Getting cheap goods and losing kid

JAKARTA (JP): A 45-year-old mother had good and bad experiences when she visited a cheap market at Monas Square yesterday with her two toddlers, Herawati, 2, and Ragilio Yoginugroho, 4.

After enthusiastically queuing to get cheap cooking oil at one of the stands, she realized that one of her toddlers had gone astray in her quest to get the now expensive and rare daily need.

The woman, Mukhtiah, traveled 15 kilometers from her home in Cakung in East Jakarta to the market, where she heard cooking oil would be sold cheaply. The market was set up temporarily to mark the 51st Cooperative Day.

While carrying two bottles of cooking oil, Mukhtiah called loudly to her son Yogi, who was not in sight.

"Does anyone know my Yogi's whereabouts?" she cried out in front of Minister of Cooperatives and Small Enterprises Adi Sasono, whom the woman did not recognize.

"There was a campaign in my neighborhood to help the poor buy cheap basic food, but no oil cooking on offer, only rice and sugar, so I came here to buy it," she told Antara news agency. (rsl)