Indonesia: The world of an ocean boy- Christ Daniel

Hello, I’m Christ from Indonesia. I am Akash’s friend and I am also on the YES Program living here in the United States. It has been really adventurous and fun here. I believe that the young people of the world will share the same future, and the same planet; which everyone of us has the same responsibility to make a better to live.

  

Indonesia, just like India, is a big and beautiful developing country With more than two hundred and fifty million people living across nearly 17,500 islands, we are the fourth most populous country in the world and home to the third largest democracy. Living here in Indonesia is in fact very interesting. We have the largest flower in the world, the Rafflesia, and are the second largest biodiversity hotspot in the world.

We are bordered with the Pacific and the Indian ocean. I come from a small island in Indonesia, called Ambon. It is so small that it’s hard to even find it in the map. But, Ambon is the city of music for Indonesia. The Breezes and rumbling waves fill our ears as natural rhythm, the soft beat of Tifa drum, trains our musical senses.

We have a cultural event called Sasi, when people are prohibited to take or consume certain natural resources in order to preserve them. Then at the end of the period, the kewang or the nature rangers, decide to open the sign calling the fish to come back to the river. As the sun rises, people are already waiting at the river shores, with much joy and glee to collect the fish. It’s great, as fishes jump all over the water, and since there are a lot of fishes flying around, we even catch them just by using our hands. We store them for weeks, until the Sasi is declared closed again.

That’s the life in an archipelagic state of the world. Our people and culture are bound with a great responsibility of guarding the mother nature. We see the nature through the eyes of ocean and nature. What about you?

Christ Soselisa Daniel is Indonesia's youth ambassador to the United States on YES program of Department of State. He is from Ambon, Maluku, Indonesia & is living in Oxford, Arkansas, USA.