Full Episode of My Life with Merapi

Since I never keep a diary, I do not know exactly the date of what incident happen on which date. But what I'm going to write here is all my experience from the briefing about evacuation and safety precaution until yesterday.

Change of Status

Since Merapi changed status from siaga to awas, everyone was like "OMG we are going to die!!!" ... Ok, maybe not everyone, but among us there were people like this. Me? I witnessed the change of status to waspada since 1 or 2 months ago, so when we were told it was AWAS... Wow, Merapi made some progress. During the briefing at night on 5th floor of lecture hall, which was given by Dr Junaidi and Mr Ludinata, both from Malaysia Embassy in crisis or keamanan department I'm not sure, we were taught what to do IF this and that happened. And also we were told to prepare a bag, with passport, IC, money and all the important stuffs, and torch light, towel, food, water and so on.

And from that night onwards, I have decided to jaga malam. Yes, ME, not US. Why? Maybe I'm kiasi. But WHY I DO THIS DECISION ALONE is because there are not much people I can put my trust on them when it comes to jaga malam. So, almost everyday I jaga until 3am, then only I sleep. Where did I sleep? In my room. So in the end, I am not that kiasi also, I still slept in my room which is located damn far behind at the house.

DESTRUCTION

So, for us who stay 25km away from Merapi, what we could feel from the eruption was... basically nothing. Sometimes we could feel some minor earthquakes. We usually got all the worries from watching news, or listening to rumours. During the first few days, areas around the mountain slope has turned white, covered by ash. The death toll started from 7 or 8 people, including reporters. And then one Mbah Maridjan, which is like the guardian of Merapi, died. And since then only the local people felt the terror. Evacuation had begun but some of the villagers did not run away, because they worried about their farms and cows.

Number of casualty increased until around 30, and then Merapi had a short rest. Everything turned peaceful quite a bit, and I also started sleeping at 2am. But from the news from TV, we still could see evacuation work was going on.

The evacuation radius kept increaing, from around the slope, to 3km, to 5km, to 10km. Then...

The Sky Rained Ash

On Friday night 29 October, when everyone was enjoying Friday Night, some people started posting on Facebook "Jogja has snow" etc. And when I went out of my room, the surroundings were already covered by ash. This is the first time I wore mask, although we were told to do so earlier. Saturday, they were having a bazaar and we Malaysian had a booth too, selling some Malsysian food. I didn't go, so I didn't clean my bike. The next day, my bike's rear brake pedal and gear pedal already had rust. I never imagine this ash from volcano is so damn powerful. Imagine this thing drop on our skin. And THIS is what we, who stayed in Jogja, were going to experience until we were evacuated...

Since the first ash rain, Jogja was all grey. The tar roads were white, and as days passed, vehicles helped clearing the ash, so the tar road became damn funny, with some dividers in the middle (because no car walk there) and at the pulau jalan, there is pantai jalan also surrounding the pulau. When I rode motor, and any stupid car or motor pass by with quite some speed, the ash flew and entered my eyes. It was so damn shitty. And people there kept splashing water on the road, to prevent ash from flying everywhere. When it rained (when volcano erupts rain volume also increases, some geographical knowledge), everywhere became muddy, just like shit. And the smell of sulphur and don't know what chemicals, made it worse.

Calm Before The Storm

Although we had all the ash, but the days after that were quite peaceful (which I stated above, the peaceful days). We had normal activities on, just that we were wearing mask whenever we went out.

Some people even said the status changed back to Siaga already. But I know this was not the end yet. In 1930, the activity of Merapi lasted for more than 1 year. And now just a few days and they want to call it safe? Naive innocent fools. So I still jaga-jaga.

Beginning of The End

On midnight of 4 November, while I was playing game in my room, I heard something like thunder sound, and the sound of like heavy rain whacking the roof, the tapping sound was very loud. I didn't know it was RAINING SMALL STONES until Chew told me. And the thunder sound was actually the sound of eruption. And the frequent shaking of the ground is because of the big eruption.

I stayed until quite late that night, fearing worse would come, but still slept at around 3am. The next day I had class on 8am, so I woke up at 7am. Just when I close my alarm, I received a message. UGM cancelled all the classes today. I was damn happy because I didn't really ready for the class. Then we were told to gather at campus and we were going to evacuate to Solo, some 60km away from Jogja. After waiting and waiting, we went to Solo and reach there quite late. I began to ask my parents to get ready to book ticket to come back to Malaysia, but there were some documents we needed to do to come back, so everything was uncertain.

The only confirmed thing was, we were going to go to Solo, and became refugee. What came in my mind was, staying at some fucked up hall, sharing toilets, sleeping on the floor.... So I was praying real hardcorely hard to go back to Malaysia.

Fresh Air Once Again

As the bus went further away from Merapi, I could see the roads becoming blacker, the people not wearing mask, the cars were clean (in Jogja all vehicles were ASHy, because even if you wash everyday, when wind blew all the ash would drop from trees and all the efforts were shits). Although the journey was long (it took about 3 hours), and we were hungry, but we were going to stay at hotel! Okay, a lousy one. But still better than any fucking hall.

So we went to Solo Grand Mall and had dinner there. The first thing I thought about Solo is... WOW, it is like Cameron Highlands! Because it was green! But honestly, Solo is just a normal town. I felt that way because I had been seeing white trees and leaves for one week.

Then, we were told that we would be going back... on the next day's midnight 2am. Meaning we had tomorrow to spend, then the night don't need to sleep already and get ready to go back Malaysia. So it was a happy ending afterall...

Disappointment

We went to Solo Square, just to found out there was not much thing there. Then we went to a stupid warnet, and then went to Solo Grand Mall again. I had some damn nice dinner there. And went back quite early to get ready for departure. I was like... Goodbye Solo.

We had a briefing at 10pm about our departure. And it was a damned disastrous briefing. Due to some problems, the original plan which we were going back to Malaysia by MAS was spoiled. We would go back using TUDM aircraft and there would be 4 flights in total. The first 2 flight would be on the next day (Sunday). The other 2 on Monday. And the priotity would be given to Sabahan and Sarawakians, those who sick and juniors. I was like... SHIT! Can I get to the first day flight?

That was damn fucking stress session when they reading out names one by one. It was like when there is the end of the world and they are announcing names of those who get to board the airship to escape.

Luckily, I was in 2nd flight, which was still on Sunday. But it was 2pm man, still a long way to go...

Unusual Flight

We reached airport quite on time, but the procedures were too slow. And there was a change again, because Malaysia only got one day permit to land its army aircraft on Indonesia land. So from 4 flights it was cut down to 3 flights, and all on Sunday.

We finally got onto the aircraft at about 5pm, and the journey took 4 hours. Which means we would reach Malaysia at 10pm. The aircraft was the type used to carry army stuff, the entrance is at behind. there are 4 rows of seats without seat belt. We squeezed ourselves inside it, ass touching ass. And the toilet was epic, it was just surrounded by short wall and curtain.

Finally, I reached here at 10pm, then we had meeting with some people. And finally I reached home at 4am, with my whole family bringing me from Subang back to SP.