During high school, I joined a school program that sent us to live for a week in a rural village called Cikembang. The idea was simple: experience village life firsthand. My group stayed with an elderly couple who lived with their young grandchild. I never learned what had happened to the child’s parents, but the boy himself left a strong impression—loud, funny, endlessly talkative, always ready with a ridiculous story. He proudly told us he wanted to become a policeman someday.
Most days passed in a blur. I wasn’t particularly helpful and spent much of my time eating, sleeping, or simply observing. The school had paid our hosts so we could learn about farming, but the grandfather usually went to the fields alone. We rarely followed. I shared the house with two classmates I barely knew; one of them was a heavy smoker.
Whenever we had free time, my classmates invited their friends over. Cigarettes were lit inside the house, smoke hanging in the air. Worse, they taught the grandchild how to swear, laughing as he repeated the words. That bothered me deeply, but I didn’t know how to speak up.
The village’s religious life also felt unfamiliar. Many of my friends at school were Salafi Muslims, and they often labeled local traditions as bid’ah. In Cikembang, people brought stones into the mosque and practiced rituals I had never seen before. I didn’t fully understand them, but I could sense the tension between what I had been taught was “correct” and what people here lived every day.
Everything remained tolerable until the assignments arrived. We were required to interview our host family about their work, income, and living conditions. The couple grew potatoes and a few other vegetables. Our meals reflected that reality: potatoes, rice, instant noodles—simple, repetitive, and almost entirely without protein. I assumed eggs or meat were luxuries they couldn’t afford regularly.
Ironically, the classmate who led the interview was the smoker—the so-called “bad boy.” He was confident, socially skilled, and well known at school. I was the quiet STEM kid, more comfortable with numbers than conversations. At night, the cold was merciless. Even inside a sleeping bag, I shivered. Meanwhile, my friend stayed up late smoking and chatting with the grandfather, the sound of their voices seeping through the dark and keeping me awake.
From what we gathered, their monthly income was unstable—somewhere between one and three million rupiah. It wasn’t much. Still, because they grew much of their own food, they had a kind of security. They didn’t earn a lot, but they didn’t go hungry either. That quiet resilience stayed with me long after the week ended.