Day Three of April Landscape Photo Challenge

In early May 2019, I returned to my hometown, Jakarta (Indonesia) after 16 years of living overseas. It’s nearly a year that I live in Jakarta, then the world experiences COVID-19 outbreak. Returning to Jakarta has been challenging, with or without COVID-19. I have this ‘hate and love’ relationship with my hometown, aside to deal with other personal matters.

But that’s how life is. Challenges have to be faced, as a reminder to stay humble and alert.

Hendra Gunawan’s Art

Hendra Gunawan’s Art

One of the living challenges in Jakarta was to deal with traffic jams during peak hours. The peak hours in Jakarta were weekdays 6.30am-11am and 4pm-8pm (sometimes until 9pm). Traffic jams were horror here, and it’s getting worst during the rainy season because of floodings around the city.

But, the traffic has changed recently. On March 20, Jakarta’s Governor requested that all offices in Jakarta let their employees work from home until April 6. His request is now prolonged until April 19 since the number of positive cases and mortality rate keep increasing. Since then, I can see how different the traffics in Jakarta during the evening peak hours when most of the employees are working from home.

The following pictures were taken from our apartment’s windows during peak hours. The first picture was taken in 2019, and the second was on March 31 2020. It would be interesting to see the comparison of global emissions these days.

Tuesday, 19 November 2019

Tuesday, 31 March 2020

Do you experience the differences in your surroundings before and during the pandemic?