Borders

It’s a good day to play football with friends, a calm, even if a bit cloudy midday on a weekend. A moment that will not be wasted by Joko, a 14-year-old who is passionate about trying many things, especially sports, and among all the sports he has tried, playing soccer with friends in the open field is his favorite.

But available and playable football fields are becoming increasingly difficult to find in the city where he lives. There used to be a field only a few hundred meters from his house, but since five years ago, the land has been converted into a motorized vehicle parking lot for a sub-district office that sits next to it. Playing barefoot on hot asphalt in the sun is not fun, especially if there are lots of parked vehicles filling the space. It would only take one accident to dent a car, and their fate would be sealed.

Joko and his playing buddies won't give up. To play soccer, which they do almost every time they come home from school and on the weekends, they moved on to an empty field inside a textile factory complex that was shut down decades ago and has laid neglected since. The area is actually forbidden to enter, with a concrete fence and a three-meter-high iron gate locked tightly with rusty padlocks and chains. But they found their way in following a hidden path, after climbing a large tamarind tree in one corner of the factory yard and jumping inside. For several hours almost every day they were free to play soccer without worrying about being disturbed or disturbing the others around them. Kick the ball out of the field and break the glass windows of the factory building, no one will get mad!

But the fun came to an end last year, when the factory was demolished and then redeveloped into the city's largest shopping center, a four-story, air-conditioned ten thousand square meter building filled with shops, restaurants and a cinema. There is no room left for them to kick the ball freely.

The land in the city where he lives has been almost entirely subdivided, every inch of it placed into individual ownership, with clear boundaries and fences that limit access. Actually there is still one large field in the city center, in front of the mayor's office, with a neat and beautiful stretch of grass, but there is no way they could play there. There will always be a security guard who will chase them and kick them away for playing football there. The field is owned and managed by the local government, which only uses it for formal ceremonies. Even picnicking or strolling around on a date, let alone playing football, is prohibited.

In the end, Joko and his friends have no other choice but to ride out of town, taking motorbikes illegally because none of them are old enough to have a driving license yet. About eight kilometers from the city center, they can give free rein to their lust to play ball, on a stretch of beach sand. With a goal made by laying coconuts down on the sand, without field lines or rigid rules, the field slightly tilting towards the ocean, they are having fun. Here, every man-made boundary will be removed by the tides. On the beach sand, the field cannot be owned, and is free to be used by anyone. That is all that's left.