Coming everyday from elementary, we chased each other around the lobby and my friend, always breathing out a loud “time out!”, somehow manages to once again disturbs the lady behind her desk. “Quiet down Andrew. Go play outside or in the musalla,” she’d repeat. Outside the back of the office was where the sun blazed the hottest so it would always come down to residing inside and sitting along the stairs.
Like the usual we’d camp on top of the stairs. Some days we'd see repeating clients, wearing the same clothes from the day before but whenever someone unfamiliar enters, we’d make up stories and guess what those clients did for a living. “You see that guy wearing the timbs’? Yea, I bet you 100 bucks that he works construction with his son or some’ like that.” It was a weird thing to do. Some could say it was a horrible thing to do, assuming and putting labels on people you’ve only seen and never met. My excuse is that we were young.
When someone thinks about an office, they, in a million years, would never think, “Oh I love going to the office!” Yet, when given the question of where my favorite walks of life take place, I would answer the office. Specifically, the Consulate General of Indonesia. My humble beginnings all reside within this one building. This is where I would meet my future family friends, and where I would soon join a community but all this for another time.
The Consulate General of Indonesia is a beige, H-shaped building, covered with window panels in a traditional office sense, and is surrounded by dull black iron fences with thick palm trees around the perimeter. Within the borders is the front and back. The front is where customers and clients park and enter from and the front doors are where my friend and I would eye from the top of the stairs. The back lies another parking lot, but this side holds both a tennis court and a basketball court. Whenever the sun is down or when it doesn’t feel as torturous, we would head outside and play ball until 5 o’clock, the time for our parents to clock out. Other then that, the back side of the building was a parking lot exclusive for the employees and special guests.
Every Saturday, there’d be Islamic Quran classes taking place in one of the small corners of the first floor. The musalla, was a room where some of the muslim employees would go to pray and it was the same room where parents who have volunteered from different parts of Houston would come to teach students about Islam. Growing up, the three sessions of Quranic classes was not the part of the day I was excited for but was the part after where all of my peers would whip out their nintendos and play Mario Kart DS together. The room was divided by a single set of white curtains, one side for the men, and the other for the women. Once the sessions were done, the women usually left the room, and the entirety of the musalla was left to ourselves. We would open the curtains, lay and roll on the floors, and play a variety of games. Imagine hanging out with some of your closest friends every weekend, doing whatever you want; There was so much positive energy. This corner of the office would be the birthplace of one of the biggest indonesian communities in Houston. But of course with the expansion of the community, the classes were issued to relocate and the office’s musalla was no longer the boy’s hangout.
If it wasn’t Quranic classes, or an after-school stay, then it would be an Indonesian annual event. There were many festivals that this office would hold. Usually the events would take up the entire parking lots and food vendors along would be set-up under huge tents. Bazaars were intriguing to attend since there were many indonesian foods and clothes to buy. Ever since the classes were to move, the only times my friends and I could get together were the events. We would show up and head straight to the musalla where we would once again talk about what goes on in our lives and reminisce.
With the many years going to the office, I’ve become so comfortable with the atmosphere and at times, I forget that this special place called an office, the Consulate General of Indonesia, is an authorized government building.
Sometimes, I wish to relive old memories because there’s just so much to cherish in this second home of mines. I’ve learned that not all wishes can be granted.
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