Yesterday, G invited me to come for a pool side birthday party at her house. The birthday girl is a student at this Bryan school where G worked as a mentor. Being there, I felt like creating a scene from Real Women Have Curves, just for being surrounded by a group of Latinas and their children.

The kids were having a lot of fun, right there in the water, with the hot summer Texas sun shining. It was a good day. That brought back sweet childhood memories. I, too, used to have midday swimmings back in the elementary school days. Usually, it was in the caturwulan or long school breaks. So, a group of 7-10 of us went together around 10 in the morning, spent like 4-5 hours in the pool. Rarely did we do the actual lap, most of the time we created our own games or went diving in the 10-ft section. By the time we got out of the pool, everybody already acquired a much darker skin tone, unhealthy-looking reddish hair, and definitely was very-very hungry. We then ordered the famous Club burger or egg-sandwich, french fries, and ice cream in the upstairs cafetaria. [Remember the good ol' days, Yas?]

For 18 years, I used to live in that wonderful place called Rumbai. It's approximately 7 km from Pekanbaru, the capital of Riau. You could see some of Rumbai sceneries from the gallery on the bottom right.

Rumbai camp, as the company christened it, is a living haven. The houses inside the camp have free electricity, water, and cable. We have our own security people, free shuttle bus service to Pekanbaru and very cheap internal taxy service. Some lucky houses even have their own jungle in the backyard. There is a mosque, a Catholic church, a HKBP church and a GPIB church inside the camp area. In short, everything is clean, systematic and green in Rumbai.

Rumbai, like the other 3 Caltex districs, has her own hospital, private school from KG to highschool, commissary, amazing recreational facilities such as bowling, squash, golf course, swimming pool, tennis, fitness center, b-ball courts, a library, and a movie theather. There are also the artistic extracuricullar activities such as Bina Musika for the musically inclined and Kartika Mandra to learn all of the different traditional dances, I've heard that they even have gamelan practice there too. Pencak Silat, Tae Kwondo, and Karate are the major martial arts type we have available. All of this facilities are either for free or for almost at no cost.

It's alway nice to talk about Rumbai. I believe every Rumbai kid has the same strong tie with the place. In most cases, it's the place one always wants to call home, even though one's family has to move outside the area once the parent(s) retired.

Stay tuned for other Rumbai episodes. :D
Ave atque vale.