DRY SENSATION

Wonogiri was known as a dry land. Full of calcic mountain and lack of water. Alhamdulillah my home wasn’t that bad. I never experienced that kinda lack of water, that I should walk kilometers away to get water and carry it pail by pail. The worst thing was we couldn’t use water as freely as before.
But this dry problem wasn’t only the problem of my home town. I went to some places and saw the same thing. Rice fields that usually green and goldy yellow at rain season, were all turned into brown view.

MY DAM
I went to Waduk Gajahmungkur (Gajahmungkur Dam) on third of Syawal. It’s a tourism object in our town. I’m so proud of it. Over 100 villages in over 10 districts were drawn during the project building it. Offcourse the people who lived there have already been moved to some other places. It’s a large manmade lake. It (was designed to) irrigate thousand hectares of rice fields, and generate some electricity supply for the town. I went there so often.

The dam was so large, it has many beautiful parts and I love them all. It has a camping ground near by. It has a port for fishermen and tourist. It has a park that called ‘plaza’.
When I was in kindergarten, my father had this hobby, fishing. He took me fishing on it edges. At the port, under the bridge, near the river. One day I’ll never forget, our family took a picnic to its plaza. We went there riding 2 old vespas, bring some food – rice, satay, fruits, drinks. We were not a rich family, a simple picnic like that was a great thing to remember for a kid like me.
When I was in high school, I often went there alone or with a friend riding motorbike. We did nothing, just sit there under any tree, and enjoy the view, the wind, and the coolness.
Even when I finally lived away from my hometown, I still always tried to visit it when ever I went home.
Like this Iedul Fitri. I and my sisters and brother, and all my nieces and nephews, went there to have some fun. Well, we had it. Only it was so sad to see what the dam has become to be. The water level decreased to an unimaginable level.
See the port over the people?
Now boats started to go from about 4 meters below it







This is a view of a part of the dam's edge, close to the intake. The water level got lower and lower, met the bad sedimentation that's up to 3.000.000 m3 provided this (it's reported to be 130,5 meters height). This boat was used to go to that island over there. Now you can go there by car.
In a normal water level, I would have met nila and karper fish.



Where will we go? Uncle Ibot, push the boat to water please...








I'm glad I could still find a green part of this sad thing.....
People who live around the dam plant corn on the sediment as the substitute of fish... It's exotic, really.
Perum Jasa Tirta is right now dredging the sediment. They've got 20.000 m3 of 80.000 target. During the sediment-dredging, the dam is closed, irrigation system below the dam is repaired, the illegal intakes are cut.


Now I know why the rice fields look like this at the lower course. Some farmer are still trying to plant rice, while waiting for rain to fall over their field and fill the dam, they make drilled-wells near to their field to supply the water needs.



MY FOREST

The forest was my childhood playground. I went there with my friends after school to find some wild fruits, to find some unique shaped branches, or just to hang around.
On day two Iedul Fitri, it was so hot at home so I asked my husband to go there to find some cool places. But this is what I found ….

No trees you can rest under. I mean you can rest under any trees, but the trees don’t have leaves. What’s so cool about it?

I pray for rain to soon fall over Wonogiri….