Taking river water to boil and picking black guava fruit in the forest🕊️

Hello everyone.

On New Year's morning, I went to a rocky river to fetch water from a refugee camp. When the residents ran out of water, they always collected water from the river and put it in large buckets to carry back to the camp so they could have plenty of water in their tents.

Because one of the cleanest rivers in the highlands is currently a relatively clear river. Several rivers in the Aceh Tamiang highlands are currently unusable due to their brownish water. Sometimes we venture far from our refugee camp to fetch water from the rocky river to ensure a sufficient supply. However, this water is not drinkable; we must boil it first to kill germs.

When I visited here with friends to fetch water, we didn't feel afraid because we were traveling with older, more mature refugee residents. However, what made us tired and sad was the long walk we had to carry the river water home in large buckets.

We in the refugee camp, have several kitchens of our own and public kitchens, starting from refugee blocks A and B. We usually boil river water to drink and cook whatever food is available, always using our own kitchen near our refugee camp. If we want to cook food from food donations, then we will do it together in our refugee camp's public kitchen. For example, today, my relatives wanted to make food for lunch, we did it in our own kitchen which was made from simple items.

Today we only have instant noodles and raw tempeh, We made this menu with several other seasonings such as spices that we made ourselves here, Breakfast today felt quite luxurious, Because we processed fried tempeh and instant noodles and cooked a little white rice for breakfast later. Hopefully in the next few days the food aid will be delivered to the Aceh Tamiang refugee residents in the highlands, because we have run out of food supplies.

〰️〰️〰️〰️💦〰️〰️〰️〰️💦〰️〰️〰️〰️

This afternoon, I didn't have many friends here at the refugee camp, as they had already gone down to the village to assess the condition of their respective homes. This afternoon, I was alone with four friends, looking for a new variety. We ventured into the rice fields in the highlands. Our plan was to find the Seri fruit I often pick, but fortunately, we found a black guava tree.

Black guava grows in the forest and is edible, making it a delicious fruit for rujak (fruit salad). However, the taste is more bitter when the fruit is still red, but when ripe, it is a deep black fruit with a very sweet taste. We didn't want to continue looking for other forest fruits because we had already found the black guava tree, and we didn't bother picking them because the tree wasn't very tall.

As dusk approached, we immediately headed home while bringing black guava fruit to our refugee camp. Because later that night we wanted to eat black guava fruit rujak at the refugee camp with other friends while telling interesting stories so that our hearts wouldn't feel sad.

Author Misslaila🕊️.