Rabu, 09 Januari 2008

Shepherd's Hill

Last night--with nothing triggering my mind say a song or a piece of conversation not even upon seeing a hill--i remembered about one of my favorite sanctuaries. perhaps i was being melancholic. i remembered about Bukit Gembala (Shepherd's Hill), a mountain slope about 6 km from my old house atlawang. It is situated in the slope of Mount Arjuna.

Charisma, Gideon, etc and I frequented the place, specifically about 2 ha of plantation owned by LBTC. we often took the shorter route via a steep ravine in which flows a spring where we used to wash or saw farmers bathed their cows. It is a 'civilised' ravine. coffee bushes occupy it so do bamboo and we loved the sounds of birds, gareng (some kind of high pitching insect), and sometimes we spotted monkeys, birds, and kites (alap-alap or elang).

whenever we arrived there, we'd be greeted by the dogs--friendly ones--at the gates. when it was the time to reap corns, we would go up and spend the night there, singing, grilling corns, drinking coffee, joking around and eating a lot shamelessly.

Its real name is Gebug (literally to hit). what's in the name anyway?

locals and the guards often said that the entire place is haunted with haunting sound of wailing and crying. but we heard nothing but sweet sounds of dog barks, birds singing, wind singing etc.

so i guess people 'baptized' the place and christened it Shepherd's Hill. now i can tell how that transformation brought nice results. It sounds romantic and pastoral and it reminds me of the tales of Famous Five :)

when faced with a problem, all i need to do is change its name

for whomever changed the name from Gebug to Bukit Gembala, i thank you for this lesson.

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