• I was sipping my strawberry juice in a small shop in Jl. Alketeri, Bandung when my uncle offered me a job for this summer.

    “A Liaison Officer?”

    “Yes, your job is to escort our guests around Bandung. Just be their friend! If they want to have desserts, you can show them Nanny’s Pavilion. If they want a restaurant with the best view, you can show them Sierra or The Valley...”

    Uncle Tata is an Architecture lecturer in Institut Teknologi Bandung, an infamous University in Indonesia. His campus will hold an international conference called Artepolis 3 which discusses how we could collaborate creativity inside all of us to develop various places. The venue will be in the Asian-African Conference Museum, a historical building which once held one of the most momentous conferences in the history of Indonesia. Speakers of the conference are invited from all over the world, including Australia, Germany, USA, and of course my own country. Participants of the conference will come from as far as Mexico and Nigeria.

    My short introduction of the desk job of a Liaison officer became more interesting. My job was to accompany the international speakers during their stay in Bandung, especially when they are not yet speaking in the conference. I will have to take them shopping, eating, touring around Bandung, whatever they please to do. I will be assisting my older cousins, Dania and Alma. Dania is an independent, caring girl who recently just earned her bachelor’s degree. While her younger sister Alma is still in college. She is an immature, charming girl who is always bouncing of the walls.

    Bandung is a creative and youthful city. It is alive with the spirits of young adults and their independent shops, distros, and cafes across the city. It was not my hometown, but it’s definitely in the list of my favourite places. I come from Bali, a cultured, religious island incessantly conflicting with the western tourists’ and expat’s view of the world. Being able to escape to a place where my immature voice is free to wander was my perfect getaway.

    Being a Liaison Officer in Bandung would be so much fun. I learned by heart where the hip places around this city are. It would be such an awesome way to spend my summer –meting new people and take them around Bandung. I took my chance in a heartbeat. With Dania and Alma beside me, what could possibly go wrong?

    The following week, I was invited to my first technical meeting of the Artepolis conference. Then, it struck me: I was the only fifteen year old high-school girl in the whole committee. Everyone was either studying in, or recently graduated from college. I was literally the little inexperienced girl who was lost among strangers due to her own choice, staring at everything gimlet-eyed.

    It was a very somber and formal meeting. Uncle Tata and his Vice Chairman, Ibu Dhian was sitting in front, directing and announcing through a microphone. Regardless, it felt funny seeing my uncle as a teacher, rather than his usual goofy self. The rest of the committee of college girls and boys sat before them, pusillanimously listening to the instructions. Everybody was in their reserved manner: taking notes, asking or answering questions. Of course, Dania had no problem following through the meeting. She always knows the right thing to do in every situation. But for the first time since the offer, I didn’t know why I was here in the first place.

    It cheered me up a bit when we did our ‘homework’ that night: increasing our references of great restaurants in Bandung. We went uphill to a restaurant called Laos. It was late when we arrived there that night. At once, we were spoiled by its majestic view of Bandung city lights below us, twinkling in a festival of colors. Laos is famous for its stone-oven grilled thin curst pizza. It is also one of the few places where you can find sweet pizzas instead of the common savory ones. I recommend the Banana pizza, a thin pizza with grilled sliced banana and strawberry jam as its topping. Tasty!