Poor go without all year round<\/p>\n
Muninggar Sri Saraswati and Annastashya Emmanuelle, The Jakarta
\nPost, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Ramadhan is coming. And in the next few days, millions of
\nIndonesians, like their Muslim brethren around the world, will
\nstart fasting. From dawn till dusk, they will refrain from
\neating, drinking and other worldly pleasures.<\/p>\n
Rahmat, 45, however, does not have to wait until this weekend
\nto start fasting.<\/p>\n
Like many other poor traditional fishermen in Kepulauan Seribu
\n(Thousand Islands), Rahmat and his family may be forced to go
\nwithout food at anytime, when they earn nothing despite working
\nhard for hours.<\/p>\n
\"Sometimes I get Rp 5,000 (less than 50 U.S. cents) a day, but
\nother times I don't even bring home a penny,\" he told The Jakarta
\nPost.<\/p>\n
\"If that happens, we don't eat for the whole day,\" said the
\nfather of six.<\/p>\n
\"I usually ask my youngest boy, 4, to sleep or drink a lot to
\nforget his hunger,\" Rahmat's wife added.<\/p>\n
How could Rahmat, a fisherman, go home empty handed without
\neven one fish to eat?<\/p>\n
\"Even if you stir the sea, you won't be able to get one fish
\nif you do it at the wrong moment,\" said Rahmat, who lives in a
\nsimple house with bamboo walls and an earth floor.<\/p>\n
In Kampung Bandar, North Jakarta, the Hidayat family shares
\nthe same plight. They occupy a makeshift 2x3 square-meter room
\nnext to a railway.<\/p>\n
Hidayat, 60, who used to be a construction worker, has three
\ndaughters, all married, four sons and four grandchildren. The 13
\nof them live together in the same place, while his sons-in-law,
\nwho are construction workers, visit their wives and spend the
\nnight there once in a while.<\/p>\n
All of the daughters work at small food stalls in the Ancol
\narea, each earning around Rp 100,000 a month, while the sons take
\nany odd jobs they are able to find.<\/p>\n
\"When we have some extra money, we buy vegetables or some
\ntempeh to have with our meal. Most of the time, we eat rice
\nsprinkled with salt,\" said Hidayat's wife, Gertrudis Patriawati.<\/p>\n
According to Hidayat, they require at least Rp 10,000 a day to
\nbuy their daily needs, such as food and drinking water.<\/p>\n
But most of the time, they have to borrow from neighbors for
\nrice, salt or other items, as they don't have enough money every
\nday.<\/p>\n
Officially, the poverty rate in Indonesia declined to 15.2
\npercent from 27 percent in 1999, thanks to the modest economic
\nrecovery and falling rice prices, bringing the condition back to
\nwhere it was before the 1997 financial crisis. Similarly the
\npoverty rate in urban and rural areas is back to the pre-crisis
\nlevels of 20.7 percent and 7.3 percent respectively.<\/p>\n
In terms of people, however, the 15.2 percent poverty rate
\nstill translates into nearly 32 million.<\/p>\n
The World Bank, in a report presented to a meeting between the
\nIndonesian government and its main aid donors in Jakarta this
\nweek, cautioned that as many as 121 million people of the
\npopulation are living on less than US$2 a day (at 1993 prices)
\nand are therefore considered as \"near poor\" and very vulnerable
\nshould another economic crisis hit Indonesia.<\/p>\n
This is a more widely used measurement of poverty worldwide
\ncompared to the Indonesian government's definition of poverty,
\nwhich is based on calorie intake.<\/p>\n
The World Bank and other donor countries and agencies pledged
\nto provide Indonesia with another $3.14 billion in fresh soft
\nloans and $586 million in grants after the government agreed to
\nlaunch a new campaign to tackle poverty.<\/p>\n
Will the lives of Rahmat and Hidayat, and the millions of
\nothers like them, really improve, or was Coordinating Minister
\nfor the Economy Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti simply making another
\npromise the government cannot keep?<\/p>\n
\"I want to improve my life if it is possible, but I don't know
\nhow,\" Rahmat said.<\/p>\n
Rachmat, who is an elementary school graduate, works 12 hours
\na day, six days a week, fishing with 14 other people in a
\ntraditional boat.<\/p>\n
If the sea is generous, Rahmat could earn Rp 20,000 in a day,
\nbut he only takes home Rp 5,000 because most of the money pays
\nfor the boat rental, which is Rp 300,000 a day. Unfortunately,
\nthe sea is not always that generous, he added.<\/p>\n
His eldest child is an 18-year-old girl, an unemployed junior
\nhigh school graduate, while the youngest is four years old.<\/p>\n
Like other Pramuka island residents, he only has access to
\nelectricity for 12 hours a day. Each house has to pay Rp 2,000 a
\nday for the electricity and if they fail to pay for 10 days, the
\nsubdistrict officers will cut off the power.<\/p>\n
But Rahmat, whose name literally means blessing, said he did
\nnot complain.<\/p>\n
Hidayat's family accepts poverty as fate and do not try to
\nevade reality. They said that they are still able to live happily
\nin their makeshift home, which is only two meters away from the
\nrailway line, and always shakes when a train passes.<\/p>\n
\"Well, at least as happy as a poor man can be,\" Hidayat, whose
\nname means God's guidance, said with a grin.<\/p>\n
\"This is our home, as pitiful as it is. We're poor people, but
\nwe don't envy others who are better off than we are. That is why
\nwe are able to accept our condition quite gracefully,\" he
\nremarked.<\/p>",
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