a kid's story

I'm gonna tell you some interesting things that I had when I was a little boy aged around 5 years old.

I was an only son of my parents then, back there some years ago in the 90's. In my neighborhood there were some kids of my age, Ria, Rani, Aji, Tami. And the other kids were 8 and olders -4 graders to 6 graders- and the rest even younger than me and could not be taken playing together.
Some games we really liked to play were tags, hide and seeks, and the pretending games as I remember. Our neighborhood were spacious, we had two grass yards to play on when afternoon, however we preferred to play in our house when it was hot outside. We played some videogames in very old consoles like Nintendo and Sega. We played Super Mario, Tetris, Contra, Rambo, Sonic, with those consoles. Or we played toys. like dolls of course not barbies but dolls of Dragon Ball figures and other heroes and Toy Cars.
I really enjoyed my days back there in 90 something. When I hadn't entered any schools. Back there I felt 'Freedom'. My daily routines were playing and playing, sometimes I went accompanying my mom to buy things at the kiosks around our neighborhood. I really liked bread and cookies besides snacks like crackers which sometime had its bonus a toy.I didn't really like candies. I really like to buy a piece of paper of 50cmx30cm appr. in which there were 24 or something picture cards in it. That was priced a hundred rupiah. I always begged to my mom to buy me one everyday. The pictures of the cards vary. From the Power rangers, Ultraman, Dragon balls, Fruits, Wayang puppets, to unknown cartoon like a drawing story, heheh. I really liked to collect those cards. I even had them in a big container and played it with my friends who came to my house.
I and my friends also liked playing Monopoli game at Rani's house. That was when I and my friends have learnt maths. The older kids tended to cheat the game, however. We played also stairs and snakes game on the board.

I remember a day or a week or so before I enrolled to my pre-school -playground or Taman Kanak2-, I stood in the stony road before my house -now that road is mixed with asphalt and I never came to the road again since 2001-. I stood there at around 11 am, there was very quite because our fathers went to their office -they had same office-, the mothers were inside the house and not many kids around since they had attended school already. I still stood in the stony road with my hands scratched out and I faced the East then, the direction of my upcoming school and I screamed like this: 'MERDEKAAAA!' for about a minute perhaps 'til I get bored and tired. Yet, nobody was listening, perhaps it was because my voice were not loud enogh. However, I felt very pleased and content. It was like some pressure on me was lifted :)

Yet, as the stories I got from my Mom, I really wanted to attend school when I was 4 or younger. Perhaps because of Kak Tina or something I forgot who was very nice to me had attended school, so I also wanted to do the same. Once said I went wandering with a bag or a plastic bag I forget around my neighborhood and was asked by Ms. Ibrahim. 'Hey, Young Child, Where Are You Going??'. Then I answered, 'I'm gonna go to School, Miss' *gubrag