Banten villagers hit hardest by recent earthquake

By Wirasti Wiryono

BANTEN, West Java (JP): Monday's earthquake has made life even harder for many in the remote villages of South Banten district, Pandeglang regency, as they struggle to get their lives back together.

Six elementary school buildings and two mosques in the regency were severely damaged by the quake, creating havoc for teachers, parents and most of all the children.

Measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale, the quake struck at 3:05 p.m. Western Indonesia Time. Its epicenter was 33 kilometers below the Indian Ocean sea bed, about 300 kilometers southwest of Jakarta.

Locals said Thursday that the condition of the school buildings had been bad enough before the earthquake.

But Walidjo, the principal of Cikadu III elementary school, said 19 sixth-graders had been forced to join 21 fifth-graders in their classroom because a wall in the sixth-grade classroom had collapsed. Two large bamboo poles supported another wall.

Walidjo, a native of Yogyakarta, who had taught in the area since 1976, goes to the school early every morning to make sure that the 148 students stick to their classes despite the quake.

He said this was not easy because most of the children came from poor families which often preferred their children to work in the fields.

Teachers at Sida Mukti elementary school are finding it particularly difficult to get their class attendences back to normal because parents fear that another earthquake might destroy the school.

Piles of rubble lay inside one school building which had large cracks in its walls. Its doorway had skewed so that the door would no longer shut properly.

Eight of the school's 61 windows had shattered and were covered with bamboo lattices.

In Rancasadang village, farmer Ade Wiyadi lamented the condition of his local mosque which had been reduced to a pile of rubble.

He pointed to what was left of the roof and said: "We pray in the mosque's yard, because it's too far to go to another village's mosque. We need help."

Ade said the villagers were poor and would struggle to buy cement and roof tiles to rebuild the mosque. He said they had enough wood, glass and sand.

The ceiling of one of the buildings at the Gadog elementary school had caved in during the quake. The school's principal Hadi Waluyo said Thursday that the 192 elementary school students now crammed into three buildings for morning classes, which 130 junior high school students occupied in the afternoon.

"Fifth-graders come early at 7:20 a.m., 50 fourth-graders come later in the morning until 12:30, then 130 junior high school students use the premises from 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. or 4:15 p.m.," Hadi said.

He said four teachers taught all the children. One teacher teaches religion, another takes sports and two teach general classes.

He told a sad story about a student who was unable to pay the Rp 500 (US$ 21 cents) monthly school fees, because the parents could scarcely afford rice. "And the government wants us to help develop skilled human resources," he said.

"Nevertheless, we allow them to pursue an education without paying for tuition," he said, adding that he saved money by buying plastic balls for Rp 3,000 instead of the Rp 60,000 volley balls that were meant to be used for sport.

In Jakarta, the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) representative for Indonesia, Stephen J. Woodhouse, yesterday called for greater government initiative to repair damage in the southwest of West Java, an area with low family incomes and poor infrastructure.

Woodhouse said his organization would monitor the area and pressure the government to ensure that the children there got a proper education.

He said he would receive a report early next week from Unicef's Bandung office, which is working in cooperation with the West Java provincial government to formulate an action plan to help the children.

Fasli Jalal, the chief of the bureau of religion, education, culture and sports at the National Development Planning Board, said yesterday he had received reports of eight elementary schools that were hard hit by the earthquake.

Fasli said a special relief fund would be provided by the government after damage reports had been submitted to the Regional Development Planning Board. He said that Rp 56.6 billion ($23.4 million) of the state budget was to be spent on West Java.

He said Rp 264 billion would be spent this year providing meals and anti-worm medicine to 7.3 million school children in poor, rural areas across the country, especially in the Nias, Riau, Sangir Talaut and Luwuk Banggai island regencies. Last year only 2.4 million children received this assistance.

Fasli said 49,000 elementary schools would be included in the program this year.

"This will also help farmers to grow food for a ready market, namely local school children," he said.