Poor's Numbers

I like to talk to a lot of people. Their problems seem limitless. I haven't found a compelling person to tell in this blog to update my interview with poor Indonesians. Their stories become increasingly ordinary as there are so many of them.

A husband had to move back to his village in Ungaran, Central Java because he got laid off as a restaurant cook. He has about 2500 meter square of land on which he plants corn and green beans. The price of fertilizer and herbicide is so expensive so that from Rp 1,000,000 investment he can get only Rp 300,000. A 30% return, of course, but the proceed is spread over 3 months and quite miniscule. And he cannot scale up his business since that's all the land he has. His wife works in Jakarta and wires Rp 1,000,000 per month. The snack for their 2 kids costs Rp 30,000 per day and pretty much eats up the wired money. To make ends meet, the husband becomes a farm laborer and gets Rp 35,000 per day.

They dream to open a food stall in the Ungaran market. They cannot save Rp 5,000,000 to realize this dream since what they earn is always gone by the end of each month. For most Indonesian poor, Rp 5,000,000 is an astronomical amount.

Another story is a driver with 6 children, from university age to 1.5 years old baby. He hopes to make Rp 2,500,000 per month to feed 7 people in the family in Jakarta. His rented house is leaky during rains and he looks like 60 years old although he is only 43. His eyes tell a life with many hardships.

I have grown more pessimistic with the human development prospect of Indonesia as I spend more time in Indonesia. There are 2 main problems. First, the capital owners are not willing to share their profits with their employees to allow for the workers to improve their children's education and health. There have been a lot of labor disputes in the past 2 months, mostly due to the minimum wage amount issue. Second, these employees have low quality. They form a vicious cycle. It is hard to unravel them until one has to give: either the capital owners or the workers.

The truth is that the Indonesian poor do not feel the impact of progress happening in Indonesia. The solution is education, but the quality of education is not good and education is getting more expensive as well. The government has to increase health and education subsidy for poor.

As I write this I am saddened. I left Indonesia 22 years ago. I have seen a lot of progress, but some things never change.