A day with a grave digger at Petamburan cemetery

A day with a grave digger at Petamburan cemetery

Grave digger Junaedi, 63, is the most senior digger at the
Petamburan graveyard for Christians in Central Jakarta. He was
born in Bogor, West Java, and now lives in the nearby town of
Parung with his wife Sumini and one of their five children. He
talked to The Jakarta Post's Ida Indawati Khouw.

JAKARTA (JP): Being a grave digger is, in fact, not my job of
choice, but I have to do it as it is the only way for me to earn
money.

But this doesn't mean that I don't put all that I have into
the work. I do the job seven days a week and even during the Idul
Fitri (Islamic post-fasting month) holidays if necessary.

I live in Parung and it is very far from Petamburan graveyard
so I must wake up as early as 4 a.m. and soon head to work after
saying the morning prayer although I don't officially start work
until 7:30 a.m.

There are always things to do right after arriving at the
graveyard. It is not every day that I have to dig graves but I
can do other things like cleaning up the area with my seven
colleagues.

I never work alone as it takes at least two diggers to dig a
grave. After it is deep enough, one digger should dig so as to
make the grave longer while another one should help dig the soil
from the bottom.

Usually, a grave is 1 meter wide, 2.3 meters in length and 1.8
meters deep. But there are families who require a deeper one
because later on they may want to bury another relative in the
same hole.

The digging process lasts for about two hours in general but
if the soil is quite hard it will take me about three hours
because we must first water it.

My task is not only digging new graves but also removing
corpses for various reasons such as when a family wishes to move
to another city and they decide to take along the remains of
their dead, or when a family decides to cremate a corpse years
later.

I am now used to handling skulls or other things which are
considered "scary". In the beginning, of course, I felt a little
bit nervous doing things related to dead bodies.

There are a lot of graves which are neglected by their
families and so the graves "disappear", which is why sometimes
when we reuse the spot we find corpses inside. In that case I
just bury them again nearby.

I have never had any hair-raising experiences while on the
job. I just pray "Bismillah" (literally meaning in the name of
God) when I start digging, hoping that I will always be safe.

Sometimes, I have to follow the bereaved family's rituals
when, for instance, removing the corpses. On one occasion I was
forbidden to even say a word during the activity. The family
members just told me what I needed to do, like providing towels,
drinks and so on. I don't know why.

On another occasion, I was forbidden to start digging a grave
before the clock struck 8 a.m. They just said that it was pemali
(taboo) to dig before that hour.

Officially, my working day ends at 4 p.m. but I quite often
have to work overtime, especially when Batak people (from North
Sumatra) are burying a loved one as they sometimes do so in the
afternoon.

The worst time is when I have to work during Idul Fitri as
happened to me two years ago, because, of course, we can't
predict death. At the time, I just joined the holiday prayer in
the morning and then got ready to work again.

It is normal for me to work through holidays. In reality, I
have a seven-day working week as funerals are often held on
Sundays.

Digging graves is a hard job with low pay. Even though I am
the oldest digger here, my salary is just Rp 700,000.

Of course, it is a difficult for me to manage my family's
financial affairs although I do receive another Rp 190,000 as a
monthly transportation allowance.

That's why, like my colleagues, I earn a regular side income
by agreeing with the families to maintain the graves of their
loved ones. This is a great help to me in making ends meet as
they pay me a regular stipend monthly or bimonthly or when they
visit the graves.

At present I maintain 50 graves as my side job. The amount of
the individual stipends is up to the families.

I am also very grateful when I receive a tip from the family
of a deceased person when they are satisfied with the way I
worked during the funeral, even if the tip is not big. Usually
they give Rp 10,000 or Rp 20,000 to be distributed among all of
us, myself and my seven comrades.

When I started the job 32 years ago, I received a monthly
salary of only Rp 3,000. I have always experienced miracles in
that everything has always run smoothly even though I have never
had very much money.

Thank God that all of my five children are married and live on
their own after I worked hard to send them to school. All of them
are senior high school graduates.

I am very grateful that there is a cooperative in the Jakarta
Burial Agency, the agency which manages graveyards in Jakarta,
where I can borrow money anytime I need to finance my children'
studies or when I have to marry them off.

I retire next year but I will still come here every day to do
whatever there is to do as the amount of my retirement pension
will be very small.

I am never disappointed with my job and I go to sleep
peacefully every night at 9 p.m. without worrying about the
trials and tribulations of life.