Rural people admit defeat at hands of economic crisis

Rural people admit defeat at hands of economic crisis

By Gin Kurniawan and Teddy Novan

GUNUNGKIDUL, Yogyakarta (JP): A young woman sat quietly in
front of her modest house with a vacant look on her face. Nobody
knows what she was thinking. But suddenly she stood up and
repeatedly screamed in a barely audible voice: "Oh God, give me
prosperity."

The 28-year-old woman, just call her Sri, is suffering from a
mental disorder. According to her neighbors in Giriasih village,
Panggang district, Gunungkidul regency, Sri is unable to stand
the burden of life, which becomes harder and harder.

Sri, a mother of one, and her husband used to make blangkon
(Javanese traditional hats) in their rented house in the nearby
city of Yogyakarta. But during the crisis, her small-scale
business has been hard hit as people prefer buying food to buying
a new hat. As they could not afford the rental of the house, they
returned to their village.

Like other houses in the village, Sri's house has woven bamboo
walls, and soil as the floor.

Sri is now under heavy stress while her husband, Mijiman,
works as a temporary construction laborer. If he is lucky, he may
bring home a few thousand rupiah, but there are times when he
cannot find a job.

According to official data, the number of poor people in
Yogyakarta province, which has about 3 million population,
increased from 53,870 families in 1997 to 74,579 families at the
end of 1999. Most of them are in Gunungkidul.

The Yogyakarta NGO Forum, however, says that the real number
is higher. It estimated that there are about 100,000 poor people
in Gunungkidul alone. There are about 750,000 people living in
the regency.

As a matter of fact, Gunungkidul residents have long suffered
from poverty. Most people in the regency work as farmers, but
they are hard-pressed to bring in good harvests due to the barren
character of the land.

"How could we be prosperous? The land is dry and hilly, and
has a high lime content," Sudiyono, from Tegalsari village, said.

Therefore, many people left for Yogyakarta, Surakarta (Solo)
or other big cities to find a better life. But the crisis has
sent them home.

Sudiyono had worked in a paint factory in Yogyakarta for nine
years when he was laid off early in 1998.

He grew corn but the harvest failed and he was forced to pawn
his bicycle for Rp 40,000. He later had to let his go of his cow
for Rp 1.75 million. The bicycle and the cow were his only
valuables, which until recently had helped him a lot. He has no
intention of selling his other belongings, which include two mats
and two wardrobes. Anyway, who would want to buy them?

His wife still works in the field, growing cassava. After the
harvest, she puts the cassava out in the sun and sells it for Rp
1,100 per kilogram.

Sudiyono works in the PT Gunung Makmur lime mining company,
from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., to earn just Rp 4,000.

"We used to eat three times a day, and now we eat twice," said
Sudiyono's wife, Partinem. "Sometimes we don't eat rice, but
cassava or tiwul (dried cassave stew)." We don't have side
dishes, only crackers and soybean sauce.

"Actually we have always been used to a hard life. But now, it
is too much," said Partinem, who could sell gaplek (dried
cassava) for Rp 1,100 per kilogram.

Tiwul is not a new item. Until the 1970s, it was popular in
Gunungkidul. As the economic situation improved, people did not
eat tiwul any more except once in a while when they had it out of
nostalgia.

"Today, we eat it because we can't afford rice," said Sukamto,
a neighborhood chief in Giriasih village.

According to Sukamto, all of the 340 families in the village
have started to eat tiwul in this time of crisis.

They also have had to change their means of preparing food;
instead of frying it, they boil it because they have no money to
buy cooking oil.

In short, they must take extremely tight economy measures in
order to survive. They only think about basic food stuffs and
have to forget about secondary needs such as soap.

"I don't use any soap when taking a bath," said Darmanto, a
laid off worker.

Another villager, Kardiman, 53, a father of seven children,
has worked in the rice fields since his workplace, PT Gondang
Baru, a sugar factory in Klaten, laid him off. He said he can now
make about Rp 5,000 a day. "Sometimes I also work on a
construction project, but there, I get much less money," he said,
adding that his wife is also a construction worker.

One of his sons, Mulyanto, 23, used to work in Solo, but had
to return home as the shop was burned down during the May riots.
A Javanese traditional art high school graduate, he is trying to
make a living by joining a ketoprak (Javanese opera) troupe. When
the troupe gets a booking, he receives up to Rp 7,000, but in
this time of crisis, there are not many people who would spend
their money on entertainment. To survive, he recites poems in
public buses for some small change from passengers, or becomes a
construction worker.

"On average, I can make between Rp 3,000 and Rp 4,000, but
once I did not eat for two days because I was sick and could not
work," he said.

In order to get some money to buy food, the family have sold
their belongings, including some kitchen utensils like a kerosene
stove, spoons and glasses.

"Sometimes, there is no water to drink because we run out of
firewood while the stove has already been sold," Mulyanto said.