The Village Girl and Three Magic Beans (The Fairy Tale)

Once upon a time there was a girl whose name was Trisha. She was 15 years old. She had still been grieving over the death of her father two years ago. She only lived with her mother whose leg was paralyzed. They lived in a village which was near the river. As she had to buy food for them to stay alive, she worked so hard every day. Her mother could not walk too far, she only could cook, she could only cooked their breakfast and prepared lunch for her daughter. If there were still vegetables, she would cook for dinner. 

The village girl always woke up in the morning. After cleaning the house, she had breakfast with her mom, then brought food for lunch which was prepared by her mother. Then she went to the forest to look for firewood. If the amount was enough for her to carry then she went to the market to sell it or traded it with bread or vegetables. The market was near the community center which was almost 7 km from her house. After she got groceries for dinner, she walked around the community center. She was interested with something, there was a school for villagers. She had gone to school before her father died. But now, she had no chance because she had to take her father’s position in the family. She still wanted to go to school, but she could not say it to her mother.

The school started at 9 am and finished at 3 pm. The school’s time was designed for villagers, but she still could not get in with it because she had to collect firewood and sell it to seller after 2 pm, then she went quickly to the school and sat in front of the school and asked the student’s she met about today’s lessons. Even she never got the full lesson, she was always happy to hear about new things. She went home before dark then gave the groceries to her mother to cook.

One day, when she was waiting for the student near the school’s gate, suddenly there was an old lady in a wheel chair that got closer to her and said: “my dear, can you help me clean my ditch? it is clogged, full of dry leaves. My home is just near here”. Then the village girls said:”Of course madam, it would be my pleasure”.

Then she helped her, by pushing the old lady’s wheel chair to the house and began to clean the ditch. She finished it before dark, and she said to that old lady: “Madam, i have cleaned your ditch, now the stream flows again. Is there anything else i can do? I will be glad if i could help you more. The old lady said: “Nothing, my dear. Thank you for your help”. She said: “you are very welcome Madam, now I must go home, my mother is waiting for me”. The old lady said: “Oh, you are a kind hearted girl and diligent. Your mother must be proud of you my dear. But wait!”.

The old lady pulled out something from her pocket. She took three beans and gave it to her. “Tell your mother about your will to go back to school”. The village girls was surprised that the lady knew about her. The old lady continued:”These three beans are for you, plant two beans in your back yard. And it will grow into gold and vegetables. The last is medicine for your mother. If she eats the bean, she will get healed. So you don't have to look for firewood by yourself,  just go to school with the gold, and your mother can cook and grow vegetables everyday”. The village girl was very happy, she said thanks to the old lady then she went back home in a rush. She was very excited to tell the story to her mother.

At the dinner, she told her mother about what had happened. She gave one bean to eat by her mother. Then a miracle happened, her mother could move her leg. Now her mother was fine again. They were both very happy. But when she told her, she really wanted to go back to school, her mother cried and said sorry that she did not know it at all.

In the morning, they began to plant the other two beans. After they finished cropped the beans, suddenly from the ground grew gold and vegetables. They were very happy. Then The village girl prepared to go back to school with her mother’s blessing. 

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Street for Pedestrians (Opinion)

A pedestrian is a person who travels by walking or running on foot. A street for pedestrian has many terms, such as pedway (pedestrian way), sidewalk, path walk, side street, pavement or pedestrian street. In Indonesia it is called “trotoar”, for this writing let us use the term pavement. In other countries, especially in developed countries, the proper pedestrian street is one of success the indicator’s for citizen’s mobility. These facilities are made as convenient as possible. There is a clear path for pedestrians. By this, the vehicles must respect the pedestrian as long as the pedestrian obeys the rules. How about in Indonesia, do we have enough pedestrian facilities? Or does the pedestrian have their right for good access and walk comfortably in our city’s street? 

Walking is the cheapest transportation option, and also benefits your body. But in Jakarta, people prefer to go to their activity places by car, motorcycle, taxi, bus, or ojek. Beside the long distance, they don’t want to walk in Jakarta because the pavements are terrible. The pavement are not fully dedicated for pedestrians but also the trees, potted plants, signs and markings, sometimes there is a hole for the drainage system. Sometimes, the development does not respect the right of pedestrian. They use pavements to fix the drainage under it, by demolishing the drainage several times and after that the surface of pavement gets worse. This is annoying and uncomfortable. Plus, the motorcyclists and the illegal shoppers use the pavements too. This makes the pavement’s functions vanish. The changed of pavement into the ladder for cross bridge to busway station, is another problem too. By this conditions, the pedestrians have to give up and being second user and under-appreciated. In fact, the pedestrians are the hero of the environment because walking pollutes less. In an attempt to reduce emission and carbon footprints, the government should encourage built development that support pedestrians. But the reality is different.

Government has developed the infrastructure such as road, highway and flyover that dedicated most for vehicles. They also support automobile procurement from a financing scheme. Then the results are more traffic jams and pollution, such air pollution and noise, especially in the big cities. People spend a lot on their money, time and their health. By looking at these facts, now is the time to give the right back to the pedestrians. The local government must put in more effort to create walk able streets. For example, in Thamrin-Sudirman Street, the local government of DKI Jakarta has been trying to fix the face of the city since the leadership of a new leader. They fixed up the pavement surface, and also put the street’s accessories such as benches for city beautification and bollard to protect pavement from motorcyclists. By this approach, pedestrian get their right.

In fact, not all the citizen work in the protocol road, there is still a lot of people who work in arterial or collector roads which needs attention from government to improve the pavement. So, government has to put comprehensive planning to encourage pedestrian and take back the function of pavement for pedestrian. Meanwhile, there is one group of walking supporter who wants to socialize and support walk ability in Indonesia. The website’s name is www.jalan-kaki.org which launched in the Habitat’s Day 2013, three weeks ago. They found that sometimes our citizen only could accept the existing pavement because they didn’t know the correct one. Maybe for people who have visited others country for example Singapore, they will protest with our pavement condition. So, “jalan-kaki.org” has been trying to raise awareness about proper pavement to promote sustainable development in Indonesia. 

Even though the facilities for pedestrian are not sufficent enough, but at least there is a class action’s group who will fill the gap of our development. By awareness of the citizen and action from government, the nation puts a big hope for better Indonesia in the future. 

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