Stepping on my Aged Friend’s Sandal

During my time in Makassar, sometimes I used to walk to Pantai Losari, locally called Pantai Losari, with two other refugees in the afternoons. I was the youngest of them, one was only a few years older than me, but the other one was an aged man. Beside our friendship, they were also my students, and we all lived at the same community house provided by the IOM. Though most of the streets in Makassar didn't have footpaths, but we could still walk all the way to our destination and back to our community house through the main streets. When we arrived at the beach, we walked across the waterfront to see the locals, the water and the sunset. We often took pictures together as memories, and each time we spend about 2-3 hours (4 p.m. - 7 p.m.) there. It was the only beach we could go because the rest of the beaches were far from our community house. We loved to spend time there because we could sit and enjoy the sunset. None disturbed us, thus we felt very comfortable there because the locals behaved very politely and respectfully with us. They always called us "Mister" like they called the westerns. One day, we were returning to our community house. It was already evening time, and one of my friends was a bit in a hurry because he had some homework to do at his room. Therefore, we all walked very fast to get early to our community house. We walked through the main street because of no footpath, and on the other hand, there was a lot of traffic jams. We were walking behind one another like in a row in order not to cause more traffic jams because it was a narrow street. My aged friend was in the front, I was in the middle and my second friend was in the back. There was an overpass in front of us. The weather was dark, and my aged friend suddenly turned around to climb up the overpass to cross the street. As soon as he wanted to turn around, I accidentally stepped on his foot; as a result, one of his sandals was broken. We all stopped, and I felt so sorry for my aged friend. His scandal was completely broken. He didn't know what to do and how to walk. I looked around and found a piece of rope beside the street and gave it to my aged friend to tie his sandals to his foot. It was embarrassing for him as it looked very funny, but it couldn't attract the attention of the passersby as it was not very visible in the dark. It was the only thing we could do in the midway because we couldn't find another pair of sandals nearby. Though my aged friend was sad for his sandals, but he was also laughing because it was one of the funniest incidents we had ever experienced. After he tied his sandals, and made sure that it would not come off itself from his foot. We continued to walk but slowly this time and finally arrived at our community house. The incident had not only made us laugh but also the rest of our friends who heard about it later. People joked and said to my aged friend "Your sandals were already expired that's why the incident took place to take its life, it was so late and had to happen a long time ago" As my aged friend put the broken sandals behind door, the people also jokingly said "You have to bury its dead body and get a new pair of sandals as its replacement" As a result, the next day, my aged friend went to a shopping centre to purchase a new pair of sandals, but the story of the sandals was repeatedly spoken by our compatriots and lasted for months after the incident.

Sunset at Setu, Cipayung, East Jakarta, Indonesia