August 17th is Indonesian Independence Day, SD Cibeureum students and Cibening people celebrated on August 15. All people came together to SD Cibeureum school to see the games, there were several traditional games like climbing betel nut tree to get presents, running by using rice sack, taking coin on the fruit, putting the chalk into bottles, and all students got presents. Goldteak supported all the presents for the games and the school arranged the games. The site manager, Zaini, and her wife also donate the snacks and drink separately.
So this year, people in Cibening celebrated the Independence Day together with SD Cibeureum and Goldteak, now they life is better than before and even better in the future. The parents have Goldteak plantation to work with, the children have government and Madrasah schools to study and develop their knowledge, balanced spiritual and intellectual.
There was a fire on August 14th, 2009 at Goldteak Plantation on Acacia and Mahogany area, there were 46 acacia and 113 mahogany burnt. The source of the fire was from the rice field next to it. Fortunately no teak trees are burnt.
Every year, when farmer start to open the area for farming, they usually burn the land. The farmers don’t have money to pay the workers to open their land so they burn it, after that they use the hoes to open the land, and early rainy season they can start to plant the rice. This is one of problems in plantation or farming area. Sometimes, the fire can not be controlled because there is hard wind or no water supply available. The other problem is because the area of farming and plantation huge and there is not enough people to handle. All trees are burnt will be replanted in December in rainy season.
Regular activities are still been doing, like measuring, watering and maintaining the trees. Fasting month “Ramadhan” starts on August 22nd, all workers work like usual, but they will go to land and go home earlier and they have a mid day break.
The young teak trees are already about 3,10 meter high, they look healthy and strong.
