North Jakarta slum residents going nowhere
Text by Mehru Jaffer, photos by William R. Durman
JAKARTA (JP): There is no need to ask for her postal address in North Jakarta. The overpowering stench from the stagnant waters of the Cengkareng wetland is enough to lead one straight into the heart of hundreds of new settlements where 49-year-old Yati lives. Made from and scraps, these clapboard shacks are home to thousands who have poured into Jakarta over several years from all over Java to live on land reclaimed from the swamps of the Kapuk Muara area.
Yati commutes daily on her bicycle to a more upmarket neighborhood to wash and iron clothes for a family that employs her for a monthly salary of Rp 200,000.
"If it is a clear day it takes me half an hour to travel to my workplace. Otherwise it can be a one hour wade through miles of flooded road on my bicycle," says Yati, a widow who has already married off three daughters and has three more children at home to feed and clothe.
The daughter of a garbage collector, Yati married one as well. It was in the early 70s when she followed her family from a slum area in east Jakarta to set up home here, along the Cengkareng waterway.
Unfortunately, it appears the family tradition will continue. Yati's 18 year-old-son recently gave up his studies to join the family profession of garbage collector, making time stand as still for Yati as the waters nearby.
"This place was not always like this," she says gesturing toward the waterway that seems to have lost all its liquidity due to decades of indiscriminate dumping of industrial and human waste.
Ibu Martin, 63, agrees, her watery eyes gazing around at countless women squatting on wooden rafts moored at the edge of the dark waters, scrubbing clothes or utensils while a group of young men clean soya beans across the shore to make tempeh.
"When I first came here I would drink this water. It was a broad waterfront when I built my house here in 1973. There was always a slight breeze blowing," recalls Ibu Martin, respected as a member of one of the neighborhood's first families.
Originally from Solo (Surakarta), Central Java, Ibu Martin came to Jakarta about four decades ago with her late husband who was a driver. After building a double-storeyed home made of cement and bricks, she made sure that Nining, her only child went to school. But soon after high school, Nining decided to marry Pandi, 31, a childhood sweetheart and daily wage worker in a nearby plastic factory.
Nining is 24 and already the mother of two children. While her elderly mother can still earn Rp 2,000 per day gluing paper packets used for serving French fries, Nining brings in no money.
When her children are older she has plans to set up a shop at home, selling cigarettes. When asked what will happen to the business if she gets pregnant again, Nining simply laughed.
She plans to send her children to school but she can not imagine their lives being much different from other people in the neighborhood where a driver is considered to work in the most prestigious of all professions.
"Why should I?" responded Nining, on being asked if she ever thought of leaving the sewage site beside the deadly water. Contaminated by feces and industrial effluents it is fit now only for breeding mosquitoes, flies and snails capable of spreading dreadful diseases like cholera, typhoid, dysentery and amoebic infections.
When told that the overloaded waste water facility had lost its capacity to clean the water, that the place is too filthy for human settlement, Nining insisted that she is happy here, close to her mother.
She loves her husband and adores her children. She watches television, enjoying her favorite soap opera and films from India. Celebrations are marked by dancing and singing. And often there is a gamelan performance by the local orchestra.
What more can she want, she asks looking around at the crowded neighborhood full of ducks and disease.
But the last word, came from a small, unknown voice asking if people do not fall sick and die in richer neighborhoods as well?