Balinese children struggle to escape poverty

I Wayan Juniartha, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar, Bali

It was an unusually hot, dusty and windy Sunday afternoon, leaving the road barren of all activity.

Apparently most people preferred to stay home, either sleeping or digesting a television show, no matter how uninteresting, with a refreshing glass of ice water at their side, perhaps.

In some cases, those people were the most fortunate because at least they had the option of staying home and doing nothing.

Thirteen-year-old Nyoman Purna and 15-year-old Gede Nata did not have that option. They could not afford even the luxury of staying at home and watching television.

First, they do not have television set -- let alone a refrigerator from which to retrieve ice water. Secondly, they have work to do, and money to earn, to keep on living.

On that hot day, Nata, who is taller and bigger than Purna, was busy setting up a plastic makeshift tent on a pedestrian sidewalk next to Nangka street in downtown Denpasar.

Meanwhile, the dark-skinned and quiet Purna was preparing a small, iron roaster, filling it with a small amount of coconut's shell charcoal, and spraying it with coconut oil before lighting the fire. He then unloaded the rattan basket filled with uncooked sate languan, a characteristically Balinese satay: a spicy mixture of coconut meat and salt water fish meat.

Some 15 minutes later, the small satay stall began its "office hours," which usually started at 3 p.m., and lasted until as late as 10 at night.

Nata was taking his turn with Purna in fanning up the burning charcoal to roast the satay. It was clearly an exhausting job for the children, trying steadily and continuously to swing the bamboo fan. Soon, sweat began to soak their clothes.

Nata and Purna come from Telaga village in Tianyar a small, isolated hamlet some 120 km northeast of Denpasar.

The village is located in one of the harshest regions of Bali, where infertile land, arid climate, inadequate infrastructure, and a lack of government attention and supervision have been jointly nurturing acute poverty for years.

Mounting unemployment and grinding poverty have forced the people of this region to seek jobs elsewhere. A large number went to Denpasar and found various jobs as construction workers and house maids; more than a few others became beggars.

Still others, such as Nata and Purna, wound up in a job previously shunned by the Balinese, that of a street vendor.

Nata had a chance to finish his elementary school education, while Purna dropped out while he was in the fifth grade.

"The lessons bored me," Purna initially quipped, before later admitting that his family "was poor and unable to pay for my education."

So it was that, a year ago, these two teenagers left their native village for Denpasar.

Without a proper education -- not to mention their lack of contacts, an indispensable requirement to get jobs anymore -- Nata and Purna found it very difficult to find normal a nine-to- five job in a comfy, air-conditioned office with any kind of medical benefits, or paid vacation.

Instead, they met a man who later introduced them to the satay-selling business.

"So here we are, roasting spicy satay, waiting for the buyers, and watching passing motorists," Nata said, eyeing a passing luxury car, and a beautiful lady inside it.

They sell each stick of satay for Rp 200 (around 2 U.S. cents) and, in one day, can sell anywhere from 750 to 800 sticks of satay, giving them a daily income of about Rp 150,000.

So does that mean that they will get a gross monthly income of Rp 4.5 million?

"No we don't, and that's because we are not the owners, we're just the workers. Each of us receives Rp 7,000 per day -- regardless of the number of satay we sell. The rest of the money goes to the boss," Nata said.

Is it possible that someone, anyone, can lead a healthy and decent life in Denpasar with a scanty Rp 210,000 monthly income?

Apparently, Nata and Purna can, and so do thousands of their fellow street vendors all over Denpasar. They are people tough enough to fight back against suffocating poverty and endure past prejudices and evictions.

The sun had just set and darkness gradually engulfed the skies over the stall.

Soon after, customers began filing in -- an old man who was on his way home from an afternoon jog; an exhausted working wife who had to prepare dinner for her husband and children, and a social worker who admitted to being addicted to spicy traditional foods.

Before long, Nata and Purna stopped talking and turned their attention once more to feverishly fanning the burning charcoal.

There was work to be done.