Leher Angsa

Title translation: Goose Neck

There’s a village where all the inhabitants defecate in the river. The only hygienic toilet facility in the area is the Goose Neck toilet owned by the village head. In the village there lives a smart boy named Aswin who loves reading. He lost his mother when a training light aircraft fell down on her who was working in the field. It was supposed to be Tampan’s turn, Aswin’s father, but he went to a cockfight instead. It’s the fate, Tampan says, but Aswin can’t accept and understand it. He hates his father since then.

Soon Aswin gets a new mother. He likes her. So he feels sorry for her to learn that she can’t relieve herself in the river. Aswin goes to ask his father to make a goose neck toilet like that of the village head’s. “She’ll get used to it,” her father says. Since Aswin’s wish to have a bicycle is also dismissed by his father, Aswin grows to hate him more.

Aswin has three bestfriends at school, Johan, Sapar and Najib. Sapar, from a poor family, is as skinny as a skeleton. Johan, a violinist’s son, is a self-confident kid, while Najib is big and strong. Sapar’s poor family problem makes Aswin slightly forget his own. Sapar is having a boil on his buttock so he has to skip school. That boil is truly a problem that has to be solved so Sapar can go to school again. It will be gone if it breaks, but prior to that it has to swell first. And that boil has actually been swelled already, why didn’t it break?

Johan, being highly self-confident, always tries to find a chance to show off his violin-playing skill. But it becomes a source of resentment among his friends because he makes terrible sounds. It’s screeching and strident, hurting anyone’s ears. Smart Aswin, however, sees Johan’s potency. Aswin tells him to play in front of Sapar. Sapar, aching from the boil, “danced” to relieve himself from Johan’s play. Then he sits down, forgetting the boil, causing it to break. He recovers.

Aswin misses his mother so badly though her new one’s very kind. His father gets cursed—at least in Aswin’s mind—and grows a boil on his buttock. Of course, the stingy Tampan doesn’t want to go to the doctor, or the public health facility. It will break on its own, he believes. Apparently not, though. It’s a stubborn one. Aswin becomes convinced that it’s the reward for his father’s deeds; his refusal to make a goose neck toilet for his wife and to buy Aswin a bicycle. Not wanting to prolong a debate with his son, Tampan admits his mistakes and promises to build a goose neck toilet at home. “But what about this boil?” he asks.

His experience to solve Sapar’s problem with his boil drives Aswin to do a therapy for his father. Once again it works, but the severe swelling causes a little bleeding. Tampan has to be carried to the public health facility. He recovers then, and keeps his promise about the goose neck toilet. Years later more people build goose neck toilets at home. But, still, a person or two goes to the river to relieve themselves. They can only do it with their buttocks in the water...