Vagabonding
 Indonesian Ingenuity One of the things that strikes me about people everywhere, is how we all manage to pull it together to survive hardships. In poor countries like Indonesia, daily hardship is a way of life, and many things are a struggle for a lot of people. It is this struggle to eek-out an existence to survive that leads to some very ingenious ways of making money. I always found the methods people used to make or save a Dong in Vietnam quite clever, and the techniques employed by people in Jakarta to rake in a Rupiah are no less ingenious. Take the umbrella kids for an example. The rainy season has just begun in Jakarta, which means the afternoon skies become dark and grey and monsoon rains starts to pour….around the same time that people want to leave their office and head home. But there is no need to worry about getting wet, because as soon as a sprinkle of rain starts to fall in Jakarta, kids suddenly come from their kampung and appear outside office buildings and bus stops where they wait with a giant umbrella almost the same size as they are. There they wait for customers, passer-bys, who they will help to get from A-B without a drop of water getting on them, by holding up their big umbrella over them. The customer stays dry, the kids get pretty wet, but the kid also makes a couple of thousand rupiah! Then, there are the traffic jockeys. These people stand by the road-side just before drivers enter the 3-in-1, a road which can only be used if there are 3 passengers in the car. The road jockeys make a few bucks by jumping into people’s cars so that they meet the required 3 passengers rule. They stay in the car while the driver goes through the 3-in-1 zone, and then get dropped off once the driver is in the CBD…then the jockey will go back and do it all again….and make about a $1 for each car pool! The ingenious schemes for making money in Jakarta don’t end there. There are dudes who act like very unofficial traffic police at certain busy junctions, waving their arms and shouting out directions in a very crazy looking way…with the intention of directing traffic in places where people need to make u-turns….they will “help” drivers to make the u-turn for some small coin donated by the driver, by stopping the on-coming traffic and allowing a space to make the turn. It is questionable whether or not they help or actually hinder traffic flow, but it’s a pretty clever way of making a buck. Of course, there are also buskers. But these buskers don’t necessarily have the talent of ones you might see on the street malls in the west. These entertainers are usually street kids or unemployed people who stand at the traffic junctions and "perform" songs to the drivers while they are stuck in traffic, and then collect whatever donations they can get from thei car windows. Their “instruments” are usually a tambourine or a piece of wood with bottle tops attached. I have seen more talented groups of musicians with a portable drum kit and guitar getting on the local buses where they really do perform to the passengers. Makes an otherwise uncomfortable journey a bit more entertaining! The traffic jams also lend themselves to the creation of another way to earn a living…that of the mobile shop. At every traffic intersection, there is at least one person weaving through the traffic with a cardboard box that is slung around the neck and carried in their front, and in that box is a mini-market that sells everything a frazzled commuter could ever need, from cold water to cigarettes to snacks to gum and newspapers, all of which are sold to the needy who are stuck in gridlocked traffic that is going nowhere fast. It’s a very creative money-making scheme…though one that appears hot and dangerous to me! There are also many other jobs that locals take on out of necessity that are perhaps not so obscure, but which fill a needed niche- there are men and women who prepare roadside meals in moveable carts, those who make ice-drinks, or sell fruit and veg, or make and sell snacks, or set up make-shift stalls on pedestrian overpasses to sell mobile phone cases or magazines, or there are those collect recycling to sell which they push on carts through busy roads. It is truly remarkable how hard it is for some people to make a living, and I am grateful every day for being given the opportunities I have had in my life to have a job that is not menial or which requires physical labour. The ingenuity of people to survive truly is applaudable and admirable in my opinion! The thing I love the most about Indonesian ingenuity, is that nearly every time someone performs one of these difficult, tedious, laborious jobs or tasks to make money, it is accompanied by a big, friendly, happy grin! Not only is there a service provided, but it is done with a smile!
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Diary Photos
| 7th Oct 2009 | |
| Umbrella Girl | |
| An umbrella girl walks a passerby dry-ly through the rain in Jakarta I did not take this picture, but wish I had! I found it through a search online and it should be credited to "tfjunction" |
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