Life in Indonesia: Taking a big spoonful of guilt...

I am most definitely someone who is prone to thinking about the future and things I would like to achieve. The general gist of my thoughts are: What countries will I go to in the future? Where will I live? What job do I want to do? Will I buy a house? So it goes.. 

Quite a few years ago, I had a realisation that these type of thoughts were the privilege of a tiny majority of the world; namely, people with disposable income. Living in Indonesian only rams home this point.

It's easy for me; I guess for all of us, to get wrapped up in our own problems without considering how very lucky we are. We can also neglect the bigger issues of the world.

Indonesia has an incredible wrap-list of problems which I will write about in a different post. These issues aren't at the top of the priority list for many Indonesians and this becomes easier to understand when you consider one of the most fundamental needs for human beings: food.

Napoleon is famously supposed to have said: "An army marches on its stomach." I feel the same holds true for a populace. Indonesia is a developing country. How can someone put energy into saving the environment and stopping corruption when they are worried about putting food in their stomach?

Recently one of Jakarta's major daily newspapers had the headline: "117 Juta Orang Indonesia, Sangat Miskin" (117 Million Indonesians Very Poor).. It takes about five seconds walking a typical street in Jakarta to confirm how commonplace poverty is.

The very poor of Indonesia come in many different forms. There are those who sit on street corners with their hands out including children carrying babies, old people with no teeth and amputees.
There are those who sell drinks and other goods at small stalls and people who collect rubbish for a pittance. What they all have in common is they make between 10,000 and 30,000 Indonesian Rupiah a day (between $1.20 and $3.50 USD).

On my campus at the University of Indonesia there is a group of about 10 boys aged between 8-15 who sell newspapers. All of them have left school already and they sell the newspapers for about 25 cents each. They want to make money and be independent but without an education, they will probably be destined to a life of menial labour. It is common for them to work six days a week, 12 hours a day.

The problems of who to give to, how much to give, and how to make a difference can at times be overwhelming. Directly across the street from my apartment is a narrow alleyway that leads to my University. There is a boy aged around 12 who always wears a black T-shirt and camo-coloured shorts.

The first time I saw him he was crying his eyes out, wailing.  It was a distressing sight. I asked him what was wrong.. "Aku lapparr" (I'm hungry) he said. I asked him where his parents were: "Nggak ada" (I don't have any) he murmured. I told him that if he had any family members I would call them for him. He just kept crying so I just gave him a bit of money and was on my way. Since then I've seen him a bunch of times and sometimes give him a bit of food or small change. He is just one of millions.

I found out that there is a bit of an organised crime element to the beggars, much like what you see in Slum Dog Millionaire. I watched as a very impoverished looking beggar who I'm used to seeing as he was handing over a small wad of notes (probably just a few dollars) to a guy who I can assume was the boss of the area.
As for stealing for a living: people who rob here and are caught are usually seriously beaten or killed by the people (seemingly anyone) who catch them, so it's not a safe option for people who are starving.

Some of the poorest people I've ever met are warm, humble and friendly. They have a very tough life though.

It's incredibly cliched' to be young and idealistic but I at least hope in my life I can do something that makes a meaningful difference to some people.  Giving some poor Indonesians a bit of money isn't going to lift them out of poverty but I'm sure some of them will use the money to buy food and that, at least, makes me feel a little better.

Questions and comments welcome

A very inspiring man I met in Cambodia.

Today I had a very humbling experience.

In Siem Reap I met up with a lovely local man in his early thirties named Rady who had just started a free school for disadvantaged children.

We got in contact through Couchsurfing and he came and picked me up from my hostel. We drove about five kilometres on the back of his scooter along a highway that was flanked with lush rice paddies.

We got to the school grounds and over 200 children ages 4-16 were scattered around the grounds either playing or in the humble classrooms waiting for the start of class. There were not enough chairs for all the kids, so some had to sit on the dirt floor for lessons.

Rady had made the school possible through his own determination and hard work.

He owns some land and plans to gradually expand build more classrooms(there are currently about four), so that children who are missing out in the public school system can come, be educated and learn English.

He told me that at the public schools, some families are unable to afford the costs of stationary and uniforms. He also said the wages of teachers at public schools were so meagre that the quality of the teaching was often lacking. If a Cambodian parent wants their child to get a top education, they have to seek out expensive international schools.

A class full of 11 year olds were happy to see me. I tried to explain to them, with lots of gesticulating and Rady translating, where New Zealand was, what the kiwi is and that I worked as a journalist. They asked me some questions and we snapped some pics.

A volunteer teacher from the UK who had taken a term off to teach English in Cambodia told me that some of the children's parents could barely afford clothing. Rady also said many of the children had lost their parents.

Looking at these children, smiling and hopeful and relatively worry free, I thought that whatever misfortunes have befallen me in my life, I have nothing that could compare to the situation of these kids. Even the worst off in NZ can still go to school. I felt grateful for all the opportunities and benefits that being born in New Zealand had afforded me.

Western society, with its trappings of opulence, can often make us forget that most of the world have it a lot tougher than us.

Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in Asia. The United Nations Development Program's 2009 Human Development Index ranks Cambodia 137 out of 182 countries in terms of quality of life.

In a country such as this a little money can go a long way. It takes less than a week on New Zealand's minimum wage to earn enough money send a teenager in Cambodia to University for a year. However, when the average Khmer earns only a few dollars a day, that's a hell of a lot.

Rady showed me a pond where he had 2000 fish that would be sold to market when they reach the right size in order to help fund the school. After two months, the school was are already struggling with running costs and Rady said he would sell his laptop and lobby his contacts to help his raise funds.

The government had so far refused him assistance apparently believing Rady was trying to profit from the school.

Rady could relate to the poverty that many of the children at his school faced. As a boy he had to climb and pick coconuts from the tall trees to make enough money to go to school. His highschool was 10 kilometres away so he had to save for many months to afford the 25 dollars to buy a bicycle to get him there and home. He earned English at an academy and studied tourism for four years then IT for a year.

He told me he wanted to give the children hope for a better future but that he may struggle to do so if he doesn't recieve more money. What a brilliant guy!

Recently, I felt very hard done by, having lost a significant amount of money during my travels. I can clear my head of that now.

Rady is doing his all to assist those in need. He has no financial incentive, he just wants to help.

I think everyone can learn a lot from a guy like him.