Profile of a Jakarta crumpet seller<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): The smoke gets in my eyes, and hers too. But it
\ndoes not seem to irritate her narrow eyes.<\/p>\n
She puts firewood into the base of the clay pots. To check
\nwhether the food is thoroughly cooked she removes the pans'
\ncovers with a pair of long, wooden tongs.<\/p>\n
What she is cooking are Javanese crumpets (serabi) which
\nbubble as they touch the hot pan. They are made from rice flour
\nmixed with coconut milk and a dash of salt.<\/p>\n
She places the cooked crumpets on a crude cooling rack. When
\nthe crumpets have cooled she places them on a reed tray which she
\ncovers with newspaper and places under the cooling rack.<\/p>\n
Some flies buzz around. They come from a garbage heap at the
\nnearby Kebayoran Lama traditional market in South Jakarta.<\/p>\n
With \"How much do they cost?\" I started to satisfy my
\ncuriosity on how such a very traditional way of cooking survived
\nin today's fast-food crazy Jakarta.<\/p>\n
Her crumpets cost Rp 100 (4.5 U.S. cents) each and she earns
\nRp 6,000 to Rp 8,000 a day.<\/p>\n
She bought the clay pots in her hometown for only Rp 1,000 and
\nuses four kilograms of rice flour a day to make the crumpets. She
\nuses empty tomato crates, which she obtains for free, as
\nfirewood.<\/p>\n
She starts selling after lunchtime. By 5.00 or 6.00 p.m. the
\ncrumpets are usually sold out.<\/p>\n
\"I have only been here three days,\" the barefooted woman said.
\nHer name is Widarsem and is \"perhaps 40 years old,\" she told me
\nwhen I asked what her age was. She speaks Javanese with a very
\nstrong Indramayu accent, jumbled with broken Indonesia -- making
\nher difficult to understand.<\/p>\n
She said she came from Kulosarang village near Cirebon, West
\nJava. She said she never went to school and that she has only one
\ndaughter who is now in elementary school.<\/p>\n
In her hometown, she said, she and her husband worked as farm
\nlaborers, tending the rice fields of better-off neighbors or
\nrelatives.<\/p>\n
Flood<\/p>\n
She said she left her husband at home because \"he cannot do
\nanything.\" It was late November last year and there was a
\nprolonged drought at that time.<\/p>\n
But later she said she came to Jakarta because there was no
\nwork at home due to floods \"I will go back home when the flood
\nabates. I am here just to make ends meet,\" she said.<\/p>\n
She was then silent, her face looking unfriendly as if to let
\nme know she disliked my presence. But I continued asking her how
\nmuch she earned from working in the paddy fields. She remained
\nsilent. Not giving me even a glance, she kept herself busy with
\ncooking and serving customers.<\/p>\n
Feeling uneasy with the silence, one of her customers, a
\nfemale house servant, told me that from experience, farm laborers
\nusually earn two thirds of the yield, while the owner earns one
\nthird.<\/p>\n
Suddenly Widarsem looked at me and asked, \"Who are you? Why do
\nyou keep asking me so many questions and taking my photo? Are you
\na policeman? Have I committed any wrongdoings?\"<\/p>\n
So that was it, her silent treatment was either fear or
\nirritation.<\/p>\n
I explained twice that I was interviewing her, not
\ninterrogating her, and that I'm a reporter. But she asked me what
\na reporter is.<\/p>\n
I realized it was pointless to explain that way. So I pointed
\nto a photo in the newspaper beneath the cooling rack and told her
\nthat her photos would appear like that. She seemed to understand
\nwhat I meant. Nevertheless, I decided to end the interview.<\/p>\n
Since then I saw her almost every day on my way to work. About
\ntwo weeks later, however, I could only find a hawker selling
\ndrinks on the sidewalk near where she was.<\/p>\n
So I asked the hawker her whereabouts. The hawker told me he
\ndid not know where she went but at dusk he often sees her going
\nto a stall selling wholesale watermelon across the street.<\/p>\n
So I went to the stall and met Jono who referred me to Rasban,
\nanother watermelon wholesaler who, according to Jono, was
\nWidarsem's neighbor from whom I could get more information about
\nher.<\/p>\n
Husband<\/p>\n
But Rasban told me the woman was not his neighbor and she did
\nnot live in his village. Rasban said the right person to turn to
\nwas Jono because Widarsem's husband had worked with him as a
\nwatermelon seller for quite a long time.<\/p>\n
So I went back to Jono who was finally willing to share what
\nhe knew about her.<\/p>\n
Jono said it was true that Widarsem's husband worked as a
\nwatermelon seller. \"Because he is an old man, I usually give him
\nabout 15 watermelons which weigh no more than 50 kg,\" Jono said.<\/p>\n
His wife Widarsem came here with him because there was no work
\nat home due to the prolonged drought, Jono said.<\/p>\n
A week later I saw her again, selling crumpets as usual. \"How
\nare you?\" I greeted her before asking her why she lied to me
\nabout her husband.<\/p>\n
\"Now you know,\" was her reply, \"Jono must have told you
\neverything.\" \"Yes,\" I said, \"But I still have an unanswered
\nquestion ... how much do you earn from tending paddies?\"<\/p>\n
\"Won't you buy my serabi?\" was her sudden response. \"Oh, yes,
\nof course! Please give me five of those which are still hot from
\nthe pans,\" I said. She put five crumpets into folded paper and I
\nate one straightaway.<\/p>\n
\"Molasses?\" she asked (people usually eat serabi with
\nmolasses). \"No,\" I said.<\/p>\n
The serabi tasted bland. I paid Rp 500 and she said that as a
\nfarm laborer, she was paid Rp 2,500 a day.<\/p>\n
\"So, you get Rp 75,000 a month?\" I said. \"No,\" she replied,
\n\"It isn't that easy. Work isn't always available daily,
\nparticularly when there is a drought. That's why I came here.\"<\/p>\n
A few weeks have elapsed since I last saw her. The year 1995
\nhas set in. The sidewalk, where she used to sell serabi, is now
\nempty and wet with rain.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/profile-of-a-jakarta-crumpet-seller-1447893297",
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