annus horribilus

My sister called with a shaky voice, “The rain is still pouring. Part of the town has been sunk, I am scared, Mbak”. She and her tiny families live in Solo, the home of the famous Bengawan Solo river. One of Bengawan’s rivulet lies about three kilometers from her place. I ran to TV for some more information, although I am used to complain with how unprofessional the TV reportage is lately but still it’s one of the quickest source that I could count on.

Metro TV which claimed as the best news channel was my first choice. Her always gorgeous anchor said about some fatalities, but it was not in Central Java where Solo is located but it was in Makassar where the twister killed and damaged houses. I changed the channel, it was a flood but the caption in it said “Banjir di Bali”. Gee, my most romantic destination, Bali, was damaged too. Kuta beach and Jimbaran were closed by the water! What a horrific disaster, and not to mention that it IS December, the peak season for that resort island. Another sad setback for Balinese.

Another short message from Solo woke me up to change the channel again. Finally I found news from close neighbor, a live report from Tawangmangu, Karanganyar, only one hour driving from Solo. But it was not about the flood in Solo, just another sad story; a landslide that killed about 60 people at dawn….I closed my eyes for a while, God…

Then came the report about flood…from Ngawi, and then.., another big flood in Sragen, Kudus, Grobogan, Madiun, Mojokerto, Bojonegoro, almost all cities in Java has been damaged by the giant flood. And it even ruined further outside Java, there was a big flood too in Padang in West Sumatra and then somewhere in Nusa Tenggara Barat province!

What an annus horribilus for Indonesia, almost all big islands in this country found disasters. I tried to pray a little but my hand still glued to the remote control and my last attempt to find a story about Solo finally got an answer. Trans7 was reporting it. But, what the **@#$! was that? Gee, I really hate that STUPID cameraman and editor of Trans7 who for a while showed a close up shot of an elderly lady’s exposed left tight because she rolled up her long kain-batik/sarong-like dress, to ease her walk against the knee length  flood. Those Trans 7 people should LEARN more about ethic for sure! How dare they treated the flood victim with such an unsympathetic way, by simply showing such picture across the nation! Oooooh what a real bonus for such annus horribilus, year of sorrow, it is!