Wild Flowers

Wild Flowers are the flowers that take no work at all. Most of them are native flowers. Some of wild flowers bloom at one times of year, some at another. Woods often have regular carpets of wild flowers in early spring in western countries or in early wet season in our country. Some of our most beautiful wild flowers are in danger because we often harm them by picking too many of many of them. We also pick flowers carelessly. Sometimes we pull up a whole plant when we try to pick its flowers. Then, of course, it cannot reproduce other plants.

NEWS

TSUNAMI

Tsunami is a Japanese word for a seismic sea wave generted by an undersea earthquake or landslide under a sea or eruption. Most tsunamis happen along the Ring of Fire. It is a zone of volcanoes and seismic activity. The zone encircles the Pasific Ocean. Historically, tsunamis have caused much destruction and death. Since 1819, about 40 tsunamis have struck the Hawaiian Island and since 1883, about 20 tsunamis have struck Indonesia. The last one was on December 26, 2004 and causdd over 100,000 people to die. A tsunami can have the width of 100 to 200 km and may spread far away across the deep ocean. The speed is as fast as a jet plane. When the wave reach the land it can be very high, which is about 15 m high or more.

KANGORO

A kangoroo is an animal found only in Australia, althought it has a smaller relative, called a wallaby, wich lives on the Australian island of Tasmania and also in Guinea. Kangaroos eat grass and plants. They have a short front legs, but very long, and very strong back legs and tail. These they for sitting up on and for jumping. Kangaroos have been known to make forward jumps of over eight metres, and leap across fences more than three meters high. They can also run at speeds of aver 45 km / hour. The largest kangaroos are the Great Grey Kangaroo and the Red Kangaroo. Adults grow to a length of 1.60 meters and weight over 90 kilos. Kangaroos are marsupials. This means that the female kangaroo has an external pouch on the front of her body. A baby kangaroo is very tiny when it is born, and it crawls at once into this pouch where it spends its first five months of live.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Once upon a time there was a prince. He was good lucking and very rich. He live in a beautiful castle together with his staffs and servants. On one rainy dark night,a women came to his castle. She was very old and very ugly. The prince did'nt like her and sent her away, "GET OUT FR0M MY CASTLE! Now !! , " After he sent the women away the old women turned into a beautifull fairy. She cast a spell over a prince and his castle. The prince became a beast. He was no longer good looking. He locked verry ugly instead and all his servants turned into a furniture.
One day an old man named Maurice's was travelling past the castle. It was raining so hard that he decided to enter the castle. When the beast saw him, he captured him.
After some time, Maurice daughter , Belle, began to worry about him, cause he never came back home.
She started to look for him. Finally, She arrived in the casteel, and she found her father there. She asked the beast to let her father go, " please, let my father go, please..!!," but the beast refused. The beast would let her father go if she agree to stayed in the castle with him. "OK, I would let your father go if you stay here with me," that said, "OK, I stay here with you, but please let my father go,''
Belle then agree to stayed in the castle, so that her father could go home.

While Belle was staying at the castle, the Beast was slowly change. He was not mean anymore. Belle began to like him and finally they fell in love with each other. Right, after she declared her love for him, the spell was broken. The beast and his servants became human again, and the beast and Belle got married. They lived very happily ever after.

THE LEGEND OF LAKE BATUR

A long time ago there lived on the island of Bali a giant like creature named Kebo Iwo. The people of Bali used to say that Kebo Iwo was everthing, a destroxer as well as a creator. He was satisfied with the meal, but this meant for the Balinese people enough food for a thousand men. Difficulties arose whdn for the first time the barns were almost empty and the new harvest was still a long way off. This made Kebo Iwo wild with great anger. In his hunger, he destroyed all the houses and even all the temples. It made the Balinese turn to rage. So, they came together to plan steps to oppose this powerful giant by using his stupidity. They asked Kebo Iwo to build them a very deep well, and rebuild all the houses and temples he had destroyed. After they fed Kebo Iwo, he began to dig a deep hole. One day he had eaten to much he fell a sleep in the hole. The oldest man in the village gave a sign, and the villagers began to throw the limestone they had collected before into the hole. The limestone made the water inside the hole boiling. Kebo Iwo was buried alive. Then the water in the well rose higher and higher until at last it overflowed and formed Lake Batur. The mound of earth dug from the well by Kebo Iwo is known as Mount Batur.

SANGKURIANG

A very long time ago in West Java, there lived a king, named Raden Sungging Pebangkara. He was a good ruler. He liked hunting in the forest very much.In the forest, there lived a she-pig, actually a cursed goddess. One day, she came out of her hiding place looking for water. There, she saw a coconut shell �� lled with water. Expecting it to be a fresh water, she drank it, having no suspicious that it was the king’s urine left there the day before when he went hunting.The consequence was very strange. She became pregnant. A few months later she gave birth to a very pretty girl.When the king was hunting again in the forest, he saw the girl and was attracted by her beauty. He took her to his palace, then he called her Dayang Sumbi and treated her as his own daughter.
Time passed and Dayang Sumbi grew up into a beautiful girl. She was fond of weaving.One morning as she was weaving, her weaving spool flew out of the window to the field. Because she was very tired, she mumbled, “Whoever is willing to help me pick up the spool, I’ll treat her as my sister if she is a girl. If he is a man, I’ll treat him as my husband”. These words were heard by a dog, called Tumang, actually a cursed god too. He immediately picked up the spool and gave it to Dayang Sumbi.Seeing the dog had helped her, she fainted. The god had decided for her to undergo the fate. She became pregnant and a short time afterwards she gave birth to a healthy strong son whom she called Sangkuriang.Sangkuriang became a handsome young man, as time went by. Like his grandfather, he was fond of hunting in the forest and Tumang was his faithful friend when roaming the woods. He didn’t realize that Tumang was actually his father.One day, when the dog didn't obey him to chase the pig, Sangkuriang was very angry and killed the dog and cut up his flesh into pieces and took it home to his mother. For a moment Dayang Sumbi was speechless and took a spool and flung it at him. This left a scar on the spot. Then Dayang Sumbi sent him away.Sangkuriang left and wandered through the woods. He walked for years.
Finally he returned to his native place, but did not recognise it any longer. At the end of a vast rice �� eld, he noticed a house and saw a young girl sitting at her weaving-loom. He approached her and was charmed by her beauty. He was unaware that she was his own mother. Dayang Sumbi had been given eternal beauty by the gods which was why she looked young forever. She looked at him and noticing his good looks, she promised to marry him. They made plans for their wedding day, but one day she discovered the scar on his forehead.
She knew that he was her own son who had come back to his village.She made an effort to make him understand that marriage between them was impossible, but Sangkuriang refused to accept it.She had an idea and said to him “All right, you shall marry me if only you can dam up the Citarum river and build a big vessel all in one night”.Sangkuriang agreed and started to work by using his magic powers and his praying to the gods for help.To prevent the marriage, before Sangkuriang finished his work, she stretched the red veil which covered her head over the eastern side of the plain. Through her magic powers, the red light spread over the landscape, giving the impression that the sun was rising and that the time was up.Angrily, Sangkuriang kicked the vessel which was almost finished, upside down.Some times later the vessel became the mountain of Tangkuban Perahu on the northern side of Bandung.
Adapted from Folk Tales from Indonesia., 1999