Thursday, October 29, 2009

Volunteering

 


Doing sort of fun activity is always wanted by everyone, do you? I love that. Well, here’s the picture when I did kind of volunteering activity at COMMUNITY FOOD BANK Tucson. Of course I had fun time there, though at the end I was little tired. Here’s the piece of story:

One day at around 8 a.m. in the morning I and 13 friends of mine headed the place (foodbank) and we served there as volunteers for about 5 hours. As that day was in Ramadan, it felt quite hard for me to work with insufficient carbohydrate and fresh water in my body. This activity was compulsory for all of us (grantees of IELSP) as it was the part of our scholarship program. We were provided van to go there but no food. There were tons of food at Food bank but we couldn’t eat any. You know what? Certainly the food wasn’t for all of us, but for all community members who live in the city in case the emergency thing happens. Yep, that place is belonged to the government of USA (Arizona State) to provide food for people.

In case calamity happens in the city and the people get lost of everything, they still can access food and drink as Food bank will provide them. The catastrophe includes flood, earthquake, fire, pandemic disease etc. By collecting and storing food at food bank, the government can easily distribute to the victims as all is well-managed.

I think that serving for community is sort of fun and challenging for most people in the USA, so it makes sense if Food bank is always open for anyone who intends to serve as a volunteer. The volunteer will not get any payment for his/her work as it is counted as volunteering. I did love my activity there as it meant so much for me - I could help and give something for Tucsonians. I knew that opening and lifting boxes, arranging cans, sorting the food and doing anything were quite tiresome, yet, what I done then was exceptionally awesome. That was my first time serving for community overseas. Everyone was happy to help, so was I.

There are several requirements for you who want to serve at food bank. First, you have to be in a fit condition, unless you’ll get sick afterward. Secondly, you have to register yourself first as it makes the committee easier to make the schedule and everything. Third you have to wear nice and suit outfit, I mean please wear any dress you think it fits you during your work. I highly suggest everyone to wear nice shoes and T shirt as you’ll feel lighter to move around. Fourth, bring some food and drinks for you (don’t steal or eat any food from food bank, you’ll be fined). Oh yap, you may eat and get food in particular room near foodbank, the food is free but the stock is limited, so be swiftly to grab some.

Readers, I am not sure about what’s so called foodbank also exists in this country. But there must be at least one, I would say so. Yeah, it is probably the duty of social department to make it. But thing I wonder the most is that the activity of serving as what I’ve done there in Tucson. It seems to be really interesting if department of social also facilitates people who want to serve at food bank (Indonesian version). Yeah, people can fill their days by doing noble thing to serve others. Besides, people can also donate their money to buy food for the community.
The last, I enjoyed my short journey during my 2-month program in the USA. I could know and understand this world better, I could know what American government does to its citizen, I could know how care the government is to its people. I loved my volunteering!

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Thursday, October 22, 2009

Cijanggel, my second time there!

 

This is so nice shot I've got in my hard drive that I want to share you guys. On September 27, 2009 I and some friends of mine went to Cijanggel in accordance to do survey for our English Club's outing, so this first trip is kind of preparation for our really outing a week later.

This place name is quite puzzling me sometimes, it is either Cijangel or Cijanggel. Well, whatsoever, the place is my cup of tea anyways. Cijanggel is probably taken from Sundanese name but unfortunately I’ve got no idea what it is exactly. Or, it is probably sort of a fusion name between Sundanese and English; “Ci” in Sundanse means water and it is usually put as prefix, while Janggel is derived from English name which means forest. Jungle is spoken “Janggel” in Sundanese and Indonesian, make sense right? Kidding :).

Cijanggel (or Cijangel) is located about 10 Km from my lodging house and it can be reached for about 40 minutes by car. I live at Setiabudhi street behind Ledeng station (pretty odd to call it station though) and in this trip I with my friends took angkot (public transporter) that we’ve had booked before. Each of us spent 11.000 rupiahs (US 1.2$) for commuting, way to cheap if it’s compared to the fare in US or Europe.

When we I arrived there, the weather was quite mild and luckily I brought jacket with me, my friends did too. Despite its chilly weather, Cijanggel has pretty stunning scenery either day or night. We only stayed there till noon but the weather remained so nice.

After doing meeting for arranging the outing agendas, we snapped some pictures as we didn’t want to miss this natural beauty. It’s a most for us to record every single occasion wherever we go. One thing for sure, our hard drive is getting stock up with tons of photos.
We arranged the meeting at Villa which belongs to a well-known Islamic figure in Indonesia Aa Gym (Abdullah Gymnasiar) and near the villa there’s mosque where we did also shot some pictures inside. The mountain you see here is Burangrang Mountain. Burangrang is believed as the mother of Tangkubar Perahu Mountain as it is placed closely to it. If you know the legend or Sangkuriang and Dayang Sumbi, you must have known the story about that. I’ll tell you later if you haven’t known it.

Enjoying the exquisiteness of nature doesn’t always mean costly and far. We, Indonesians have bunch of extremely beautiful places we can go to; every province has a lot for sure. This place I mentioned here is just one of the attractive places in Bandung (West Java) and you may visit other sites such as Pangalengan, Ciwidey, Tangkuban Perahu etc. Really, let’s keep loving Indonesia!
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Wednesday, October 14, 2009

La Salsa 2008

 

Oh my God, that time was the very first time in my life went to the very fabulous Mexican restaurant, the name is La Salsa. I and some friends of mine had dinner there, though most of the the tastes were little bit unfamiliar, I liked the dishes very much. La Salsa restaurant is located at Boulevard avenue near University of Arizona campus.
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Here I was eating sort of nice pieces of food but I did not know the name. I ordered this item as it had rice mixed with other ingredients.


The menu listed in the picture (behind) could be seen right when we got into the restaurant. I paid around 8 bucks for wonderful food and coke. I've got a huge eagerness to come back there again someday.