Blessings from the Mice in the Palm Oil Field

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Teus Tabuni, 20, has been registered as student of the Faculty of Law in Cendrawasih University in Abepura, Papua. If everything goes smoothly, he will hold a bachelor degree in Law. However poverty has forced Teus to struggle very hard to realize his dream.

He has been familiar to struggle since he was very young, but he has struggle harder when his mother Nurina Yikwa suffered from toothage and died in 2011 when she was 40. When Nurina was still alive, she showed her great love to her family. She was a hard worker and helped her husband fulfill the family needs by selling vegetables and areca-palm in the nearest market. Nurina's death left a big burden to her family. Narius has to struggle very hard to live Teus and his brothers and sisters, among other things by catching mice in the palm oil field at night.

The mice become a source of blessings for Teus and his brothers and sisters. For the family, the mice could be nutritious food.

"The children need to eat meat. They are reluctant to eat if there is no meat. That is the reason why I try hard to catch mouse," says Narius.

If Narius catches several mice, then he sells some of them to his neighbors. One big mouse worths 50,000 rupiahs (US$ 4.5). Some families in Keerom, Papua, where Teus family lives, are familiar to consume certain mouse. Realizing how hard the struggle of Teus's father is, he tries to stay at school. His mother's last message keeps reonating on Teus ears: "Teus...how difficult your life is, you have to study at school so that you will get good job."

Although Teus family lived in a very difficult condition, he was very grateful to be registered as student of SMAN 1, the best senior high school in the district. The problem was that the school was more than 20 kilometer from his house and he did not have daily budget for his transportation to school. Teus played a good strategy to make him arrive on time at school. He left home early in the morning, more often with empty stomach, and walked along his village road to find truck usually bringing palm oil to the city. The truck driver would happily allow Teus get on the truck, although Teus only paid him with "thank you" word. Getting out of the truck, Teus still had to walk for 1-2 kilometers to reach his school.

If there was no truck available, there was no choice for Teus but being absent from school."I am very sad because I could not follow the school lesson."

Actually there was motorcycle taxis that could bring him to school but he needed to pay 50,000 rupiahs (US$ 4.5) and he did not have that amount of money.

Teus also learned to organize and did couple of positive activities like advocating his peers to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS. Teus's involvement in several activity had brought him to attend Shanghai Expo in China in 2010. He was also invited to attend World Vision's national event like National Young Leader Forum.

*Written by Bartolomeus Marsudiharjo, Field Communications, World Vision Indonesia