Jakarta’s hidden jungle

Selamat sore!

Good evening!

Here is a picture that didn’t make it into the Gallery Backstreets of Jakarta, but wanted to join in as well. 🙂

It is amazing that this small road can be found in a city that would fit the entire population of Sweden! I love how the flowers climb the wall, the frangipani tree stretches toward the sky and the leaves of a curious banana tree squeeze through to peek down at the street. In the distance a school girl is slowly walking home, her red backpack bright against her white hijab. Soon she’ll pass the small stand where a vendor is selling fruit to thirsty passersby.

It is already afternoon and when the evening prayer fills the air the street will be deserted. I will be gone too; click, the picture is taken and I turn to walk back to the car.

But the wall of flowers stays on my mind; it reminds me that this is originally jungle. Long before the houses and the paved street; the frangipani and the banana trees were friends who climbed the rocks and the mountains together. They remind me that we are guests here, that the jungle let us have this piece of land for a season, but the jungle care nothing for claims of land and ownership. The jungle owns the land by force of nature and the grass don’t mind what side of the street it is growing on. It just grows.

♥Lene