It was my first journey back home to
Aceh. I never visit the place that belong to my origins since I was five years old. Somehow it takes seventeen years for me to come back and it’s a big number. Let me begin the story.
There’s a little town near
Medan called
Stabat. My uncle lived there and we decided to have a trip to
Kuala Simpang, Aceh. It all begin about 8 in the morning. I drove the car, taking the shortest way to the main road of Medan-Aceh. The weather was fine, with no air conditioner in the car I believe I still can survive from the heat.
At day break, the sun climbed quickly into the sky. I could heard the sound of children fighting in the car. But it all was over, soon they all sleeping. So I drive by my own, passing the
Casuarina trees hidden by cluster of
Acacia. It was a perfect harmony watching the scented yellow flower of
Acacia trees with the midgreen foliages as background. Then I looked to the mirror for a while, and there’s a current of joy rippled and danced through my eyes.
The car begun to enter small town called
Tanjung Pura. My uncle pointed his fingers to a building beside the road, a hospital right now but once it was a house where my father was born. It felt strange passing the same road as my father once walked. And seems that the history of the place addressed me friendly. It was bewitched.
But now, back to
Tanjung Pura again on the road to
Kuala Simpang, my father birthplace. I had begun to rediscover the ways of the world that I once known. I smiled again then scolded my self silently for being so forgetful. As my feet pushed the pedal the car ran smoothly. Leaving the place as a devoid of motion, that stretched far into the distance.
The journey had close to the bay area. The heat is maximum. Overhead was only whiteness, a blanket of cotton wool with no trace of color at all. Beside the road as far as I could see was just a mud land cover by shallow river. The mangrove forest. We begun entered the city of
Pangkalan Brandan. Sometimes when I was a kid, I usually spent my holiday here. My father had a shrimp farm there. Remember that I used to spent hours playing with tiny crabs and they have plenty of colors. My mother called me “ikan belacak” because I always covered with mud after it.
Oh, what a precious journey. The wind, the trees, the people with their honey-colored skin, the smell. All of them surrounding me, they carried me away to calm and peace.
