Journey on finding my true soul while living off grid with coastal community in Lamalera

It’s been awhile I have been living with the community in Lamalera but it’s hard to tell how my feelings were at the very first time to be here since last year. Honestly, it’s not my first experience to live with coastal community in Eastern Indonesia. This time, I should embrace all the challenges I have here.

First, I am vegan. I can tell that fresh produce in this place is quite tricky to find. The only fresh vegetables I can find in my daily intake is from Meringue tree or in local language it’s called ‘motong’ or ‘merungge’ (re: Kelor/ Indonesian). I can say that all the difficulties here are my blessings and privilege during my time on the island. Fortunately, I also have ‘different kind of preferences in eating’. I prefer to eat local produce such as sweet potato, corn, cassava, and all local veggies that I could get here.

Maria (ia) is a good cook and great company for me. She knows one of my fav foods; popcorn.. She made ‘local popcorn’ out of dried corn we harvested from the last crops :)

Second, the access. Both for communication and transportation or logistics. The only provider I could use in Lamalera is T-Sel and it’s only for calling or texting. No internet signals so far in Lamalera B, the place where I usually live, come, back and forth. There’s a public transportation or usually we called it otto (bus). The road isn’t that easy, rocky mountain areas and so challenging. My first time went there I spent almost 5 hours on the road by motorbike. But as I get used to it, I able to enjoy the views and all the journey, thus eventhough it took hours to get there I won’t complain anymore. Hehe

The looks of the road during dry season.

Third, I am blessed in disguise. Two points I emphasized that lots of challenges above, but on the other hand I feel it’s such a blessing and a turning point for me in accepting life. How to enjoy every given things and moments from God and Nature to me. Lamalera, the place where I accept myself as it is, content with all the limitations or achievement so far, accept the challenges, feel always enough, able to make peace with my self (even though it ain’t easy), know myself and my surroundings better, and more importantly is that I am given a place and time to learn about life; how to survive, how to live our lives to the fullest, laugh ourselves, love ourselves more, and better understand what this life is about.

The day I took a break after my journey back to the village. It’s quite contemplative though :)

It took sometimes for me to accept all of them. But the only thing I could say is the biggest gratitude and thank you for the love and abundance I have gotten during my journey in here. I won’t stop experiencing and learning. No such words as late or too complicated. I just need to embrace all the challenges and be more patient and courageous. All takes time, indeed.

Thank you Mother Nature and my patient soul.

I’ll keep embracing the moments and never taking it for granted. Thank You :)))