North Jakarta slum residents going nowhere

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?