A Place to Picnic

On the 30th of May in 2017 a new door opens for us to get an insight of the life of a teenage boy living in Kaibobo. We were curious about where our journey will bring us this time and we were all looking forward listening to a different perspective – the perspective of Bandres Manuputi.

Bandres is a 16-year-old boy living together with his parents and his grandma on the right side of the main road in Kaibobo. Bandres´sister is 18 years old but she is living in Papua for a better education. Whereas we experienced most of the children as talkative and full of energy, Bandres was this sort of teenager who likes to be quiet but though has his own and special dreams in life. Dreams and hobbies, we`ve already heard about in Kaibobo but we were impressed anyways to hear it from a young boy directly.
Bandres goes to junior high school in Kaibobo. For him it is a pleasure to attend the classes because he has the opportunity to learn and to get educated. Meeting all his friends there and spending fun time together interacting in another way besides playing but by getting an insight on a higher level – learning about Indonesian culture for example or doing sports with his friends surrounded by a beautiful landscape. What is a pity tough, is that there is a lack of lessons learning about other cultures, about the world to know what is out there. English is one of the subjects he doesn`t really like because there is not really a chance to practice it since there are no tourists in Kaibobo he could interact with. The only languages he is good at is Bahasa and the traditional Kaibobo language .To get a better education and to raise his awareness of other cultures, even if it is just the Indonesian culture, he really wants to go to Wasarisa, a bigger village with more opportunities close to Kaibobo. But Wasarisa should not be his last stop. His biggest wish is to become a police man in Ambon. A police man because with this job he sees the possibility to protect people and his beloved ones. Something he is passionate about and something he would give his other passion up for: dancing.
Kaibobo is a village full of artists. Artists who make the best out of the every simple things nature provides them with. Artists like painters, carpenter, singers or dancers. Bandres always had a favor for dancing. Dancing because this is what makes him happy. He chose his hobby when he was about six years old. With other teenagers and children from Kaibobo they practice together with Bastian. Five times a year they perform in Kaibobo, in Piru or even in Ambon. Even though, Bandres did not talk a lot because he was simply not used to talk to foreigners, he talked full of enthusiasm about dancing and his smile while telling us his story was just adorable.
 

“Would you give up your dream as a police man to stay in Kaibobo and keep on dancing?”
- “No! I would always choose to be a protector for others to make life better. My only duty should therefore only be that one of a police man.”

 

I noticed, that even though Bandres loves living in Kaibobo with his family and all his friends, following a passion and caring for his village, he is so eager to go out there and see the world. To get to know other cultures and countries like Argentina, Germany of France. But the only choice that he sees is Ambon, the capital. Probably a place where he can experience more foreigners or tourists to learn from and with them. It was interesting and inspiring to see how happy he seems to be when talking about tourists but so far, we – The Wonderful Kaibobo Team – were the only tourists he has ever seen in life.

 

“Bandres, do you know what tourism is?”
- “Yes, it is a place to picnic. A place where you go fishing and swimming together.”

 

“And from a scale from 1 to 10, how happy are you right now?

- “10! Because I still can dance and play with my friends. My only wish right now is that you can collaborate with the government to bring tourism to Kaibobo, so we can all have a picnic together.”