Instilling Love for Hometown

Local Exposure Program 2016

Being in the hometown during the semester break become one alternative choice for students studying in Yogyakarta. Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta with its Local Exposure program encourages students to design beneficial activity for the community in which they live. The program helps students to instill concern for their region of origin, to identify the potency and the problems, to open networking and to have job orientation after completing their study in Yogyakarta. There are three students who participated in local exposure program 2016. Who are they?

Agustinus Soleh, often called Agus, a student of governance science of STPMD APMD originating from Long Alango, Malinau, North Borneo. The trip to his hometown takes several days and it needs really a strong will. How comes?  Well, he departed from Yogyakarta to Tarakan by plane, then by boat against river current from Tarakan to Bahau Hulu. Moreover, he and other passengers spent nights on the river bank and changed into smaller boat to avoid huge rocks along the river.

Arriving in his village, he mapped the potency of the villag, approached the villagers, interviewed village and local district staffs, local leaders, the head of customs, youth groups, women-children-youth dance groups, groups of craftmen and traditional music groups. He also took part in voluntary work of his village, trained traditional dance for children of elementary, junior and youth, performed single dance and observed Ulen forest land.

He discovered many potencies that could be developed, such as conservation forest called Tanah Ulen, traditional dances, natural landscape, batu muram (a short of stone), and handicrafts. His presence received good response and warm welcome from the society. They hoped Agus could return home during holiday and arrange activities with the community.

Elisabeth Uru Ndaya studies in Sarjanawiyata Tamansiswa University, Yogyakarta, majoring English Education. She is interested to learn more about traditional woven cloth, because she found a fact that most young people of Sumba like to wear it, but they don’t know the meaning of the motives. Even worse, the cloth motif they are wearing has inappropriate meaning with the event they attend. It is ironic, as actually the woven cloth is their own unique cultural heritage from East Sumba.

During holiday she determined to learn traditional woven cloth by visiting traditional woven cloth kampongs such as Kalu, Prailiu, Padadita  and Palindi in Kambera district, Waingapu. After few weeks of learning she found various images with their meanings, such as, a crocodile symbolizes the glory of king, people walking besides buffaloes symbolizes slave, skull symbolizes war, hen symbolizes ritual belief of Marapu, horse symbolizes animal in Sumbanese’s life and mamuli symbolizes customary marriage dowry.

The process of weaving requires tools and materials, such as piapak (bobbin), Wanggi pamening (spinner), Kapala (binder for threads), tenung (loom), wurung (soaking basin), lesung (pestle), smooth thread (silk), raw yarn (wool), roots of Morinda citrifolia (kombu, red colouring), leaf lira (wora, blue colouring), ijju and pecan trees (yellow colouring) and lime for preservatives.

The conservation of East Sumba traditional woven cloth needs to be maintained. Unfortunately, only a few young people want to learn the skills of making traditional woven cloth of East Sumba. It becomes homework for East Sumba people to maintain the existence of their traditional woven cloth.

Johain Pekaulang, a fresh graduate student, majoring Law from University of Janabadra Yogyakarta. He comes from Buli, East Halmahera, North Maluku. In accordance with his study background, he wants to know how far is the implementation of traditional law in Buli to solve criminal cases as time goes by.

Around in 1980 people of Buli still adhered local customs. In case of violation or crime, they often settled peacefully between perpetrator and victim, or pay the customary fine. In addition, when there is a wedding, the music  often played is lalayon music and accompanied by lalayon and cakalele dance. Working together is still commonly found and a system of barter is still valid. However, in the period of 1990-2000, the development of era and influence of foreign culture gave significant impact; the traditional law in Buli was slowly abandoned. So, in case of violation or crime, they tend to resolve it using national law. Lalayon music and lalayon was rarely played anymore.

At the beginning Johain hypothesized that when he returned home to Buli, he will only find case of fighting and free sex among young people, but it turned out to be more increasing cases of corruption, theft , unfair competition between young people and organization, thwart to one another, village negligence and egoism that tends to take profits for themselves. These conditions made him sad and compelled him to return back to teach young people knowledge and experience for the sake of awakening characters toward a better Buli society and young people have useful life for the community.

The experiences found by three students in their hometown are like a real small touch which is able to change someone’s attitude and love to commit to do something useful for his/her hometown. (TRU).