My Ex-Boarding House

My ex- Boarding House

            I will never forget my experiences when I was in Senior High School. At that time, my friends, Gayatri, Sawitri, Tiwi, Fuji, Ayu, Anes, Novi and I rented a house in Singaraja. We are from Bontihing and it is so far from our school, SMK Negeri 1 Singaraja. Because of that, we decided to rent a house near the school and stayed together. After having a boarding house, we thought that we could concentrate to our study, but what we expected was useless. During the days we stayed, we found lots of things that made us felt uncomfortable. That horrifying house in Wibisana Street Number 34 made us moved.

            There were lots of gangsters around the house. The worst problem was the gangsters have a leader, named Kampek, but we used to call him “Batara Kala”. In Bali, Batara Kala is a name of creature that has bad attitude, bad temperature, bad manner, bad characteristics, and bad behavior. He was like Batara Kala, that’s way we used to name him Batara Kala. Moreover, his house was in front of our house. Can you imagine what we could do at that time? It’s totally scaring us. Everything should be by his permission. We were not allowed to be noisy, we were not allowed to laugh loudly, we were not allowed to turn off the light at night, we were not allowed to invite our friends, and we were not allowed to go out after 9 p.m.  One day, my best friend visited me in the evening. At that time, he went back home at 10 p.m.,then a group of gangster in Bale Banjar said “How satisfied you are! Surrounded by 8 girls, can I have one?” what a shame! I really wanted to get their mouths one by one and told them that he is my friend. He just visited me. He didn’t do something as they thought. I felt flared up to the gangsters besides I was so embarrassed to my friend. He is a good man and he just wanted to care with me but what he got was a disappointment. Since the incident happened, he never came again even in my new boarding house. The other friends also never came. They didn’t want to visit me and my friends because they knew that the gangsters used to disturb us. Besides, we often quarreled with Batara Kala. I remember at that time at 5p.m, Fuji was eating in front of the door. Suddenly, Batara Kala came in drunk and said madly “Hi… would you marry me? If you want, I’ll divorce my wife and live with you (he said with a laugh). Fuji replied “yes, it’s okay as long as you divorce your wife first, if you dare”. I wondered what was on his mind, and then he went mad and broke into our home. He hit Fuji’s head and face. We tried to against him. We cried together while trembling all day long but no one helped because they were also scared of him. A sentence shouted from Anes’s mouth “I swear if you have a daughter, later her dignity will be debased”. “I am not afraid” he said while getting back to his house. What in our mind at that time was “why there is no one comes and helps us”. Without thinking, I called my uncle for a help. The day after that incident, he also made a problem with the neighbor. He hit the neighbor’s cheek. It really made us felt uncomfortable and just wanted to move from there.

            The house was very horrible. We found a lot of strange incidents especially at night. As what the neighbor said to us, Sawitri’s bedroom used to be a well and a well is used to be scaring. Besides, there were bushes behind the house which added the frightfulness of that house. Every night, we heard a strange sound at the back and sometimes from the bathroom and also from the kitchen. We used to see and hear the kitchen tools moved by themselves. We ever heard a sound like someone was eating at the back because the spoons were very noisy. When we spied it, suddenly it stopped moving and then came again and again. It was not strange again to find the light was on and off. One day at night when Sawitri and Anes stayed at the boarding house while I and the others were praying in Jagatnata temple, the light was on and off and the kitchen tools were so noisy. They ran off the house and cried. Because of anxiety, we lodge in our teacher’s house in Kerobokan village for two days. Since that incident, we used to take a bath together, sometimes four persons together was common for us. The unforgettable moment is when Tiwi and I got a shower. We saw a shadow like someone entered to Sawitri’s room. We asked our friend but no one of them entered to Sawitri’s room. How scared we were. Moreover, everyone who came to our boarding house felt so scared before we told the stories or incidents we ever had. They felt something strange when they came to that house. We didn’t want to stay in anxiety for a long, so we invited a shaman, a person who is called “Balian” in Bali to predict what kind of creature was there and what were the solutions. We did not know whether the shaman right or wrong. He said that the house was full of ghost. This all made us lived in an anxiety.

            We really didn’t know that the environment in that house was so bad. We just thought that we got a large house but it’s cheap. Four rooms, one bathroom and one kitchen inside were only five million a year. Who would not be aroused to rent it? We didn’t know what kind of environment it was. We just thought about that cheap price so we rented it. Finally, we could not study because our concentration was troubled by the music. Every day, Batara Kala invited his friends to come to set music in Bale Banjar. There was no day without music for them. Sometimes, the neighbor beside our house did the karaoke every morning. We were troubled, totally troubled. A lot of children also used to play in our yard and made a noise. They yelled loudly moreover they came in our house and shouted at us. We did not know what our mistakes were. We really didn’t understand. Oh God! It was really annoying. Batara Kala also often quarreled with his wife. Every woman do not like have a husband like him, I think. A husband should work and earn some money for his family. Might be that was the cause why his wife always got angry to him. Besides all of that noisy, there was something that made me uncomfortable. At six o’clock when we got up, we found all of our goods outside the bedroom. A thief has destroyed our house. Oh my God! We couldn’t help staying there anymore.  

            At the end of the second grade, we decided to move to Pulau Lombok Street. We could not stay any longer at that house which was full of gangster, horrible and bad for students. One lesson for us, don’t be aroused to a cheap price.