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.