I held the Barbie in my arms… The memories of my life so far came flooding in. I used to live in Indonesia, Jakarta, when I was a toddler. I had fun there, every day would be another fun-filled day. My schedule went as follows:
Go to school, learn, learn, and learn
Go back without homework
Play around in the house with my toys
Go outside, run around the edges of the quiet street
Ride my bike that had supporting wheels on the sides near the road.
I lived without a care in the world. I lived like a country girl, wild and carefree. Mosquito bites didn’t bother me. Nope, not at all.
Then shocking news came when I was 7 years of age. My father, whom I called ‘Papa’, had to go to the Philippines on a business trip. Because my family did not know how long he would stay there, we came long as well. There I faced some hardships. First of all, I had no BEST FRIENDS there. I didn’t feel like I belonged. I had to take a test in an international school but failed because I was too frightened. At another international school called British School Manila, I passed. There, I claimed an Australian accent, which would gradually change as the years went by. There I stayed in Philippines for nearly 2 years then went back to Indonesia.
Shortly after, Papa had to go to another business trip which required me to follow along. This time, we went to Singapore.
There, there were ups and downs too. I forgot to mention that before we set off to Philippines, I had a baby brother named Hanif. So when we arrived at Singapore, my brother was 5 years old. My brother acted in a not-cute-amateur-way and so it was really annoying at times. I started to not pray because I was too lazy, but I made a promise to myself to pray 5 times a day when I became 10. Alhamdulillah, I kept my promise. This next sentence is a bit of a down but is also an up; I did not have a best friend in school but I became best friends with someone in my Madrasah. We had millions of similarities. For example, we were both Indonesians. Soon we started to go nearly everywhere with each other. It was really fun. Sometimes, we gave each other gifts just because we felt like it, one of these presents was the Barbie. But on other times, we girls fought. But during those fights, we got to know each other better. I truly disagreed with a person who once said, “The less fights you have with a friend, the tighter the bond will be.” It seemed that it was the opposite with Salmaa and me.
I had not expected to have to choose from my choices so early in my life, but when I became a mature age of ten in Primary 5, I started to have to make wise decisions. Whilst we were strolling along the busy streets of the Singapore City, my mother blurted out that she wanted me to make a choice. “Would you rather live in Singapore for the rest of your life like Salmaa, or go back to loving and wonderful Indonesia?” That was a pressuring and massively difficult question. Other people would have straight away thought, “Easy question, go back to your homeland, la!” However, it is not that easy.
You see, in Singapore, I can concentrate on subjects I am already good with, especially English. In addition, I had forgotten a lot of proper Bahasa (Indonesia’s language), and I spoke Indonesian mixed with English with my family. My family could not afford the international schools in Indonesia and in all local schools you had to speak Bahasa and learn Bahasa AND write in Bahasa. Which, unfortunately, I’m not very good at. Even though I probably would be the best in English. Considering the fact that I could go on being in the best class in Singapore and get scores of flying colours for PSLE then go to a good secondary school (I hope) and finally start a writing career as an author. BUT…(all my dreams come crashing down) Indonesia is where my friends, relatives, Indonesians live! I love old Indonesia so much it’s a waste of time for me to start describing HOW much for I shall never stop. So now I’m torn apart. Half of me want to go home, whilst the other wants to stay here and stay friends with Salmaa for a long, long time.
And now I’m so sorry but I cannot continue any further as this is where I must stop because this is what position I am actually in right now.
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Today: 2010-09-05, 13:03PM (All times are GMT +08:00)
Topic: The Stories of a Maturing Girl
The Stories of a Maturing Girl
