by Dika from Indonesia,

Dika Yeremia Mahendra from Indonesia was working as a Volunteer in the Church of Dortmund for one year. During that time, he has lived in the Volunteershouse. With this post, Dika says goodbye – his Volunteerservice is over now.

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Thanks for beautiful one year, thanks for the help, thanks for the experience, thanks for everything! On March 19th, 2020 I arrived in Indonesia. Now I am still undergoing self quarantine at home for 14 days. Our return was indeed faster than the initial plan (March 29th, 2020). But that’s OK, it’s for the good of all of us.

The situation is changing rapidly with the corona virus, which is endemic in various countries in the world. On Friday, March 13th, 2020, we were ready going to Wuppertal to attend the Political Development Seminar and Closing Seminar. But suddenly we got an email, saying that the seminar was canceled because of an appeal from the government to reduce activities involving many people, who gathered in the same place. Finally we went back to Volunteer“s house, soon after, I also got the news that the school was also closed for 2 weeks. Including the school where I work, namely Kreuz Grund Schule.

Then on Monday, Julia (from VEM) called us to immediately pack our goods, because we will go home sooner, between the 17th or 18th of March 2020. Then we immediately packed our things. I and some Indonesian volunteers got a flight home on March 18 at 08:15 am with the flight route Dusseldörf-Amsterdam-Jakarta. But unfortunately for the Düsseldorf-Amsterdam route, our flight was canceled. Then on the night of March 17th, Julia and Peter decided to drive us directly to Amsterdam.

In the end we were able to return to Indonesia in good health and meet our family again. In Indonesia, people who infected by the Corona virus every day are increasing, to this day I write this blog, the number of people who are positive for Corona in Indonesia are 790 people, 58 people died and 31 people recovered.

Now the world feels different. We have to start adapting to new habits, no longer shaking hands, having to keep distance from other people, not touching face and many more. But there is one thing that I learned from this event, that the world continues to change and we must not ignore an event that occurs in another country, because it can affect every one of our lives, such as pandemics, weather changes, we all feel the impact. So it’s time we all work together, without knowing national borders. We should show our solidarity as Citizens of Earth.

Special thanks to Carolin, Christina, Dirk and Frauke who helped us until the last time we were in Germany, the Volunteers house team and all my friends there, thank you for your support! Keep spirit! God bless!