Firefields
Bad News from Friends

HAD you not been a farmer though, owning a loose and vast piece of land, was a little paradise you would have realized soon. All kinds of plants you can seed easily, even without having to know the acidity level of the soil though.

The shoots grew like a mere miracle. Just by following simple ways, watering them with water and sprinkling manure, all the work is almost done. While waiting for time, you can tell a lot of things even fantasize at will about the plants you harvest later.

Perhaps there is a pause that makes you dizzy temporarily, when a flock of plant pests come to visit bring all the disharmony.

However, if you want to learn a little to taste the experiences of the previous people, everything will seem so easy while flicking your fingers and a smile of victory. Yes, growing is easy!

However, for the transmigrants, they had no guarantees about the land they would get. Dozens of hectares of land such as a stretch of dull fabric output factory.

Whatever husks, that's the winding road under the hot, challenging sun. No matter the experience, they have to adjust to the new environment.

No matter how many failures, the spirit must keep creeping through the sweat. Imagining transmigrants, they were like colonies of ants being moved into jars made of glass.

Gunung Gundul Village was originally a small hill that was then flattened into flat land by the government. There is something to be understood when the tongue is more comfortable referring to the hill as a mountain. For them, the name of a hill, mountain or mountain is not something important to talk about.

They prefer to think about how to deal with the dry season arriving or do something that can make their lives not feel gripping. Like when they agreed to change the name of Mount Gundul to Mount Makmur. For them, it was a kind of prayer for all eternity.

If you imitate Patra, up Sangyang Hill, there is a clear border between Mount Makmur Village and Sangyang Village. Although the distance between villages was only three kilometers, the striking difference was how they utilized the ration of transmigration land.

Sangyang Village was awarded the river upstream of its springs at Sangyang Hill. Those who settled in the village easily divided their land into rice fields and clove fields. While the arid Mount Makmur Village, awarded the main road from Pelaihari City to Takisung Beach.

The gift is then utilized by them by setting up workshops, stalls, becoming traders, building workers or raising goats and cows. The pebbled red soil they have is only used to grow jackfruit, sapodilla, rambutan, guava, cempedak, or yam trees.

The rest, they struggle to rely on the skills and experience they have. For the less fortunate, they will work to help work on land or as clove pickers belonging to transmigrant residents in Reservoir Village.

As the name suggests, Reservoir Village has a three-hectare artificial reservoir located not far from the clove fields owned by Jauhari Kasman, a retired teacher who lives in Gunung Makmur Village.

Compared to the other two villages, Reservoir Village was not lucky. For a year they have not been able to feel electric lighting. There are only electric poles made of cordless wood as a road decorator. If night falls, the romance of the sound of crickets is felt to whip up the moonlight bias.

The Reservoir Village felt damp, cold and gloomy. But if you want to see clove trees, Reservoir Village is the place to be. Their village was endowed with a river that flowed profusely. That said, the river water directly flowed from the Meratus Mountains.

To see the beauty of the reservoir from a distance, you can climb Sangyang Hill like Patra did. There is a source of life that every day depend on residents of other villages.

Actually, from the three villages that are close to each other, they need each other. As when it comes to sending their children to school, then all the school buildings are in the prosperous Mountain Village.

Some are so reverent by blowing it into the crown, some say it directly when their children say goodbye while kissing their hands.

Prayer is an unrelenting hope to say. Just as they pray about the price of cloves on the market.

Cloves are something amazing. Every time the harvest arrived, the cloves were like an irresistible magic. If there are people who are the luckiest, they are clove skulls.

When the price of cloves soared, people rushed to each other to Mount Makmur Village for only one purpose, along with making a profit.

Every day the middlemen continue to grow and their presence further aggravates the situation. In their hands, the price of cloves is a game. However, their numbers dwindled further with the presence of Yudha.

The removal of the middlemen caused new problems. Yudha started acting up. He is like Mr. Baron in the Little Missy telenovela aired by TVRI.

Although not exactly the same, as bad as the character of Yudha in the end they can only surrender. Their fate is like a disastrous lottery. It was like the fear Sabran had just felt when he saw the Wijan family being tortured.

Sinking from behind the bush, Sabran saw Patra collapsing with an axe in her hand. That was the last incident that made Sabran's face paled and immediately pedaled his onthel bike to Jauhari Kasman's house.

The old man would definitely babble again. Jauhari once referred to him as a man of platitudes, cowards and all kinds that should not be in men.

What he had just seen – if there was courage – was nothing more than a flame on a wooden matchstick that easily extinguished in the wind.

Never mind him, even one village people no one dared to deal with Yudha. Even if Jauhari would be angry with him for just curling up behind a bush, he was ready. Courage is too good for him.

“Awayari..!” Sabran shouted in a hurry to let his bike slam to the ground.

Away from jerking while sharpening the hearing. His mouth stopped chewing the breakfast of fried rice that had just been served. He noticed one by one his son's face and the last looked at his wife's face.

“Not usually Sabran comes this early?” jauhari was curious. The longer left, Sabran's voice gets louder and spoils the atmosphere of the breakfast his wife has prepared as best she can.

“He need not shout like that,” chirps his wife together Jauhari put a spoon on the plate to immediately meet Sabran. “Take him breakfast. I want to know his opinion about my fried rice this time,” said his wife.

Awayari hurriedly left the dining table to meet Sabran. “Come on, soon this house will be crowded because of your screams,” Jauhari turned her face to the right and left, watching the neighboring house. As expected, they started to open the door.

"They are now at Wijan's house. Gawattt.!” sabran's voice gasping. “I saw them beat up Wijan with his son and wife!" answer Sabran set his breath.