Road workers toil one day at a time
By Arief S. Suditomo
JAKARTA (JP): What is life? For two seasonal migrant laborers working on the toll road project in Pondok Pinang-Cikunir, it's all work, work and more work. They hardly have time to reflect on what they hope to achieve, other than earning a living.
"I can't think of any other plans for my future," says 30-year old Atok Arif Rahman Hakim from West Java. "My future is tomorrow, and tomorrow is work," he adds with a bitter smile.
Abdul Rahman Harahap from North Sumatra, who is seven years Atok's junior, thinks the same. He knows he has a future but does not have any idea what it will be like. "The most important thing for me now is to work and make money," Abdul says.
The two men with different cultural backgrounds, one a rural farmer and the other an urban adventurer, are nowadays toiling here in the same place to make ends meet. And they are working double shift. On the day of his interview with The Jakarta Post, Atok conceded that he only slept three hours the night before.
They had dreams, and they still do, although they have scaled down their expectations.
Abdul wanted so much to join the army when he quit school. Five times he tried, and five times he failed the tests.
"I got so frustrated that I decided to leave my hometown Medan to start looking for jobs, any job that pays," he recollects. That was back in June and in the five months since then he has held no less than four odd jobs in Pekanbaru (Riau), Surabaya (East Java), Malaysia, and now in Jakarta.
In Pekanbaru, he helped build the stage that was used for the national Koran recital contests. He then moved to Surabaya where he worked as a seasonal construction worker. Then he was lured by the offer from brokers of high paying jobs in Malaysia, working at a palm oil estate, illegally.
"Working abroad as an illegal worker for one month was the worst experience of my life because I always felt insecure and lonely," he says. He decided to return to Indonesia and this time Jakarta was his destination.
Not exactly poor
Atok, in contrast, comes from Cianjur, a fertile rice growing area at the foot of Mt. Gede.
He is not exactly poor. His parents own 5,000 square meters of ricefields which the family manages together. But he is not rich either and still has to supplement his family's income by working off the field between planting and harvesting seasons.
He has been joining the annual army of seasonal workers into the Indonesian capital during the harvesting off season.
He came to Jakarta two months ago with a group of fellow village friends and landed themselves work at the Pondok Pinang- Cikunir toll road project.
Unlike Abdul, who wanted to join the army, Atok was more of a rebellious type.
He quit school after completing primary school because he wanted to earn his own money. "I was a naughty boy and I refused to follow my father's profession as a ustadz (clergy man) because I didn't think I was suitable for that,"
Both Atok and Abdul say their present jobs are the hardest in comparison to other work they have done previously.
Now they have to work with heavy equipment under the scorching sun on the dusty, heavily polluted site.
Atok says most workers work eight hours a day from 8 a.m to 4 p.m, but some, including himself, choose double shifts, working again from 7 p.m to 4 a.m.
"I used to grumble to myself and wonder why a man has to work this hard just to survive," Atok says in his thick Sundanese accent.
Atok said he needs to save up enough money to buy fertilizer for his ricefields when he returns to Cianjur. "They pay me Rp 7,500 (US$3.4) for the day shift and Rp 1,000 per hour for the night shift."
Given the kind of work they do, workers spend heavily on food because they need to stay fit all the time.
Abdul spends around Rp 3,000 a day to buy nutritious food, especially milk. "I'd rather spend a lot for food rather than end up falling sick."
Atok eats two raw eggs each day to keep healthy. "I hate raw eggs but I have to stay healthy because there's no one around to take care of me if I get sick."
The two men don't spend any money on accommodation, making do with the concrete of the flyover bridge they have helped construct as their bed, no mattress or pillow.
"It's mosquito free," Atok discloses. "I have just realized that Jakarta can be cold in the morning."
Isn't there any ambition or future they want to build?
Abdul said day dreaming is bad for people like him. His main concern is to make an honest living by working hard, and not through committing crime and sin.
Only towards the end of the interview did the two men shyly come out with their modest ambitions.
Atok says he wants to remain a farmer and open a food stall with his wife as the cook while Abdul says he hopes to join the government's resettlement program, hopefully in North Sumatra, his home province.