AN OASE IN THE DESERT

There are times when I think life is not so friendly with me. Stress at working place and heaps of personal problems often trigger me to think in such desperate way. My frequent action is crying and cursing Especially, when the goverment finally decided to rise fuel price, all daily neccessities went sky-rocketing. This has created more income spending for daily needs... Then, I started to complain...If I only I got better job and salary, If only i were a billionare, lol...and many other IF ONLY. Luckily, in this desert, I always find an oase. A spring water to wash away my thirst and weariness.

See the above photo? Her name is Mbah Sarinah. She is more than 60. At this age, she still has to work hard for a living. I met her a couple months ago during my travel at Yogyakarta.Her back was hunch due to the burden she used to carry. She sold traditional snacks by moving around at Malioboro street. She offered her food to the passers by, hoping she could sell some of them to earn a living. She told me she only lived with husband. Her only daughter lived far so they could not rely on her. Everynight she became one of the night peddlers and buskers...scratch a living in the street...earn a little money...less than 2 $ per day to survive another day.

Such was the reality currently found in many big cities in Indonesia. After an economic crisis hit Indonesia in 1997, the pople who lived under poverty line had increased tremendously. The current skyrocketing prices of daily needs worsened this condition. Many children forced to do labor in the streets by their parents because they were too poor to finance their daily needs. Those children became street beggars at the many traffic lights around Jakarta City. The old had to face the same fate. Their grown up children were too poor to support their life so that they had to beg at the streets. Street buskers and peddles were now common sight at the trains, buses, and many other public places.

Mbah Sarinah was far too noble to beg...she said as long as she was still able to sell her food, she would not beg at the streets. I admire her for this virtues principal. She's one of the many people who fought really hard to live.

Sometimes, when I went home after work with my husband, we stopped by at the mosque for maghrib prayer. I always liked this habitual activity as within this house of God, there's always a beauty. In this mosque, I saw people from various social strata gathered...businessmen, clerical employees, street buskers and peddlers, commuters left their activity and prayed under the same shaf (line) and roof. In this pray formation, anyone who had capability of being an Imam, could lead the pray...eventhough he's only a peddler. Looking at this wonderful sight, I used to marvel...all worries and complaints were vanished. It's like drinking a fresh spring water at the vast dried desert. Who am I to complain? while I had so many things to be grateful for.