2012-12-05 - 4:12 p.m.
I admit that I am crazy sometimes. Besides headbanging for thirty seconds straight in public for a free laptop,I've also done other stuff. I'm not sure if it was crazy enough, so I'll just let you all decide.
Jakarta is almost always full of heavy traffic. Overpopulated, overly swarmed with malls as the main entertainment for the citizens? No surprise. It's getting worse day by day. It's always the worst during rainy season, or when some groups of people decide it's a fine day for a demonstration - whether it's for a political cause or else.
One evening, I was on my way home on a bus. It was already ten o'clock, yet the traffic in Cipulir, South Jakarta, was still terrible. No joke. The traffic lights have also been pretty much useless anyway.
The problem was the bus that I'd been on was moving to the second lane of the road when the traffic got completely jammed. Everyone stopped. We were all stuck.
Another problem? I needed to get to that turning on the left before the traffic lights. That path leads to where I live, and the bus was practically in the middle of the road. There was also a long, huge, concrete road-divider which stretches in the middle - blocking my way to cut through the massive traffic.
What did I do then? I quickly paid the fare and got off the bus, right in the middle of the road. Thankfully, nobody moved yet. I had to get to that path, but how? There's that concrete divider right in front of me. It's about 1.5 m high - and I'm only 154 cm tall. Do the math.
And I'd desperately wanted to go home.
After a quick consideration, I decided to do the unthinkable for most women:
I went climbing over it to get myself to the other lane!
"Whoa!" I heard one of the bikers exclaim loudly, somewhere behind me among the crowd, but it was too late to back out. It wasn't easy, though. First, I'm short. Second, I was wearing a long skirt and carrying two heavy bags. Not so much of a (graceful) lady, eh?
How did I do it? I just did. Desperate moments = desperate measures? Exactly. Heavy traffic in Jakarta can do that to you. It does a lot to people I see everyday on the streets.
First of all, I swung my two heavy bags on top of the concrete divider. Then I started climbing on top of it, not caring for all the audience around me. (In the cars, on the buses and 'angkots', on the motorcycles, across the street...you name it.)
When I was finally sitting on top of the divider with my legs dangling and two heavy bags beside me, I looked down and gasped. I thought to myself: whoa! It turned out that it was a lot higher than I'd calculated.
Not wanting to stay perching there until morning and embarrass myself in the end, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
Okay, here goes nothing.
I jumped down. Not bad, for someone who's not athletic...at all. I landed safely with my feet on the ground. No injuries, thank God.
As soon as I got home, I told Ma about it. She said I was crazy. Who could blame me? Traffic in Jakarta does a lot to people.
R.
