U.S. College Acceptance Profiles

Growing up, I have come to learn that we are limited by what society tells us is and isn’t possible. However, if we hold onto a bit of our child-like imagination, things that were once meaningless or even served as adversities, open a world of possibilities.

“Wow, that’s really cool. What is it?”

Arief’s eyes lit up, transfixed by the elastic hair tie loosely clung around my wrist. I slipped it off easily, as most of its stretch was gone. I handed it to him; he blurted out ecstatically.

“Thank you for this bracelet!”

Bracelet? I took a moment to relinquish my own constructs and grasp his perspective. This trivial object which I never noticed, completely captured this boy’s imagination. The awe it inspired superseded his desire for the rice cakes and chocolate milk my friends and I brought to his orphanage, Murni Jaya in the outskirts of Jakarta. I long stamped “hair tie” on that object. Yet to Arief, it was a thing of possibilities.

If held just right, it was a slingshot that catapulted over the other children, then landed before his friend. Later, it was an accessory adorning his wrist, which he touted for all to see. He gleefully reveled in pure imagination. Was it because he was a child? His interaction with this object was unfettered by the pragmatic constraints that tend to bind, maybe blind, adults in “the real world,” and prevented him from questioning what was and wasn’t possible. Wouldn’t it be extraordinary to abide in a world of endless possibilities?

A year into the pandemic, I was in Bali when I received word that the fabric supplier in Klaten, who sourced the materials used to create tote bags for my sustainable fashion business, went bankrupt and shut down. I felt an amalgamation of sadness, my orders weren’t sufficient to sustain their business through the pandemic, alarm, my product release date continued creeping closer, and fear of failure, my friends were counting on me. I only had half of the fabric needed.

In search of the other half, I set out for Jerokapal, a rural village in Klungkung Regency known for its artisans. I arrived to find it stricken by the pandemic. Shops stood hauntingly abandoned. The streets were dotted with street painters, desperately jockeying to sell their volcanic stone paintings.

Just then, I was greeted by Ibu (Madam) Wayan Astiti, the owner of a small fabric shop. Her warm smile was tainted by sadness. She explained that customers had been scarce for the past year. I scanned her shop for white fabric, but the textiles she wove didn’t seem right for my totes. In the eerily quiet atmosphere, I noticed three women working their weaving machines. Strewn around them were the disassembled remains of previously used equipment, covered in plastic sheets.

“Sorry, it’s so empty. We had 35 machines before. Now we only have ten,” Ibu explained.

“And the women who used to work on them?”

She just nodded, “I didn’t have a choice.”

We stood in silence with an unspoken understanding of the devastating impact of the pandemic. Then, she pulled open her storage room doors and I was met with the damp smell of mold and a wave of despair. The shelves of radiant colors and patterned fabric were muted by a blanket of dust. Almost instantly, Ibu and I noticed holes in some of the fabrics. “Sorry.” It seemed rats had gnawed through. I understood her loss– the process to make one fabric took a few weeks and 11 tedious steps. Apologies were unnecessary. I knew I had to help. Ibu offered to make plain white fabrics. Instead, I requested whatever she had in stock.

“I need 50 meters.”

I arrived in Jerokapal with a set intention, but this moment inspired a new vision– reversible tote bags. I would use the previously purchased plain white fabrics on the outside, and Ibu’s vibrant traditional Indonesian patterns on the inside. Later, my friends argued that our customers would find the Indonesian textiles, “too ethnic.” I did not care. There was hidden value in these handmade fabrics. I was eager to introduce the trendy, yet traditional, totes to Jakarta’s online fashion market. Sales of the reversible totes exceeded our initial projections, reaching 24 million Rupiah. The proceeds were donated to local tailors who sewed the bags and Ibu Astiti.

Amidst the notorious rise of fast fashion and the stagnation fueled by the pandemic, I built a business that turned unused fabrics and old unwanted clothes into income streams for local tailors and weavers who repurposed them. When I remember Arief, the young boy in the orphanage, I like to think that in some ways I remain like him. Perhaps, I still hold onto my own child-like imagination, yearning to find the hidden value in things, and eager to become immersed in a world of possibilities– a world where everyone wins.