Flooding -- Just blame it on the rain

Many times we wake up in the morning with uneasiness, perhaps the remnant of a nightmare or weariness from the day before.

One day at the end of January, I awoke to see that a stream of brownish, trash-strewn water had flooded the narrow street in front of my house, in Grogol, West Jakarta, and was spilling onto my terrace, 50 centimeters above the ground.

My neighbors, who are not so lucky to have their houses built above street level, were already lifting their belongings to higher places inside their houses.

I thought a nightmare had begun in my waking hours.

When the electricity was still on, I saw on TV that Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso had given up in dealing with flooding in the city, saying that heavy rain and flooding were part of a five- year cycle.

He quipped later that he wasn't Sangkuriang, a character in Sundanese folklore who is said to have transformed a giant boat into Mount Tangkuban Perahu in Bandung, West Java.

Sutiyoso is right. He isn't Sangkuriang, or Noah. And he wasn't equipped to change the situation. However, I wondered why he did not seem to realize that he had the authority to prevent calamities, to some extent, from occurring in his territory.

I wondered if he's aware that, as in many myths and legends in Java and Indonesia, a leader should have "supernatural power" (now translated into knowledge and wisdom) to protect his or her people.

His blundering comments have become the stuff of popular ridicule and the target of much criticism.

I thought at that time that the water would recede in one day, as happened in the neighborhood before on Sunday. But the rain was incessant and, by Thursday, the water had entered my house.

At night, the whole area descended into darkness. There was no other sound except the splashing water from footsteps. Even the azan from the nearby mosque calling for prayer, a timekeeper on every other day, was silenced. The radio became the only medium to learn all the happenings in the city.

On that fateful Friday night, we had almost run out of clean water so we stored up on rain to clean ourselves. There was a heavy downpour the whole night, perhaps the heaviest in the week, and the water rose some 30cm inside my house. So the following day, we decided to seek refuge elsewhere, except for my father who insisted on staying to guard the house.

The trip to find a dry place became another adventure. My mother and I earlier planned to walk through the flood but a neighbor called a cart and we asked to join them. The cart was pulled by a man and pushed by two more. Methinks that these people profited from the catastrophe by modifying a cart as such with a raised bench with a capacity to sit four people, costing Rp 10,000 per person. Whatever their motivation, they were extraordinarily innovative.

The cart proceeded slowly through the knee-high floodwaters and we saw many people and teenagers trudging on the inundated street or paddling on makeshift rafts. There were many people and cart "boatmen" at the police station, which become the meeting point, and many officers were sitting idly. I never saw any police patrolling my neighborhood at night, either on foot or on rubber raft.

There have been heroic stories of people and artists helping flood victims and media and TV were exposing their generosity, but I don't see it that way. Unfortunately, for all the good acts, there were others who were picking and choosing who to help.

We had to walk to the nearby Mal Taman Anggrek shopping mall because no taxis or minivans were willing to go to the area where we wanted to stay temporarily. Part of the street in front of the Tarumanagara University campus and the adjacent Mal Ciputra was filled with water and no vehicle could pass.

We took an ojek (motorcycle taxi) but the drivers only took us halfway because flooding blocked one side of Jl. Meruya Ilir after days of rain.

For the second time, we had to cross the brownish pond on a cart, probably usually used to transport used-items. There were five other people standing on the cart, which was pushed and pulled by four men. Along the street, people watched the spectacle.

We took the ojek again to conclude the last round of the trip. Thank God, we made it at last though I forgot to take my shoes and had to go to the office in slippers.

Local papers have been questioning who should take the responsibility. It's easy to point fingers, but the distrust of the government's incapability along with the feeling of insecurity can't be washed away in a day.

Yet if someone is willing to take all the responsibility for nature's destruction, will it ease the recovery and provide a guarantee that there will be no more floods in Jakarta?

Just after President Megawati Soekarnoputri donated rubber dinghies and buoys last Saturday, my cousin commented sarcastically.

"Why is she contributing it now when the water is about to ebb?" I was surprised that an ordinary woman could be far-sighted enough to conclude that the peak of the floods might have passed.

For me, our leaders' slow action again highlighted their sorry sense of crisis. For them, the shortest and easiest way is to blame it on the rain, like pop duo Milli Vanilli pretended they had said. For me, however, living with the consequences, it's not so easy to wash my hands of the problem.

-- Ivy Susanti