A Little Pride from Motaain

Kompas/Madina Nusrat

People walk through an immigration checkpoint on the Indonesia-Timor Leste border in Wini, East Nusa Tenggara, which borders Oecussi in Timor Leste, on Wednesday (12/4/2017). The border post was renovated in 2016. It is not as busy as the Motaain border post, which is crowded by Indonesians and East Timorese people seeking to cross the border almost every day.

A teenage girl extended her selfie stick, struck a pose and smiled in front of the Motaain Border Checkpoint in Belu regency, East Nusa Tenggara. The border post between Indonesia and Timor-Leste, which looked disheveled two years ago, is now stately. It is a small source of pride for the locals.

The gates of the Indonesian border post look new in its bright white paint and shining metallic alphabetic plates that spell “INDONESIA.” The red-and-white paint on the Indonesian half of the border-crossing bridge was also clean. The main immigration checkpoint building beautifully adopted the architecture of a traditional Belu house.