The story of Selamet - typical story or not? How many other Selamets are still out there...
Last Updated on Thursday, 29 September 2011 06:32 Written by Administrator Friday, 06 May 2011 06:51
Selamet has recently joined our loan program. From a $100 loan she started her old foodstall business again that was destroyed during the earthquake in 2006. Please read her story that tells her tough past below that Tracy wrote based on the interview that she held with this young and brave woman.
Selamet, 29, from Bantul, south Yogyakarta, is married with 4 children 11, 9, 3 and 10 months
Selamet's parents split up when she was 2 ½ years old and both remarried. Neither of her step-parents accepted her as their daughter, so she lived with her grandfather. At 12 she left primary school to work as a housemaid but her employers were harsh and often angry at her, so after a few months she left for Jakarta to work in a factory making wooden picture frames. She liked this work and stayed for 2 years until she was 15. Although she wanted to stay on in Jakarta, she contracted typhoid and was brought home to Yogyakarta by her mother.
She wanted to complete her schooling, but because there were no funds to do so she went to work in East Java doing factory work similar to that in Jakarta. At 16, she returned again to Yogyakarta to her mother and grandfather.
At this time she met her husband. After a year-long courtship, involving Sunday daytime outings together, they married, but only one uncle from her husband’s family came to the wedding. Despite the common practice of living with the husbands’ family after marriage, since she was not accepted by her husband’s family (probably due to the stigma against broken homes in Indonesia and her poverty), the newly weds moved in with her grandfather. She soon fell pregnant with her first child, but sadly her grandfather died before his birth.
In the early years of their marriage, Selamet established a successful local business selling tempura, fruit juices and everyday foodstuffs. Her husband earnt a meager income labouring on others people’s land – preparing the soil for rice to be planted, turning the soil and harvesting the rice. He also did odd jobs. With 2 small children and a third one on the way, the 2006 earthquake struck, it’s epicenter in the area of their home. The supply of eggs, rice, flour, sugar etc that Selamet sold from her home became the only source of food to her neighbours immediately after the quake. She donated them without hesitation. Her grandfather’s home was destroyed but was later rebuilt by an international NGO. The child she was carrying was still born. In 2007, they started to rebuild their lives from scratch. Selamet now makes jewellery that is sold in the city, and runs a foodstall in the village where she sells cooked rice and vegetables and iced coconut milk. Her husband continues with the season local work and also now makes ice-cream from home.
Since money is short, Selamet does not buy clothes, shoes or makeup for herself. As she said, ‘Sometimes I want to buy things like others do but I tell myself “why, when I have clean clothes at home”’. ‘I do everything for my children so that their future is not like mine. It’s no good if their parents are stupid and uneducated’.
Selamat has ‘many regrets’ and is ‘always struggling to find money, especially to pay school costs’. Although she only wanted two children, she could not afford the 3 monthly contraceptive injections recommended to villagers. She pities her two eldest children whom she believes ‘do not get enough attention because the younger ones need so much’. As I observed, both older children unselfishly tend to their younger siblings needs when they are not at school.
A year or so ago, Selamet received a micro credit loan of approximately AUD $100 from PPMK, which she uses to finance her local foodstall business. ‘I have been able to reestablish my small business with their help. Thank God they came to help. I want to thank them for helping me to reestablish my business since the earthquake. I am very grateful’.
This story was published with Selamet's consent. PPMK wish her and her family success with building her business again so she can send her children to school. PPMK wants to thank Tracy Webster very much for writing up this story.
Yogyakarta, February 2011
