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Sri Mulyanti Goenawan

Where is my home? It is right here with me. It is not much. In
fact, most people would take pity on me and say that I am poor,
impoverished, but so many times I feel rich. I am rich because I
have my family is right here with me. I always have them close by
and they know how much I love them.

Before we came to Jakarta we were not yet really a family. I
married my husband back in our hometown -- I should really say
village -- and it was not long before he decided that we should
come to Jakarta to find work and so support ourselves and have
some money to send back to our village.

I was amazed at how quickly he found work when we arrived. It
was not much but at least he was bringing some money home. He
was not home much though; working as a security guard meant long
hours, usually on the night shift.

He found work quickly but I could not seem to find anything
permanent. For a short time, a friend of a friend gave me some
work helping to clean an American expatriate's house but after
the bombings hit Jakarta, the American went home and I had no
more cleaning work.

Not long after that I became pregnant. I know my husband was
very worried about being able to cover the costs of a baby, but I
was overjoyed at the prospect of having a child. We rented a
room with a shared bath; it was not much but it was our home and
the people we shared the building with were very kind throughout
my pregnancy.

Our child was born on the first day of September and my
husband insisted on calling him Adam. It was clear that all of
the people in our building loved Adam so much. Even though they
had little to spare, they were always so generous with their
gifts; secondhand baby clothes and occasionally toys made me feel
so cared for, so much at home.

We were, in an odd way, at home among strangers. Most of them
were other people who, like us, had come to Jakarta to earn a
living. One or two of them even claimed that they had come to
Jakarta to make their fortunes, but as yet fortune had failed to
smile upon them.

Adam grew quickly and well. Like most other children he had
occasional coughs and this concerned his father considerably but
he was well. Soon, though, my husband had a greater worry at
work. For a couple of weeks there had been rumors that things
were being stolen from the offices that he guarded at night.
Eventually my husband's supervisor called him in to answer the
rumors.

Of course, my husband denied it because it was untrue. But
his supervisor would not believe him. My husband even brought the
supervisor to our home, insisting he check for any stolen items.
Of course, again, he found nothing but it was no good. It was too
late, my husband had been accused and people assumed it was true.

I think the facts were that his accusers were the guilty
parties, they were the thieves but it was no use fighting them.
My husband was the scapegoat and he lost his job.

People in our building saw the visit of the supervisor, and so
soon the rumors began to fly in our boardinghouse. Some may have
believed the rumors, others just enjoyed the "entertainment" of
having a story to tell and having something to divert them from
their own concerns and miseries.

But for my husband it was no good. Every look from the people
in our building was to him a look of suspicion. Every
conversation that he saw between our neighbors became in his mind
a conversation about him and how he had lost his job because of
stealing, and how he was sure to be stealing from them too soon.

The situation became unbearable. Our home was no longer our
home. The suspicions that seemed to be swarming around and
overwhelming my husband were too great. Soon they were clouding
around me too and I began to feel less and less comfortable
living in a home that was no longer welcoming.

My husband became obsessed about losing his job. Then one day
he came back to our room and said we were moving out. We no
longer had the money to pay the rent. We had no money to go back
to our village, so we would make our home where we could.

Back home in our village my husband had always been
resourceful, making children's toys and even gifts for me from
materials that most people would consider to be used and useless.
He was, even then, a recycler.

Now he was going to return to his recycling ways. He had
managed to assemble a cart from various materials he had
collected from people who were throwing them away. The wheels
had tires on them but the tires were already thin. The spokes of
the wheels were already rusty. At first I looked at this cart and
then at my husband with thoughts that he had gone mad. But in
his eyes I saw expectation and hope.

He began to explain what he would do. He would make friends
with other "cart people" who knew where to collect and take
material for recycling. Soon we would be collecting money just
for collecting rubbish and that money would be turned into our
future, a future business that would provide us with a roof over
our heads, a home.

Part of me wanted to run away. This, I felt, could not be
right. But as my husband held our Adam and at the same time held
so much hope, I knew I must stay because no matter how poor, how
meager and sad it may look these people -- my husband and my son
-- truly make up my home.

And so now my home is so close to me. My home is there for
all to see. Some may take pity on me as I try to raise my child
in such unfavorable circumstances. Others, I can see, do not
like me and treat us as if we are barely human. But they should
let us be.

I am still hopeful for the future and some day we will have a
home to live in, but I am safe in the knowledge that I have my
home with me now. Through our present hardships we will value
our home so much more and those values are so important to me --
to us.