Are you ill? Pick some leaves in the park

By Ida Indawati Khouw

JAKARTA (JP): If every Indonesian had the knowledge to be able to grow useful plants on every inch of their land, they would certainly be better able to survive the economic crisis.

The viability of such a means of survival has been proven by residents of Cipete Utara subdistrict in South Jakarta with their herbal park project.

The experiences of community members show how effective the plants are in curing various ailments and diseases. The 59-year- old Darmajati is a case in point. The woman said that in 1998 her son, Edi, was suffering from kidney stones and doctors said he would have to undergo laser radiation treatment.

"But the rooms at Fatmawati General Hospital (in South Jakarta) were fully occupied, so was going to have to wait for four days. While waiting for the treatment, I followed the advice of Ibu Pudyastuti, a PKK (Women's Welfare Group) cadre, who said to give Edi boiled kaji beling leaves every day," she said, referring to Strobilanthes crispus BI leaves which were gathered from her neighbor's yard.

Surprisingly, when Edi returned to the hospital after four days the doctor discovered the stones had been completely broken up.

"At that time the cost of medical treatment had skyrocketed due to the crisis. The herbs saved us from having to spend millions of rupiah for the treatment, and Edi has been healthy ever since," she said.

Realizing the uncommon and beneficial properties of herbal plants, Darmajati now grows numerous herbal plants in her narrow yard, utilizing the small space available to her to the extent that there are plants hanging from the ceiling of the porch.

Most of her neighbors have followed suit. Unlike most housing complexes in Jakarta, which are barren and seemingly devoid of greenery, virtually every inch of the Cipete Utara complex is used for the cultivation of herbal plants.

It is not uncommon to see old cans used as planters for the plants, which often are overlooked as mere wild foliage.

"Those are indeed just wild plants we see every day. Unfortunately people ignore or have no knowledge of their pharmaceutical value," said Pudyastuti Iskandar, the PKK member who began the herbal park movement in 1997 when the effects of the economic crisis first began to be felt in the country.

The mother of two said it was the crisis which led her and her PKK colleagues to look for ways to survive the crisis, which had many devastating effects, including causing the price of drugs to increase exponentially.

"The idea was inspired by a PKK regreening program that obliges housewives to have 10 flowerpots of plants in their house. We implemented the program in 1995.

"We have focused on herbal plants since the crisis, especially after we were asked to take part in a competition on family- friendly herbal plants at the South Jakarta mayoralty in 1997. We won the competition," Pudyastuti said.

At the national level, the subdistrict placed just below Malang, East Java, in its regreening program. "Of course we were proud to have won the competition even though it is rare to find houses with big yards in Jakarta," she said.

Pudyastuti has no formal scientific background, but she studied books on herbal plants and their processing and got back in touch with her family tradition of using herbs for medicine.

"My late grandmother had a lot of knowledge about traditional medicines. I was able to remember the herbs she used to cure certain ailments," said Pudyastuti, a 48-year-old hairdresser who graduated from a teacher training school in Purwokerto, Central Java.

Although she does not know about the scientific background of all of the herbal plants she cultivates, she is very aware of their uses.

She has even played the role of "medical doctor" for people in her neighborhood who are sick, giving them "prescriptions" according to their ailments. "I never give them the finished product, but urge them to process the herbs themselves.

"That's why I let them pick the herbs they need from my yard to grown in their yard," she said, pointing out the 80 different kinds of herbal plants in her 75-square-meter yard.

It should come as no surprise that her children know exactly what to do for their various scrapes and cuts. "They just need to cut the stalk of a Sesuru plant (Euphorbia antiquorum L.) and spread the resin over the wound."

Pudyastuti's neighbor, Nurjanah, enjoyed the advantages of the herbal park movement when her infant son Wahyu had a fever that nearly landed him in the hospital.

"I really panicked because I needed Rp 1 million in advance for the hospital," she said.

"But thanks to the traditional treatment, my son recovered after drinking water from the pounded thorny spinach (Amaranthus spinosus L.) three times," Nurjanah said.

The neighborhood keeps data on the herbs growing in their area. "We have 300 kinds of herbal plants here. Residents are also asked to report whenever they get a new plant so we can put it in our data book," Pudyastuti said while displaying some of the 66 books, each containing data on herbal plants growing at 10 houses.

The community is so cohesive it began a seedling garden and compost project, working together to tend the 200 square meters of land.

Due to the community's success story, it is hardly surprising that groups from as far away as Pandeglang and Sukabumi in West Java have visited the neighborhood.

A guest book shows visitors to the neighborhood have included community health doctors, members of the pharmaceutical body of the Indonesian Army and students of the University of Indonesia's School of Medicine.