Bantar Gebang, a home to teenage scavengers

By Christiani A. Tumelap

JAKARTA (JP): Karya, 11, and friends Casduki, 10, and Darkana, 13, wake up between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. every morning.

Just like other children, they start the day with morning prayers, a shower, a brief breakfast then politely kiss the back of their parents' hands before leaving the house.

But they do not grab their school bag, catch a bus or hop into an air-conditioned car and head for school like many more fortunate children do.

Karya, Casduki, Darkana and some 500 other children of the same age in their neighborhood of Bantar Gebang in Bekasi, east of here, pick up their ganco (handmade metal hooks), put their rinjang (large bamboo baskets) on their shoulders and head for the refuse dump.

As the sun rises, the teenagers rush to the huge dumping ground located nearby to await the arrival of the first waste disposal trucks.

"That is our playground," said Karya, pointing at the stinking million-metric-ton mound of rubbish, garbage and debris -- a perfect habitat for millions of flies and a great reservoir of pestilence and disease.

"It's the source of our living, too," he told The Jakarta Post at the site on Saturday.

Like all of the Bantar Gebang children, Karya helps his scavenger parents earn a living by seeking items of value among the refuse at the 108 hectare dump.

The site is now home to at least 3,000 people who collect, sort and sell garbage for a living.

The three children left school about a year ago.

They are not alone in doing so -- over half of the children in the area have left school to become full-time scavengers because of a lack of parental supervision.

Achmad Marzuki, a project coordinator from Bintang Pancasila non-governmental organization which runs the only free primary school in the area, said that a number of children had left school because their parents did not encourage or force them to attend.

"It's not that the parents did not want their children to get a proper education so that they would have a better life in the future," he said.

"But they simply felt that the family would be able to collect and sell more garbage and therefore earn more money if the children all helped too," Achmad added.

He said most children had got into the job by following in the footsteps of their parents.

The shy Casduki said he left school and became a full-time garbage collector to be like his older brothers and sisters, including Darkana.

Income

Darkana said each of them could earn about Rp 50,000 a week from collecting garbage from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day, six days a week.

"How much do you think those (children) who sell newspapers or the beggars earn in a week? What about you, how much do you earn, mbak?," he asked the Post.

Karya said that being a scavenger was fun. He liked it because it enabled him to get many things which would otherwise be unaffordable to his impoverished family.

"We hardly go shopping. Look at these shirts and shoes, or that necklace and cap... I found them all in the refuse. Of course, my mother washed them all before I put them on," said the outspoken child.

"The only miserable part of the work is the heat during the dry season," Karya said.

He said he often managed to save the Rp 2,500 which his parents give him to buy lunch each day by eating discarded food dug out of the garbage.

"Of course, I remove the rotten parts first," he said.

Sometimes he spends the money on a bowl of Soto Mi (noodle soup) or Mi bakso (meatballs and noodles) which he buys from vendors who bring their carts right up to the edge of the huge piles of garbage.

The scavengers of Bantar Gebang said they collected any items which could still be used or recycled, ranging from plastic goods to medicines such as oralit (for diarrhea).

On the Saturday the Post visited, the children had been given the day off by their parents because the site had been decorated by the Indonesian Child Welfare Foundation to mark National Children's Day. The foundation organized an event designed to allow the scavengers to laugh, play, sing and play games like most other people of their ages.

The event, called Peduli Anak or Care for Children, apparently provided the Bantar Gebang teenage scavengers with a rare opportunity to experience the joy of youth.

Achmad, whose organization helped gather the scavengers in to join the event, said only half of the estimated 500 child scavengers had turned up. Those who did were given snacks and vitamins.

Many others, including Karya, Casduki and Darkana, chose to continue with their usual routine.

The three said they were not really interested in joining the party.