'Remove the goats, live healthily'

'Remove the goats, live healthily'

JAKARTA (JP): Healthy living certainly does not mean spending your night with goats and cows under the same roof, but that was how people used to live in the old days, specially in times of war.

President Soeharto admitted yesterday he was one of them.

"During the guerrilla war years, I was often forced to sleep in people's houses where they also kept their goats and cows. In those days, cattle was the most valuable property and people were afraid of thieves," recalled Soeharto of his time during the independence struggle of the 1940s.

But this practice, still common in some rural areas today, should be changed, because it is unhealthy, he said, during a meeting with residents of a new low-cost apartment complex in Cengkareng, West Jakarta, yesterday.

He recalled that in those days, people needed the dung from their cattle for fertilizer. This too was kept inside the house.

The government's housing policy for rural areas is aimed at upgrading and improving the houses of rural folk, rather than building new ones, he said.

"Everyone should live healthily," he said.

They should build dens for their animals, the houses should have windows to let the sun in, they should have their own toilets. Now they should also have floor tiles, he said. (emb)