Go Beyond Border

Go Beyond Border 

February is well known for its love and for me it is a great month to celebrate my love for traveling. Yes, February has been a great adventure for me. In the early month, I went to Sebatik Island in North Kalimantan, Indonesia. It is an island located between the border of Indonesia and Malaysia. It was actually my first time going there and It was better than I’d imagined.  

Sebatik is an island located near the city of Tawaw in Malaysia. A lot of people there are working as labor workers in Malaysia. It is a small city but pretty modern with just one million people. There are many motorcycles, cars, and ATMs. So if you want to go there you don’t need to worry. Sebatik wasn’t like a small deserted village on Sumba island.

So to go to Sebatik I need to fly to Tarakan City and then continue with a boat trip. It was an early morning flight from Jakarta to Juwata Airport in Tarakan. I was so sleepy that the only thing I can do during those three and half hours flights was by sleeping. I landed in Tarakan at about 8 am in the morning, then went straight to the harbor and bought tickets to Sei Nyamuk harbor in Sebatik. It was a pretty smooth ride with just two hours we arrived safely. We decided to just have some rest at the hotel before starting video shooting the next day. 

Suraidah Winner of Pahlawan Untuk Indonesia Program 2017 

I went to Sebatik for work and this trip meant to give an award to one of the winners of the Pahlawan Untuk Indonesia (Heroes for Indonesia) program.  The winner is a 58 years woman named Suraidah, who is the head of Tapal Batas School for Indonesian kids. This school was built four years ago with a mission to give proper education to unfortunate kids who lived on the frontier. Most of their parents were working in Malaysia as labor workers (TKI) with a small salary and limited access to education.

Simple Monday Ceremony at Tapal Batas School 

The kids were so excited to see the drone fly high 

There were only 50 students and two main buildings, it was brand new. The other four building was actually just traditional house on stilts that were built with wood. Suraidah also provide two dorms for her students, because their parents were off to Malaysia and rarely return home. The average age of kids that stay there is between 5 years and 15 years old, some of them live in their houses but need to walk for more than three kilometers just to get to Tapal Batas School. The kids are very kind and cheerful, I can see how determined they are to be able to get an education. They give us a warm welcomed and goodbye when we were finished working and decided to leave.  

We only spent four days in Sebatik and on our last day we moved back to Tarakan but this time it was not an easy ride. Although the sun shine so bright that morning but big waves hit our journey. The boat machine was off several times and at the same, it was pouring rain. I’m a bit worried at that time, but the only thing I can do is just pray that our boat can reach the harbor safely. Three hours later we landed safe and sound. Thank God!