Enduring the Noise

Kompas/Wawan H Prabowo

Road workers lay concrete on the Medan-Kualanamu-TebingTinggi toll road construction project in Teluk Mengkudu district, Serdang Bedagai regency, North Sumatera, Sunday (28/5). Segments of the toll road will be operational to ease this year’s flow of exodus travelers.

Behind the construction of the toll roads that provide a “red carpet” for homebound travelers, are the residents living in the vicinity of the construction whose lives are no longer the same. They are now accompanied by loud noises, a carpet of dust and, soon, a busy homebound traffic.

Like the legend of Roro Jonggrang, who asked Bandung Bondowoso to create a thousand temples in a single night, so with the accelerated construction of the toll road from Brebes to Semarang, Central Java. The comings and goings of trucks and the small tremors caused by the pounding of heavy equipment, day and night, continue to disrupt the quiet of the small hamlets in the vicinity. Even though they are disturbed, the residents endure month after month for the sake of the national project.