Bantar Gebang, a home to teenage scavengers

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.