Bagian 5 : Bagian 5 : Hello Mr.Abdullah! Muslim Sudan yang Baik Hati

 

Kami membayar 1000 yuan untuk menginap selama 4 hari. Itu bukan angka yang kecil, tapi diganjar oleh sebuah tempat perlindungan yang cukup nyaman. Lexuan Yout Apartemen, Gedung A lantai 5, adalah apartemen yang sangat nyaman. Satu kamar berisi 6-8 kasur bertingkat, dengan berbagai macam penghuni. Ada om-om yang berkeliaran tanpa pakaian (ya! Dia cuma memakai kolor), ada om-om ubanan yang pendiam, ada mbak-mbak China bercelana mini yang bertampang judes dan memakai headphone sepanjang hari. Ada juga tante-tante cantik asal Mongolia yang bersuara kalem. Lalu, hari berikutnya, kami jadi tahu kalau di Apartemen ini juga ada dua orang Bule.

            Miss Adela yang ramah dan baik hati membantu kami menyiapkan tempat tidur. Segera setelah kasur ditata, aku segera tidur tanpa banyak bicara. Kami semua tidur, menghimpun energi yang banyak menguap selama menggelandang. Hawa dingin AC dan kasur yang empuk membuatku cepat terlelap sampai sore hari.

            Masalah pertama kami di China adalah, kami tidak tahu arah kiblat untuk Sholat. Dari beberapa travel blog, aku mendapat info kalau di China, kiblat menghadap ke Barat. Saat kami sudah sholat menghadap ke Barat, Ragil menginfokan bahwa ada seorang muslim di Apartemen ini, yang Sholat menghadap ke Timur. Dia seorang bapak-bapak berkulit hitam yang ternyata menempati di kamar sebelah.

Kami tidak tahu siapa bapak-bapak muslim ini, sampai tiba-tiba, saat kami semua sedang memasak indomi di dapur untuk makan malam, ada seseorang yang membuka pintu geser dapur.

Seorang laki-laki tinggi gagah dan berwajah Negroid muncul dan menyapa dengan suara berat. “Assalamualaikum!”

“Waalaikumssalam,” Aku, Inay dan Anis menjawab spontan.

“Do you speak English?” dia bertanya.

“Yes, we speak English, sir,” jawabku.

“So. You`re muslim? Where are you from?”

“Yes, sir, we`re from Indonesia.”

Dia tersenyum saat melihat kami merebus Indomi, lalu bercerita, memang sulit mencari makanan halal di China. Kalian tidak bisa sembarang membeli makanan di sekitar sini, katanya. Kami bicara banyak hal sampai akhirnya dia memberitahu, kalau kami ingin mencari makanan halal di Guangzhou, kami harus naik kereta Jalur 5 ke arah stasiun Xiaobei, atau kami harus membeli ayam hidup-hidup untuk disembelih sendiri.

Kami tertawa atas candaan bapak-bapak itu. Dia sangat perhatian pada kami, menanyakan banyak hal tentang acara kami di sini, dan merekomendasikan kami untuk pergi ke Xiaobei. Xiaobei adalah kampung muslim di sini, tempat itu dipenuhi restoran halal yang dikelola orang-orang Turki, Pakistan, Arab dan Malaysia.

Bapak-Bapak ini sendiri, setelah kami berkenalan, ternyata bernama Abdullah, asalnya dari Sudan, Afrika. Dia datang ke China untuk urusan bisnis. Mr.Abdullah ini sangat ramah dan banyak memberi kami tips untuk bertahan hidup. Dia membantu kami menemukan rute kereta ke Foshan, dan dia juga yang memberitahu kami bahwa stasiun terdekat dari Apartemen ini adalah stasiun Washengwei. Jadi kalau kami mau kemana-mana, tinggal mengikuti jalur kereta menuju Washengwei, maka kami akan tiba di kompleks Apartemen ini.

Mr. Abdullah juga mencoba mentransfer aplikasi VPN ke hp ku, dan menyarankan kami untuk mendownload VPN karena di negara China yang semua websitenya serba diblokir, VPN menjadi satu-satunya penyelamat. Kami banyak bercerita dalam bahasa Inggris sampai larut malam.

Menemukan muslim di negara ini adalah suatu keajaiban. Kami bersyukur, di Apartemen yang luar biasa ini, kami bertemu dengan orang seperti Mr. Abdullah yang peduli dan menyenangkan.

Sesekali kami mendengar Mr. Abdullah bertelfon, dan bicara dalam bahasa Arab.

Lalu kami, anak-anak Indonesia, mencandainya, “Buset, denger dia telpon berasa didoa-doain bro!”

Wajah ramah pengembara dari beragam penjuru dunia mulai nampak. Mbak-mbak bertampang sengit yang biasa duduk di pojok ruang tamu pun banyak membantuku bersama Mr. Abdullah. Kami duduk di ruang tamu bertiga, berbagi beragam cerita.

Di balik cerahnya sire itu, ternyata ada bencana bertubi mengintai kami.

120 jam menuju Taifun Mangkhut

From the Floor of the Wood

 

From the floor of the woods, a glance of flap attract the youngest’s focus. His eyes shifted from lenses to branches, seeing the mustard colored wingtip among viridescent crowd above. It’s there! A mesmerizing songbird that wonder him with its high-pitch yet melodious chirps since this morning, igniting such an inexplicable interest. That is Serinus canaria –fancy name given by random taxonomist out there, but he prefers call it wild canary– perching on the branches, chirp marvelously –sing to entice. It’s seems like a mating season for its species.

The youngest raised his binocular, spots its little talon that rhythmically hoping from one twig to another. His mind is now full of wonder, how come this little guy manage to surviving his life in this woods? This wild canary is so damn lucky! Because as the youngest knew, although canary’s conservation status stays still in Least Concern point, but their presence in wild is shifted far to the lower one. Vulnerable, or Threatened, and about to be Extinct in Wild if they continuously caged to fulfill human greed who want to wholly posses their very own chirp from their porch.

As the curiosity drag the youngest farther, his feet buried among bushes. His medium-heigh body is faded among greens in no time. His left hand grabs the stem of binocular, keep it stably hanging on his neck, while his right hand keep unveils gigantic sporous leaves of ferns around. He follows the chirps, wishing to see more from the tip of his ocular.

Songbird have never driven his curiosity this far, specially because he lives in the jungle of concretes all time, where songbird only found in such a jail-cage, build just for the forgotten descendant of dinosaurs. This wild canary is total upgrade of the dying one the youngest found in the cage! He felt energizing, like an ornithologist, people who chasing bird in wild for some photograph, scientific info, and self excitement additional bonus.

Steps after, that tiny Passeriformes flees. It hovers between twigs and disappear with no word to the youngest. He raised the binocular, try to spot in which way the little canary flapped away, and initiate to chase it. He pierces the shrubs and gigantic ferns madly, refuse to lost the tracks. His binocular swings, nearly risking its strap to broke. Soon, the youngest reach the rim of the valley. He stops his self forcibly on the very edge of precipitous declines, noticing that terrain ahead covered by bushes and tendrils which neatly conceals multiple dangerous spots. Once the youngest stride to the wrong step, his body will surely dragged-down by the gravity. He could die with broken ribs between unseen stony surface down there.

The canary is perched in unfamiliar tree across –the youngest still peeks it from his binocular. The maneuver of its yellowish wings is still pretty stand out between leaves. The canary is chirping, then soaring away, maybe to its cozy nest, or to feeding ground somewhere to grab some morning munch. Untouchable valley seems a goodbye for the youngest and the melodious chirp owner. This place is geographically unfriendly for bird’s paparazzi!

He may can’t remember in which tree that tiny canary perched, but he remembers, no one ever care about free living ones. Even for an ornithologist, Hornbills and Orioles always all way more tempting for their lenses, while canary and its mustardy quill, otherwise, always missed. This one only gorgeous enough when they possessed by smartest yet greediest conqueror of live being in whole planet – Homo.

Another flap attracts the youngest’s attention almost instantaneously right after he lost the canary. The youngest raises his binocular, gazing in amazement to a broad wing of hawk that swiftly crosses the canopy. Seems it has aimed a little rodent beneath that crawling in terror. Its beautiful hooklike beak ready to shred every rodent in the world into pieces, leave only a flake of marrows. But the youngest can’t heeds it for a long time. The hawk hovered away to the other side of valley, leaving the youngest with empty field of view within his lenses.

As the youngest hanging his binocular down, he steps back, ready to leave, piercing leaves and twigs to where he came from. In his way tracking the narrow grassy footpath, he gazing back the whole landscape of the valley, take a breath for awhile. Afar the youngest can see, from the tip of quilling tendril on the ground till the peak of towering canopy atop, is viridescent. Not just any viridescent, but the dreamy one. Like the prefect mate of a pixy green, and a quietness. The one that never witnessed by people who live amid concretes.

Ceruleans peeks timidly among foliage crevices, right on the place where sheer pillar of sun kisses floor, sunlit lepidopterans and beetles that silently foraged around. The youngest can even see greenish air made of the shadow of lushy foliage and jadish lichens tethered to dull barks. While wind puffing around with low decibel whisper, bring addicting restful nuances.

Then the youngest perceives that it’s not only the canary, but the whole ecosystem is forgotten. Bushy woods is the last place human would visit. Shrubbery greens is a threat for human skin, not mentioned a poisonous leaves and bugs –their tiny jaw surely injects venom that will drive human’s immune system crazy. Concretes is more tempting, just like how ornithologist tend to love Hornbill and Orioles more, or how the youngest himself distracted instantly by the majestic raptor that hunting around just because it looks more promising to satisfy his curiosity more than the tiny canary.

In the quiet air, the youngest steps forward, then turn his head around, seeing the rest of the woods, little bit uneasy to leave this mesmerizing greens. But the chirp is muted, and the wind terminate its flow. Sun rose higher, and the youngest know he can’t be here forever. People said serpents starts to hunting in these hours, and he not willing risking his legs to bite. He grabs his binocular, and stride toward where he come.