KumKum! Museum Bank Mandiri

What is KumKum? KumKum is an event that organized to celebrate the earth day. I was so amazed on this program, since it was held here in Jakarta, and more amazingly in the old Museum. The museum itself, it is used to be a bank, the oldest bank in Indonesia. The museum itself was a bit dark, and got lots of old type writers, old counting machines, and statues of people that waiting in line, as if they were in the bank. Nothing much historical that I could tell Leia about.

Anyway, the idea of this event was to educate human on how to be friendly to the environment. Without any "Go green" or "Save the planet" slogan, on its flyer, explained how to eliminate polution and crowdedness of Jakarta, they encouraged us to use public transportation, bike or transJakarta (busway). They also encouraged us, to bring "Dry garbage" such as plastic bottles, news papers or paper goods, toys that we didn't use anymore, woman purse, books or shoes.

So, after a long discussion with my dearest friend Xandra, and thank God for her, since she was the one who introduced me to this, we decided to go by Trans Jakarta to the Museum.

Leia and I and the rest of Raden Saleh residence, gathered all kind of "Dry Garbage" and you won't have any idea on how many garbages that we gathered, good thing we went there by bus, since we could only bring that many, I mean, two hands and a child, how many garbage could I bring....you would think?

Then, we all gathered at my mom house which is the closest way to get there. There were 9 of us, 3 kids, and the rest adults. We waited for the Bus way to come, we got it, and really enjoyed the ride. The saddest part was that we got separated, since the bus was too full. We all joined forces together again in the "Stasiun Kota". Once we got there, I was so surprise on how cool is this station. It actually has an underground pass, to the other side. So, we did not have to cross the street to get into the Museum, but with the underground pass, we were safely got to the museum! Cool heh?!

This was not the first time, I went to this Museum. I once went there for the photo shoot of my friend magazine. With lots of people, surely the Museum aura was different. I saw lots of community doing their own demonstration.

The children however, really enjoyed the playground that it has down stair. It has 3 different kind of playground with sand in each area. The children have to take off their shoes, before the play. Since, all the food stall did not use any plastic utensil, plates or glass, I found this event was the cleanest event of all. So, the food stall used real plates, with real utensil and real glass. The other stall chose to use banana leaves, and reuse plates from bamboo. So, leia and friends learned on how important to be friendly to the environment. As they sorted the garbage they brought. We did not allow to bring a plastic water bottle, I mean the mineral water that comes in a plastic bottle, but we were welcome to bring our tumbler, or water bottle. They provided us with drinkable mineral water, that we could get with no cost. We had picnic on the clean grass for lunch and snack.

So, this was a cheap activity and a very educative activity that I've ever had in my life here as a mother, and teacher. The admission was free, we brought all foods for the children, we ate Nasi bakar for about Rp. 10,000 per person, and the bus cost about .35cent (Rp. 3,500).

The saddest part of this activity, was only those like me and Xandra that really enjoyed this. Others who has high expectation wont benefit with this kind of activities. I surely look forward to another activity like this! Two thumb up for KumKum community.