Words by Mohamad Rivaldi Lanti – University of Hasanuddin, Makassar

It was a pretty cool and sweet morning on November 9, 2015. My watch was striking six am. I was waiting everyone to come…

Finally everyone gathered at six thirty. We were ready to boat to Kodingareng Keke and Samalona Island. This where our story started.

Coming from a little group chat of XLFL classmates to arrange a fellowship holiday trip after a workshop session, we had an idea to have an Island tour. Kodingareng Keke and Samalona Island were the ones we chose.

These two islands were only 45 minutes away from Makassar by using a small boat. We were informed that it would be a nice windy trip too, a bit wavy but it was safe. We started the journey from Kayu Bangkoa quay. A friendly boat man helped us to arrange the trip and took us safe there. Our mind filled with those pictures of the islands; white sandy beaches, clear bluish water, and beautiful sight of the far sea.

We determined to make a great memory of this trip!

When we finally touched down, the fact was not what we imagined. We found out that just after fifty walks we found rubbish everywhere! Kodingareng Keke Island was not like the pictures we saw from the internet. Our expectation didn’t meet the reality. It was totally different. A big disappointment came to our heads and we couldn’t believe what we were seeing. One of my friends said that she was there about two months before, but it was much better than what we saw that day.

We took our luggage from the boat and headed to a rented hut. We kept our plan to enjoy the view surrounded the island and tried to forget about the trash. We were taking photos, playing around, getting into the water and more. After a while, some of my friends were complaining and saying that “if only this place was clean, these photos would be better than what we saw now”.

Then it came to our mind, our last discussion in our XLFL workshop, that what makes a person to be a good leader is the one who does not complain all the time, but who takes ACTION to solve the problem and drives change”. It was a good reminder that waking us up to realize that the essence of being a person, a leader. A leader is about you manage a change around you.

In XLFL Program, we are taught the three basic competencies, one of them is Managing Change. We felt that it was just about our time to implement it to what we disappointed upon. We moved fast, we took our plastic trash bags (we bought it in a package for a different purpose). We had used one for our own trash. We shared the rest of the plastic trash bags to each one of us. We worked in a pair. We started collecting the rubbish and walked around best we could.

After thirty minutes, we managed to collect ten big plastic trash bags filled with plastic bottles, paper, cigarette boxes, and many more. We even forgot how the heat hit our skin while picking up every trash we found. We were so relieve that the beach finally looked better than one and a half hours before. We were tickled to take more photos and even managed to make a short videos to campaign about #clean traveler. The idea was to invite everyone of us to enjoy our holiday as we wanted, but to keep being alert that we need to keep the environment around cleaned. There will always be another day for us to get a chance to come back. If we cannot maintain it who else will?

We were happier to leave the island that way. We continued the trip to Samalona Island, the island was better that Kodingareng Keke. That was because the native living on the island kept the island cleaned. While Kodingareng Keke was merely an empty island.

We were about to end the trip. After taking our late lunch in Samalona Island, we took our bags and returned to our boats. We headed back to Makassar again with such sweet smiles on our faces. This trip had brought us to the next level of being young people with attitude. We are eager to invite more people to join us care our earth, we surely have a better smile in every walk we make of our trip… Do more, enjoy more!

And my watch was striking six again, this time in pm. Our trip story ended here. See you again Kodingareng Keke and Samalona Island!

Be a #CLEANTRAVELLER

Leave Your Memories, Not Your Trash!