Firewood collectors live unruffled, isolated life

Text and Photos by Widyarto

SURABAYA (JP): The path winds up the hill. Every time you step into layers of decomposing leaves on the path, it feels soft and cool. The overnight downpour has made the passage in the teakwood forest of the Kendeng mountain range muddy.

Traveling in such a situation can be pretty lonely. The noise of rustling leaves is the dominant sound in this teakwood forest, which is controlled by the state-run plantation company (Perhutani).

Located in Ngawi, 250 kilometers west of Surabaya, the 44,843- hectare, or 35 percent of the regency's total area, teakwood forest is the largest in Java.

According to government statistics, more than 17,250 people, including firewood collectors, forest rangers and company employees rely on the forest for their livelihood.

The 5,750 nomadic firewood collectors, locally called the pesanggem, represent the largest group of beneficiaries. Their lives depend entirely on the forest.

The pesanggem are practically isolated from outside cultures and untouched by modern technology. They are illiterate and unskilled. They go to the nearest villages once a week to sell forest products to be able to buy goods such as rice, sugar, tobacco and kerosene.

Deep into the forest is Megersari, one of pesanggem hamlets. Located on a ridge 2,150 meters above sea level, the hamlet, which is home to eight families, is 18 kilometers from the nearest "modern" village, Bangunrejo Lor.

Despite their relatively close proximity, the two places are starkly different by any standard. Take prices as an example. In Bangunrejo Lor, kerosene costs only Rp 350 per liter but hawkers who reach the isolated hamlet by bike once a week sell it for Rp 600 a liter.

Hawkers' and forest officials' occasional visits, usually once a week when the weather is fine, is the main way the nomads stay in touch with the outside world. On rainy days, no one from outside comes because the path leading to the hamlet becomes a track of mud.

Rarely do Megersari villagers go to market because basically, they can survive on their agricultural products, such as cassava, corn, peanut, chili and soybean.

The hamlet is no bigger than a soccer field. The buildings consist of nine wooden huts and a large hut used by visiting forest officials as a base camp. The huts have dirt floors; their walls are made of branches and roofs are made of teak leaves. For lighting, they use kerosene lamps.

"We buy kerosene only for lamps," said pesanggem Jasmin, a 40- year-old widower, in his thick Javanese accent.

He needs only about three liters of kerosene a week to illuminate his four meter wide by six meter long hut.

"Often, I have to borrow it from the hawker," said the father of four, chuckling. He works bare-chested and without footwear. For smoking, he spreads tobacco on a piece of corn husk.

Being in debt to hawkers for kerosene or other basic needs is no big deal. Jasmin said he owes the kerosene trader Rp 50,000.

"We sell firewood to the market or to lime-makers. We work in a group of four people and earn about Rp 15,000 a day. The money is spent on basic needs and we share them equally. Now, with prices going up, the money is not enough and rice is a luxury."

Now, during these hard times, villagers mix rice with cassava for their main meals.

"In the absence of rice, we will have either corn, yams or tiwul (cassava pudding)," said Lagiyem, 40, who plans to marry Jasmin in December.

The villagers rely on their gardens, although the produce is seldom enough for the whole year. And neither is the firewood. Generally, they have to move every two years or three years to another area, where firewood is abundant.

"We can't stay in the same area for more than three years," said Jasmin, who moved to the current hamlet only two months ago.

Jasmin's hut consists of two rooms, one for working and the other for sleeping. Unlike houses in general, the huts have no furniture except for two long tables and wooden sofas -- one for Jasmine and the other for his daughter Purwanti, 18, and her husband, Maolan, 35. An earthen pitcher for drinking water is the only thing on the table. There are neither cups nor glasses.

Jasmin said he does not need a wardrobe because each family member has no more than three pieces of clothing. They do not change for several days, waiting until they can no longer bear the smell.

For people in the hamlet, going to the market, which takes them a whole day, is a special occasion.

"It has been three years since I went to the market to buy a kebaya (traditional blouse)," says Lagiyem, who hates going to the market because going by bus makes her sick.

The Ngawi market, 35 kilometers from the hamlet, is the farthest she has ever gone.

Lagiyem lives alone. Since her parents died 10 years ago, she has not had the courage to leave Megersari, and that is why, she concedes, she has not married yet. She has been in the hamlet all her life.

"There has been no man around here until he (Jasmin) came," she said.

"I have always stayed here, although people will move when firewood gets scarce. I will live on anything I can grow: sweet potato, corn... anything."

Mbok (mother) Jiman, 84, is another woman who lives permanently in the hamlet.

As for Jasmine, of his four children, all but one have settled and become farmers. The daughter that lives with him is married to a fellow pesanggem.

Jasmine plans to settle in the hamlet after he marries Lagiyem.

"I hope Mbok Jiman will live with us later because she is too old to live alone. Besides, I have permission to farm for two years a plot of land of which the teak trees have been cut down," he said, his eyes beaming with happiness.

"We will grow rice, corn, cassava, sweet potatoes or anything Lagiyem likes. When the concession time is up, Perhutani will surely have another vacant lot to lend us."

A plot of land where trees have been cut is usually left fallow for about three years. Until it is replanted, the pesanggem are allowed to till it without having to pay taxes.

Officially, the pesanggem are not registered as residents of any particular administrative unit because they are nomadic. This makes it difficult for the government to determine their exact number and to control their movements.

The regency government has made various efforts to resettle them, such as moving them to areas outside the forest land.

Sadin Nurdin, chief of Karanganyar subdistrict, which borders with Central Java, said, "Residents of Termas village were formerly nomads."

Regency officials fear that the worsening economic crisis will drive impoverished people into the forest.

The Ngawi regency government's spokesman, Masud, said: "We are afraid that people will come to the forest in large numbers and steal teak, as has happened in several areas recently."