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.