use his taxi service either, but still, we exchanged hi and how are you whenever we bumped in to each other on the street. And I became care even more and more less every time my friends who still live with the dogma that strangers are trouble look at me with their funny looks and were like, "Who are you talking to?" I then proudly say, "Him. That's taxi driver. He's a friend."
Nope my friends, this story was not a BS at all. It actually happened and I actually learned something here. When you are not living in your town, when you are living away from home, do talk to strangers. Because when you are not home, strangers are practically all that you have. When you were like hundreds of thousands kilometers away from your family, strangers are your family at this point. So maybe we should modernized those words a little bit. Maybe we should not say 'Don't talk to strangers' anymore. Maybe we should say : 'Don't talk to strangers. Unless if you are drunk, lost your wallet, and don't have your mobile with you.' Make sense, huh?
^_^
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