BY ALEXANDER MERING
One rainy morning, a third grader rushed towards a wooden motorboat that was about to leave upstream along Kepuluk River. Before anyone could stop him, Doy, the skinny child had jumped into the motorboat and sat comfortably alongside the loggers and logistic officers who worked for the timber companies along the river.
He could not wait to go fishing, to join his father and grandfather who had been staying overnight the past week at a hut by the rivers edge, in the middle of a 28 thousand hectares of peat swamp forest – to fish.
***
He sat right in front of me in the rainy weather at a small cafe in the suburbs of Ketapang for an interview. Although he was not a child anymore, people still call him ‘Doy’. In his identification card his full name is Abdurahman Al Qadrie; a civil servant who is also a teacher.