Railway tracks are home to many poor Jakartans

Railway tracks are home to many poor Jakartans

By Multa Fidrus

JAKARTA (JP): If you happen to travel by train from Jatinegara
station heading toward Senen, take a look toward the left-hand
side just before you pass the train depot. You will see a line of
non-permanent houses made of bamboo or plywood and somber middle-
aged women -- some carrying their baby -- passing the time and
chatting, while washing or sewing torn clothes.

"All residents along this railway are poor families that
mostly work as scavengers," one of them, a 46-year old woman
named Nursangidah, said.

This resident of Pisangan Baru, Matraman, East Jakarta, lives
with her 60-year old husband Saiyan and a 16-year old daughter in
a 2 meter by 3 meter house. She claimed that she had been living
there for 26 years. Such a long period somehow seems too short
for most migrants to the capital to settle down to a modest way
of life.

Peep inside the house: there is no sofa, chair, table, bed or
cupboard. It is actually hard to call this dismal structure a
house. It is more like a hut or a cage. Behind these
approximately 20 cages is a small, filthy stream.

Shabby clothes are hanging on string washing lines in front of
the house, requiring any visitor to bow before entering the cage,
which has a door and one window facing the stream. Water pumps
are also a common sight here on the land adjacent to the railway,
belonging to PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI), the state railway
company.

"We residents alongside this railway pay Rp 5,000 per month to
PT KAI for the land we occupy," said Nursangidah.

The thin and dark-skinned woman had, along with her husband,
left her hometown in Wonosobo in Central Java, for a better life
in the city.

But it turned out that life is really hard. Her husband has no
fixed job, and she has to earn money by washing the neighbors'
clothes or looking after their baby, or doing anything else she
is asked to. She usually receives between Rp 5,000 and Rp 10,000
for washing clothes, and between Rp 2,000 and Rp 3,000 for baby-
sitting.

"But this job is not permanent, although I need money to send
my daughter to senior high school this year," she said, adding
that the family received financial support from her husband's
relatives for the daughter's school fees.

Despite the hard life, Nursangidah said the family would only
return to their hometown if they were forced to leave the area
someday.

"There is nothing I can do there. In Jakarta I can still earn
at least Rp 2,000 per day to buy rice," she said.

Once she followed her relatives to Banjarmasin, South
Kalimantan, but she soon returned to Jakarta, as she could not
make any money there.

Despite being poor, she said, Jakarta is still a better place
to live for her family.

Another person, Ajeng, a 40-year old divorcee, shares this
view.

Ajeng lives in a 2 meter by 3 meter bamboo house located
alongside the railway line in the Gunung Antang area, right
behind the Urip Sumohardjo Army housing complex in Jatinegara.
She lives happily in the "cage" by herself.

Ajeng, who has been married six times, said that she lived
with her last husband in Tanah Merdeka, Kali Baru port, North
Jakarta. Seven years ago, her husband, a fisherman who owned two
motorboats, married another woman, so she left him and began
earning money by selling food along the railway, such as fried
noodles, fried bananas and coffee.

"There's no problem being poor and living in this bamboo cage
as long as I can eat," she said with a smile.

She had no children from her last marriage, while her two
children from her fifth husband were already married and lived
with their families, respectively in Sumatra and West Java.

There are many other similar stories of poor people in the
capital who do not depend on government assistance to survive.
Yet their social, economic and cultural rights have always been
denied by city bylaw No. 11/1988 on public order. The bylaw
authorizes the city administration to take action against street
vendors or anyone -- usually in the informal sector -- deemed to
be disturbing public order.

Coordinator of the Urban Poor Consortium (UPC) Wardah Hafids
defined poverty from two perspectives: economic and social.
Economically, she said, people were regarded as poor if the
earnings of a family comprising three to five members were less
than Rp 35,000 per week or Rp 150,000 per month. Socially, the
poor were families that worked in the informal sector, such as
pedicab drivers, street vendors or casual laborers. They did not
have rights over land and usually lived along river banks or near
railway lines.

She said it was necessary to empower the poor in handling
economic problems and encourage them to have self-esteem. For
these people, the skill to make money and the improvement of
their self-esteem were more important than financial aid.