The First House in Indonesia KHANE AJA

It was an Indonesian style green house where most of refugees after crossing Malaysian-Indonesian Sea by fishing boat staying for a short time of one till three days as a transit point to Jakarta.

It called Khane Aja which means “mom’s house”. The house did not have yard as most of houses in that area did not and surrounded by trees, its kitchen was in the left side before entering to the living room meanwhile the toilet was right in front of the kitchen in the right side of living room entrance door. The house had two bed rooms and one living room. One bedroom was for the owner so the passengers who could use only one bedroom and the living room to take a rest there. Fifteen men, one-woman two teenagers and two children. The bedroom which had nothing but a red carpet paved on floor occupied by the family and others should use living room which had two woody sofas with blue plastic sets located at the right and back corners of the room and a carpet with size of three meters square. It was not enough for 15 person of course but since we had no choice so should accept the way it was.

We reached the Indonesian land on Thursday 14th November 2013 at around 4 am. Few minutes by walk after boarding off from the boat, we arrived in a small dark house where everyone was sleeping except a women and two men who were the partners of the boatman to change our went clothes and also paying the boatman each person two million Indonesian Rupiah but two children equal one adult.

Everyone changed their clothes and some people even their shoes except me who had nothing to change but then one of the passengers lent me a cream color short-pant and a t-shirt blue short-sleeve to use then we were asked by those two guys to rush and enter to the two white and one silver Toyota Avanza cars which were stand by beside that small-dark house. The family and I, we were in the same car; one person sat in the front seat beside the driver, Mahdi and two other in the middle, Mahdi's wife, their daughter and son plus I sat in the seat behind. There was no possibility to move at all, we sat so tight inside the car some guys putted their backpacks on the knees and some others beside the feet. Then the cars moved and after one hour moving ahead the cars changed and then continued forward where we did not know the destination. I was so tired, my legs were senseless since I could not move them at all specially as my shoes were completely wet and sometimes my hand also numbed but anyhow for the hands little possibility to move. Two guys in our car were not stop vomiting and we were not allowed to open the windows due to the security issue so inside the car was smelled so badly.

We were scared by smugglers, saying if we make noise or any wrong movement which polices become suspicious about the car we were in it and stop us, we would be putted in the jail and then will deport us back to our country and as the family and I still had the Malaysia’s incident in the head, we would not do anything rather than following what our driver were saying and also requesting other passengers to. The driver was a young village dark skin guy who had a red hat and non-stop smoking and the smoke of his cigarette was effecting on me I was also feeling vomit since I was sensitive with the cigarette’s smoke.

We were very tired, sleepy, hungry, thirsty and too headache; I was feeling my head will explode because of the pain and probably it was because the dehydration by sea and of course not drinking enough water as well beside huger and worries.

After five hours trip with 70 up to 120 km/s speed, at 10 am we finally reached Khane Aja. The person who was in charge for passengers hospitality and any needs, event arranging the flight to Jakarta was a middle-aged women; she was living there with her young and beautiful daughter, young son and her husband and as letter I realized that her husband was one of the drivers who brought us in that house. She was the only one who could understand English language, not very good but enough for the simple communications. Seems she was already aware of our arrival even about our number so she had prepared white boiled rice with the fright chicken packed in the red paper-box written yellow texts around with small size bottles of spirit/Coca-Cola. One portion for each but since our last meal was lunch the day before that day in the smuggler house in KL, Malaysia, therefore that food was not filling our stomachs but no choice since we did not know who she is or whether we can ask her to provide some more food or not, we kept silent and later filled our stomachs by drinking lots water.

As we are too tired of the trip, everyone lied down, few of us fell asleep while Mahdi's wife showering her children and after them some of us also took shower. I decided to wash my red sneakers, which were too dirty and wet and then putted them next to the wall face to sun to get dry and some other passengers did the same as me. Finishing that, I entered to the living room to take a nap so I did and when I woke up, those who were awake discovered a new fruit trees which was around that house. No one among us knew what we call that fruit and neither tasted it before. It was round, red-yellow but mostly red like plum with thorny-peel or hairy-peel because the thorns were so soft but when we peeled it inside was white and it had also a seed in it and the taste was sweet. After washing them we started to eat and it was quite delicious, few minutes later the lady came and told us to not eat too much because it can cause problem for the stomach but no one cared and we ate as much as we could (: and no one got any problem.

The clock was showing 5:23 pm and it was time to pray Maghreb. Later after Adzan, the lady wanted to talk to the family about moving to Jakarta, Mahdi called me. The woman was asking to divide in two group so she could buy the tickets for the numbers of the groups separately since we could not fly all together due to the security issue so first group tomorrow of that evening and the second group next day after that. I made two groups; the first group was family means three adults and two children plus, four more adults including me and the rest second group; she accepted and left, after almost an hour she came back with the tickets in her hand showing us and explaining about the movement. She said the that the first group will move to the airport tomorrow, 15 November 2013 Friday early morning after Azdan Subh as the flight was at 7:00 am and second group the day after tomorrow, Saturday. After all these explanations finished, the daughter of the woman brought us some food which was kind of chicken soup and when I tried to eat I could not, the taste was not suitable in my tang so I went to the kitchen and asked that girl if they have some tomatoes, onions and eggs so I cook it the way I usually was cooking for myself when I was alone at home. She could not speak English at all but by body language I understood that she was saying that they do not have the big-white onions but the small one and the tomatoes also finished but there enough eggs; anyhow I wanted to cook. I turned on the fire, put the saucepan on it and then add the oil till it become hot and the after slicing the onions, adding in the oil and since there was no potatoes so I directly add two eggs in it and let it for 3 minutes and then it’s cooked. Usually we eat it with breads in Afghanistan but since there was no bread I ate it with the plain rice which that girl brought for me in the plate and the rice was boiled in the water; no oil neither salt, I can say tasteless.

Some people so sleepy and some other was busy of talking and joking with each other then we (the first group who is going to fly to Jakarta tomorrow) been told by the lady to take rest for being ready to wake up early morning and we did.

She woke us up around 4:30 asking us to get ready; I took shower and wore the short-pant and the t-shirt lent by another passenger and the others worn the trouser with t-shirts or shirts. When the lady saw me, she told me to use a trouser and I said I do not have. She said with this appearance it might cause problem for us in the airport. Then I asked her if she can find a trouser for me. She went to another room and brought a kind of girly blue trouser with the zip was damaged and the button was broken by saying that the only thing she found is that and as I had no choice I ask if I should pay or how she answered, yes of course. She told me to pay two hundred thousand Indonesian Rupiah and I felt it is very expensive since I did not have enough money too so I said that I could not pay that much but after negotiation, I paid one hundred thousand and she fixed the button and changed the zip very fast. The other problem about that trouser was its belly size which was quite big for me and she brought her night-robes belt which was red color to us as belt and I did and it reminded me my childhood when I was mechanic student working in the garage and when the my trousers was big size for me, I was shred a useless t-shirt and tiding up my trouser with it, but this time was different, I was an adult man and also this time I was walking in the public area in a different country; I felt shy about it specially because the color was so attractive and I was trying to hide the tips of the girly-night-robes-belt but it was appear again and again; no solution rather than dealing with.

What a story… finally we left that house at 5:30 am and sat in a black Toyota Avanza, which the driver was husband of that woman. He took us to airport and before entering the airport, another person with the airport staff uniform came to us asking to follow him, he had our boarding pass in his hand. In the checking point, he told to one of the security staffs that we are with him and took us to the waiting room sit until the gate open and we board in to the airplane. He told us to be very normal and do not do something weird to make the airport polices and staffs suspicious if so, it would be our own responsibility for any mistakes or trouble.

Anytime I was seeing the airport polices were getting close to us, I was thinking that they want to catch us. I was too afraid and could not feel comfort at all. The gate opened and we walked to the airplane and sat on our seats. Our seats were almost at the end of the airplane and after all the passengers placed in their seats, the airplane moved and till it is not moved I was still scared of how if the polices know about us, arrest us, put us in the prison, deport us and many other thoughts in my brain were cycling but thank Allah everything run smoothly and well and refuged to the sky; the smoky sky which was delirious like me with its several castes clouds. It took about one hour that pilot let me share my sorrows and similarity with the clouds but the one of the differences between clouds and I was that they were so high but I …

After almost two hours on the sky, we reach Jakarta airport. We were told that when we exited the airport in Jakarta, we should search to find a person wearing red hat waiting for us and he knows about us too. So when we just exited from the airport door where there are many taxi drivers asking the passengers whether they need taxi, a guy who has cigarette between his fingers with the signs we were told was waiting for us so he asked us to follow him, he guided us to the car. It was a new model silver Datsun car and the driver was kind and funny, his English was not very good but he could make us understand what he meant. He asked us do we are from Iran or where? We Mahdi answered no, we are from Afghanistan then he continued that he often picks up the foreigners like us from the airport and drop them to Sabanoz hotel, it was the hotel that the smuggler talked about it in Malaysia the day he sent us by boat to Indonesia. It took about 40 minutes form airport to reach Sabanoz hotel in Jakarta as it was very much traffic and the time was around 10:00 am.

Jakarta; the city with lots of high buildings, hot weather and the most crowded city I ever had been in.

From Sabanoz hotel we were separated, there was someone, probably their friend came to pick up the family and three other asylum seeker and I decided to go to the United Nation Office first, for registration as asylum seekers. We were told that its office is near to Sabanoz hotel so we took a walk until we reached the UN building but since it was already almost 11 am so the registration was stopped and told us to come on Monday early morning. We met some other afghan asylum seekers and refugees around UN building who recommended us to go to Bogor city and stay there for two days and Monday before 8 am should be back in front of the UNHCR door for registration and he explained to us the way, which we could get train from Gambir train station to go to Bogor. Then he left us by saying that he needs to go somewhere else. We found two other asylum seekers who took us to the train station and then we went to Bogor city, south of Jakarta. A green valley-like village higher than Jakarta and the weather was good enough since in Jakarta I was too frustrated of hot weather and extreme tiredness.

15th November 2013, Pekan Baru, Jakarta, Bogor, Indonesia