Sometimes 'going green' isn't as good as it looks

Sumber:The Jakarta Post - 01 Agustus 2007
Kategori:Sanitasi
Recently I went to Bantul, one of the four regencies of Yogyakarta province, to visit a friend who had just moved into a beautiful carved-teak traditional joglo house there.

When I got there, I found I had a case of masuk angin (literally, bad wind entering the body, the Indonesian umbrella term for anything from the flu to miscellaneous aches and pains). So I asked if there was a massage woman who could knead the discomfort out of my body. Of course there was! A woman by the name of bu Suminah, Sumi for short.

Always curious about people, I quizzed 'bu Sumi about her family and her life as she massaged me. She was 55 years old, married, with five adult children and nine grandchildren. Most of her kids were married, save one, who still lived with her, as did two grandchildren in elementary school.

As Bantul was the area worst hit area by the Yogya earthquake in May last year, I naturally wondered how she had fared. Miraculously, her house had survived. Many other families had lost theirs and lived instead in tents (when eventually they came) in considerable discomfort and deprived of basic facilities until new houses were built for them. Now, of course, many of them live in much improved circumstances in their new homes.

Obviously 'bu Sumi was happy for them but she could not understand why there was no assistance for people like her who still lived in the same minuscule and ill-equipped houses they had before the quake -- in her case, basically just a room, measuring 4 x 5 meters (for five people!) and no MCK (mandi, cuci, kakus -- toilet, bathing and washing facilities). Just because she was spared the earthquake didn't mean she didn't need any help, she said. She was so right, I thought.

The next day, feeling much better (thanks to 'bu Sumi's healing hands) I went for my early morning walk. Asking around, I found where she lived -- a simple, whitewashed house (or what used to be white), with green window frames, potted plants and even two birdcages, with pigeons. I knocked and heard people scrambling up from the floor where they had been sleeping. Deni, 'bu Sumi's 22 year-old son, her youngest, opened the door. I apologized for my early intrusion, and introduced myself. 'Bu Sumi was not at home. She was already out, helping at the house of someone who was about to have a wedding -- taking whatever jobs she could to make ends meet.

Sure enough, when I looked around the tiny one-room house, there was no bathroom or toilet or even running water. Later, I was told there were many people like 'bu Sumi without these facilities. How can this be, I thought?

In the early 1980s, I worked for an NGO dealing with community health and development, focusing on water supply, nutrition and sanitation, among others. One of the good things about the New Order (yes, there were some good things!) was their integrated health service. One of the obvious conditions for personal, family and community health is sanitation, as many health problems come simply from unsanitary environments. If I remember correctly, there were several rural development projects back then that installed bathroom facilities in villages in an attempt to reduce disease among the very poor.

I had discussions with my colleagues about the program at the time. We were perplexed, because after they were installed, they were often left unused, porcelain monuments to failed rural development. The reason: the villagers preferred to go to the river, where they did all their stuff.

Trying to understand the rationale for this we urbanite NGO workers figured that, hmm, if you're used to bathing, washing and going to the toilet in a flowing river or stream, in the open air, with greenery all around you, it would be pretty unpleasant, claustrophobic even, to sit in a closed or even semi-closed bathroom. It's all to do with habits, which as you know, die hard (especially if they're bad ones!).

So I spoke to 'bu Sumi's neighbors again and told them about my experience 28 years ago. Things haven't changed, they said: people prefer to go to the river. Still. I shook my head in disbelief. Almost 30 years, five presidents, millions of lives lost, barrels of blood shed, tubs of tears wrung, gallons of sweat pouring, environmental degradation, climate crisis, global warming, etc -- and the toilet situation hasn't changed in most villages in Indonesia.

Three decades ago, when the population of this country was around 140 million, maybe it was still okay to do your business in the river. But nowadays, with a population of nearly 235 million -- almost 100 million more than in 1979 -- it's probably not such a good idea anymore: most of our waterways would give you toxic shock! But how many families like 'bu Sumi's are out there? And what other basic health facilities do they lack? Many, I'm sure. So what to do?

With a sigh I came back to earth. I am not going to solve Indonesia's galloping sanitation, pollution and water problems on my own. Instead, falling back on that old truism, think global, act local, I promised 'bu Sumi and her family that I'd help out by donating some funds toward building a bathroom for her if they all promised to give the river a break. And I offered to help build a kind of loft for sleeping, so that the family could eat and live somewhere other than the bedroom! Talking to friends, I will scrape the money together and, voila, one family's problem will be solved.

But what about all those other choked rivers and villagers without basic facilities in 'bu Sumi's village? And in Bantul? And in Yogyakarta? And in Central Java? And in ...

Julia Suryakusuma(The writer is the author of Sex, Power and Nation. She can be reached at jsuryakusuma@gmail.com.)



Post Date : 01 Agustus 2007