I still remember very much in my mind when I first set foot in this boarding school. Yes, Pondok Annuqayah is the boarding school that I dream of. Since I was very young, I have shown my friends that I want to go to Annuqayah. In the village where I live, Annuqayah is known as Pondok Guluk-Guluk (Ponduk Luk-Guluk). “After graduating from elementary school, I will go to Annuqayah,” I always show off to my friends at school.
And that moment came true. Wednesday, I don’t know what date I first set foot in this pesantren. There is a sense of pride that is absurd. Finally, I’ve got what I dreamed of: staying at the Annuqayah Islamic Boarding School in Guluk-Guluk, Sumenep, Madura, East Java. “The dream comes true, the dream comes true,” I thought at the time.
After the procession of handing over the santri to the Kiai, at that time Kiai A Warits Ilyas (late), I officially became a student at this pesantren. My friends who had previously been students at this boarding school welcomed and guided me in terms of novelty in the pesantren. For example, where is the place to take a bath, how to cook rice (when I went to bed almost all of the students cooked for themselves), when to pray in congregation, where to bathe and wash clothes, when I had to study, and other novelties? Gradually I was able to adapt to the atmosphere of the cottage and the needs I had to do.
One thing that always lingers in my memory is the first time I entered the mosque to pray in congregation. Especially at the congregational Maghrib prayer, the time before the call to prayer was sounded, that’s when the remembrance and reading of the Koran echoed. Until then, the experience was thrilling, as if there were thousands of angels who were echoing God’s name. Suddenly I shed tears, emotion and confession of sin raged in my mind at that time. I don’t know. That’s how it goes for the next few months. Although in the end, in the future, it has become commonplace and is no longer something extraordinary.