Perched in makeshift housing along the slippery banks of Jakarta’s Ciliwung River, the river dwellers are no strangers to the worst of nature’s tidings. So when the heavens opened above Indonesia’s capital in late January, their movement to safety was relatively swift and predictable. More dramatically, after close to a week of torrential rain, the city was paralysed, 80 per cent of the capital’s sub-districts were underwater, upwards of 300,000 residents were displaced, with many plucked from collapsing rooftops. Basic utilities were unavailable and the government stumbled towards what would become a half billion dollar rescue and rehabilitation program.
As the floodwaters began to recede and the river dwellers ventured back to the swollen Ciliwung, the scale of the disaster revealed itself beneath the veneer of residual mud. What might have been a process of retrieval became a laboured ordeal of disposal and ultimately deep reflection on a life so frequently imperilled by the elements.
For Jakarta’s squatter population, the city’s riverbanks have become a residential haven. They attract a wide collection of Java’s economic migrants. Living in densely packed shanties that shadow the water’s edge, most river bank communities are grossly overpopulated with multiple families sharing single dwellings. Environmental hazards abound, particularly the lack of public sanitation and the accumulation of uncovered garbage.
Those who have found employment typically ply their trade in the dark and narrow alleyways, as small shop owners and hawkers, street food vendors and scavengers for recyclable plastics, paper and wood. Incomes are marginal. Literacy, access to health services and the prevalence of disease are significant problems here — more acute than for more affluent residents who often live in safety mere meters above the river flood zones. It is a cruel discrepancy in a city whose population swells to almost 20 million during the working day.
Many of the river dwellers are viewed as 'non-residents' as they do not hold registration or family cards that guarantee entitlement to services, particularly during times of crisis. Government authorities have for years urged the river dwellers to relocate from their temporary homes to 'low-cost' high-rise apartments that flourish all over Jakarta.
These heavily subsidised housing projects have not proven popular with river dwellers though, in large part because of long term affordability issues and the non-traditional living environment. Economic opportunities are also unlikely to carry over from the river bank to Jakarta’s urban sprawl. Indeed, a recent Nielsen survey undertaken of residents