Photographs & Words by Kurniadi Widodo

Yeah this maybe a bit late, but first of all let me just say happy Eid ul-Fitr for all of you who celebrate it. :)

Like many other people who live in big cities in Indonesia, me and my family also underwent the tradition known as mudik, where people travel back to their hometown to meet family members and relatives whom they haven't seen for a year and ask for forgiveness. The travelling process is often considered a pain in the ass... quite literally too, since heavy traffic jams for hours on the main route are commonplace. Luckily we live not too far away from my parents' hometown, it only takes about two and a half hour on a bus ride.

So anyway, two days at my grandpa's house. What happened? I dunno, all I could remember was the loud screamings of my little cousins... remind me again why I don't like little kids? Oh, right.

Aside from the expected formal family shots, I didn't take many pictures. Just wasn't in the mood. Guess I'm just not so much a family person. But of course they know that already. Always been the quiet one amidst the loud crowd, I have.

Hey, that's me looking drop dead bored on the couch, so who took the last photo? My dad did. Well, all he did was pointing the camera and clicked the shutter though. To be straight, the flash is fucking ugly, I hate it, but I like the feeling of randomness in the picture... You kinda get to feel how things were going on at that time. The photo was taken before the formal family shot, by the way.

The next day we went to a gathering of our family's distant relatives in another town, meeting with people who are supposed to be somewhat related to us yet just seem to be complete strangers for me. Shaking hands... smiling face... then getting back to your seats and minding your own business... ya know. About three hours of boredom ensued.

Hey, even my grandpa was bored.