Home sweet hut for 21 people: Cramped quarters for slum dwellers

By Jupriadi

UJUNGPANDANG, South Sulawesi (JP): The big traditional house in the Bugis-Makassar style is in poor condition. Several parts of the corrugated zinc roof leak and the holes are covered with old clothes. The walls are made of bamboo and thin wood.

"Welcome to our hut," Dengsi, 27, said.

Located on Jl. Teuku Umar in Tallo, a slum in the north of the city, the structure is occupied by 21 people. Built on stilts, the house is seven meters wide, 18 meters long, and three meters high. Older people, including Dengsi's mother-in-law, live in the house, while the younger ones are on the ground, where the soil becomes the floor. Two families live on the ground.

"We divide the ground into two. The other part is for my sister's brother and his family," Dengsi said.

Dengsi lives with Hamo, his 23-year-old wife, and their two children in a 4x6 square meter area, which is divided in two. The main part is the bedroom, while the other one is for the living room, the kitchen and the lavatory. Three red plastic chairs and a small table are found in the living room, which is separated from the kitchen by a thin white curtain with a floral motif. It is stuffy in the kitchen as there is no ventilation. A 25-watt bulb on the wall is covered by cement wrapping paper but can not warm the room, especially as water oozes through the walls.

It is the rainy season now and when it rains continuously for three days, water inundates the ground, to a depth of between 15 and 30 centimeters. Tallo is located on sloping land and because of the construction of a nearby toll road the area where about 75 houses are located is prone to floods.

Dengsi, a high school graduate, is a temporary worker at a cocoa factory in the Makassar Industrial Estate and earns between Rp 5,000 and Rp 7,000 a day.

Before the crisis he said he could make both ends meet, and had rice, fish and vegetables to eat. But life has become quite hard in the past year, especially with the rocketing price of staple food. "A pack of instant noodles was Rp 300, now it is Rp 700," he complained.

Dengsi started to feel the pinch of the crisis when the company where he worked cut down the size of its workforce and he was laid off. And then he had to send Ama, his eldest child, to school. He has found another job, albeit one that is not permanent, but he cannot make both ends meet. Fortunately, his mother lends a hand, gives Ama, now in her second year of elementary school, shelter in her house and pays her school fees as well.

"When Ama's father was laid off, I worked in a traditional salt company," Hamo said. But she had to quit because of her pregnancy. Hamo is now five months pregnant.

Now, she has to tighten the budget greatly, and sometimes borrows money from her neighbors. Her husband, she said, works only four days a week and brings home Rp 6,000 on working days.

Pocket money

She has stopped joining the arisan (a neighborhood lottery which guarantees that every member wins) and never gives her younger child, the 5-year-old Kiki, any pocket money. She has also changed the menu for the family.

"Since September, I have not cared about the nutrition any more. What's important is that we are all full," she said.

She saves a few hundred rupiah every day "for the birth of my child," she said.

She is glad that Ramadhan has come because during the fasting month, the family eats only twice a day.

"But I wonder how we will celebrate Lebaran," she said sadly.

This sad story is shared by many other people in Ujungpandang. There are even children who have to support their families, like 10-year-old Andi.

Andi works as a becak (three-wheel pedicab) driver on Jl. Pengayoman, an elite neighborhood in the city. He works from morning until night.

"I can make an average of Rp 9,000 a day," he said. He pays Rp 2,000 for the rent of the becak and spends the rest to buy food.

His house is a small shanty located on a swamp and supported by old logs. There is no electricity in the house, which is illuminated by a kerosene lamp. To reach the shanty, one has to walk over bamboo poles that connect it with the main road in the Hertasning area. There he lives with his father, mother and two younger brothers and a sister.

The father is sick and the mother sometimes washes clothes for the neighbors for small payments and sells kangkung vegetables that grow in the swamp.

"But I can not make much money. From the kangkung I am able to make Rp 1,500 at the most," she complains.

There are many other Andis in Ujungpandang as many children have had to leave school and work since the crisis began. It is common to see school-aged children pedaling becak or begging in the streets.