Various Trials

Various Trials

It was a bright morning in Jakarta, the sun was shining and warming my body, and the wind was blowing so hard that my body didn't break a sweat. I was waiting for the announcement of my graduation from junior high school. I go to a nature school and in that school all students do not use uniforms, we use free clothes and school regulations tend to be less than in general schools.

While waiting for the announcement I thought of my grandmother's words, "no matter how good your grades are, i will still send you to boarding school!". The words that were always stuck in my head made me afraid of the different situation and atmosphere I would get at the boarding school later. Because I was brooding for too long, five minutes later I didn't realize that my teacher had called me to collect the results of my senior high school final exam. And I didn't expect my score to be good enough to be accepted into a favourite high school, but no matter how hard I tried my grandmother and my parents preferred me to go to an Islamic boarding school because religious knowledge is very important for boys.

A few weeks later, I went to several Islamic boarding school to take the entrance test. I did everything carelessly hoping that I would not be accepted into the boarding school. After doing the test we waited for 1 month for the results of the test. The reason I didn't want to go to a boarding school because I was so scared that if one of my family is sick, and I didn't get a chance to nurse them and I didn't get a chance to spent more time with them until I graduate.

A month later, I was shocked and surprised by the results of the test, I was accepted! Even though I did the questions carelessly but why did I get accepted. And after the semester holidays I finally prepared the things needed for the boarding school later. While waiting for the day, my heart felt uneasy because I had to leave my parents and live my daily life without using a mobile phone.

On the first day of boarding school, I honestly felt scared because I had heard that living in a boarding school was difficult because there was a lot of bullying and violence. My room containing 10 new students, and in our room, there was one senior named Aldi as the dormitory guard. we got to know each other, my first close friend named Alqi, he came from Bali. And he was the same size as me and we started to get along because we did things together. inside the room, there are not only first year high school students but there are junior high school students too, and the first year, high school students are only me and Alqi the rest are junior high school students they are named Aka, Putra, Rayhan, Jabal, Isal, Ariq, and Juan.

Without realizing it, i didn't expecting that boarding schools were not like what people talk about because I didn't see any violence or bullying going on here, but I felt a little shocked because there were so many rules here. Everything we do here is organized from the rules in this boarding school, and the punishments are divided into light, medium, and heavy punishments. The more severe the punishment we violate, the more severe the punishment we will get and one example is that our older brothers in the organization will shave our heads like monks.

I live my days here, even though I really miss my family, I can't contact them because I don't use a cell phone but I can ask my teacher's phone to call my parents for important things and I feel pressured by the lessons I get here and most of them are in Arabic and I get a very ambitious homeroom teacher, he teaches very well, but I feel pressured with so much material that I haven't found at my school before.

Several months later, I began to feel familiar with my dorm mates from the first to the fourth floor, although not all of my students were close friends. One night around 11 pm, I was called by the dormitory guard on the fourth floor to a dark room maybe they already turned off the lights, and when I entering the room he asked my name, and after I answered he suddenly kicked me in the pit of the stomach, there I felt shocked and short of breath. The name of the dormitory caretaker's was Alfath, and there he said "I heard that you created a group of people who didn't like me, you don't need to say a thing anymore because your roommates have told me about it!" there I was shocked, I didn't feel like I was forming a group that hated Alfath , and honestly I didn't even know Alfath, and after I answered if it wasn't me and I didn't know anything the suddenly he slapped my face and I was in that room until 12 at night. And after being asked questions by him I was told to sleep. And I went back to the room while contemplating, so that what it feels like being beaten, even though I wasn't wrong there were people who slandered me for doing that, what I had in mind was that he was the one who made the group but he blamed me. And finally, I fell asleep.

And on holidays my parents came to visit me, I said "can I move to another school? Because I can't follow the lessons here, these lessons are so complicated and yesterday I was hit by my classmate!" and my mother replied "son, this is one of our efforts to seek knowledge, try to be more patient again okay". Hearing that answer, I didn't want to bother my parents and tried to survive here.

And 1 year later when I went to class, I separated from my roommates and moved to a new building together with my seniors and peers. Not long after the transfer Alfath approached me and apologized, he said "sorry for last year's incident, I did that because I didn't want my classmates to belittle me, because it's not good if we become leaders who are not respected. And that's one of my ways to discipline my juniors." I casually replied "it's okay because I have forgiven you since that incident and thank you for educating me when I was still a new student here". we went to the canteen and have a long conversation.

And after a year of being here, I found that seniors have various characteristics, some are good, firm, and really bad, for example, Uluq, he is one of the craziest seniors I've ever met. At our cottage there was a time when we were part of arranging parking for parents who wanted to visit their children or you could say the parking attendant, Uluq casually told me who was the parking attendant to go out to buy him food and his orders were richeese, pizza hut, and kfc. And what made this all worse was that he told me and my friend Fari to buy it with our own money. Fari also said "We are students who don't have that much money, how can we buy those foods?" and Ulug casually said "I don't want to hear any excuses, tonight before dinner the food must be there!". Fari and I were scared because all of our friends called Uluq one of the worst seniors here and none of us wanted anything to do with him. At that time, we were confused about how we could buy the food, we didn't want to borrow money from our friends because the amount would be large and they also definitely needed money for their own needs.

However, Fari and I didn't buy the food that Uluq wanted, Uluq said "hurry up and finish all this rice and side dishes after that, go inside my room!" We were scared, And we have to eat a lot of rice with a side dish, namely banana chips. We also tried to spend it but we can't because it tastes really bad. After that we were called to Uluq's room. Uluq was standing at the door holding a cane. My legs were shaking too much, Uluq said "this time I forgive you because I'm sleepy, but for the second time there's no more forgiveness! Hurry up and go to your room and sleep!" Since that night I really don't want anything to do with him anymore.

The next day my teacher called me, he said my sister wanted to talk to me, and my sister said through tears "mom has been diagnosed with cancer". I was shocked, speechless and crying. I asked permission to go home to meet my mother and my teacher gave permission.

When I got home, I immediately ran to my mother's room and confirmed the truth, and it was true. I also cried because I didn't want to go back to the boarding school I wanted to be at home taking care of him and spending time with him but my mother refused, she said "You know you are sick, and religious knowledge is important you now just have to focus on your studies, I'm sure you I'm sure he will recover.." hearing this made me cry even more, the thing that I was afraid of before entering the Islamic boarding school happened and I was trapped in this holy prison. And I can't argue because it will only make him sad but on the other hand, I don't want to leave her and the reason that I really don't want to leave because I was the only son in this family, I must nurse my mother or I will regret it for the rest of my life.

I've decide to follow my mother's word by staying at this boarding school I must be more patient of all the trials here, I didn't want to make her over think about me and I have to learn to handle this thing all by myself, because honestly I can learn so much lesson here, the thing that I must do is to be more patient. I have to accept all of the consequences that I had choose like entering this boarding school.

After I returned, I was contemplating on the fifth floor while drying my clothes, and there I met Alfath, and he reprimanded me "what's wrong, you look really sad?". And I told him about Uluq and about my mother, and he said to me "get well soon for your mother, and my Uluq problem might help him a little, he felt superior because he wanted to take revenge from what his seniors had done to him, and he took it out it's up to you guys and if there's anything you can call me, I'll help as best I can". On the one hand I feel relieved because I have told this story and on the other hand, I feel pressured because of Uluq's revenge and my mother's declining health condition, and i mustn't make her worried about my excuses here because all she have to do is focus on her treatment to recover and things didn't went like my expectation from the first time i entered this boarding school. the worst is that i'm still stuck in here for two more years.