This is Fajar. He is 13 years old, and lives next to the Medan RC track with his parents. When we arrived at the track he greeted us with a cigarette in his mouth. That was mildly mindblowing. After thinking about Fajar a bit, I thought I should share his story, because I believe it can remind us all of some important things.
Partrix translating for Fajar
As I said, Fajar is 13 years old, goes to school, but he prefers to be a marshal at the RC track. That is his favourite thing to do. The only bad thing about his life he could think of was when his mother gets angry with him. Other than that all is good. He wasn’t sure about his future, he doesn’t know what he wants to do, but after thinking about it for a bit, he said he would really like to race RC Cars. As for the cigarettes, he just started smoking recently, because he felt like it. His parents know, but obviously aren’t bothered about it too much. Although I have to say, during the whole time, I only saw him smoke once. But in any case, Fajar seemed like a perfectly normal, happy 13 year old boy, although at the end of the day, he has so little, and his opportunities in life are restricted. Take his dream of racing RC cars or example. His family’s household income is probably about 1.5 million rupiah max. 1:8th buggies cost over 7 million rupiah. That is the equivalent of 5 months salary. To put it into prespective, in Finland, the the household income, at a very minimum is 2500€. 5 months salary is 12 500. Imagine if an RC car cost that much. And that is just the car. Not gonna happen without some serious changes in Fajars life.
Fajar and his friends
So what I hope Fajar reminds you about is this:
1. The next time you make a fuss about something, or get stressed about something, make sure you aren’t wasting your energy and causing drama because of a 1st world problem. Does it really matter? Is it really a big deal? Be grateful for what you have, and enjoy yourself, because there are people like Fajar, that can be happy with so little. What’s your excuse?
2. Since you are reading this, you most likely race RC Cars. With a hobby like that, I hope you realise you are privileged. You can do what you want, you can be what you want. You have every opportunity for this. Don’t waste your gift, because there are so many people in this world who don’t have the luxury of being able to do what they want.
Field of dreams…
THEQuagraine 
This post right here is why I left my losi 3.0E and came to Team Jq #1
JQ, you should help the kid out give him a JQ e-car. You might lose a couple hundred bucks, but you will make that kid very happy. You should definitely think about it.
JQ, You should start your own foundation or team up with another company, where people donate money so that you can give out JQ cars or other company items to unprivileged kids all across the world. I would donate something to make a kid happy.
[…] and a marshal at the RC track in Medan. I wrote a blog post about him back then, which you can read here if you like. I realised I never did write about the fact that some time after the visit, he dropped […]