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February 16, 2005

sadness on wednesday

my parents' new house in bogor lakeside is in a very green, hilly residential area. we don't have very many neighbours, so it's pretty quiet, cool breezes sweep through the house all day, we hear frogs and crickets and sometimes birds at night. it gets very dark at night so it can get creepy, but security guards patrol the area regularly, and you feel pretty safe.

public transport is scarce in this area; everyone drives their own cars and no one ever comes here unless you live here, or visiting someone here.

as soon as you leave the private property of the housing complex, just a few hundred meters down the road, you will see small wooden roadside stalls. in these simple buildings, people make their living, selling food in warung nasi, or pondok bubur ayam, or simple warung selling basic goods, like flip-flop sandals, kerupuk, cigarettes, aspirin, matches, fruit.

this morning when i drove by to get some bananas at the fruit stall, they were still standing. however, a few hours later, when i drove into town again, everything had been torn down. the wood of the stalls and zinc plates of the roofs were all lying in a heap. on some of the buildings left standing, yellow police lines were put up to mark off the area.

the only thing that was not destroyed was a couple of stalls, selling plants and flowers. i suppose because it wasn't really a stall, it was a bench with a roof, kind of like a gazebo and the plants the man was selling just blended into the roadside, a pretty natural display.

i saw cooking utensils, boxes of goods, and other belongings all on the side of the road. people were still poking through the remains of their shacks, i suppose looking for anything else they could salvage. they looked really sad. it was really hard to watch; a guy was collecting his things and handing them to his wife who stood nearby and watched with an uncomprehensible expression on her face.

i felt so so bad for them. the shacks were probably illegal, built on the side of the road like that with no trade permission. still. the people were trying to make a living. they weren't bothering anyone. actually, i can imagine the security guards of bogor lakeside finishing their shift and grabbing something to eat at the warung nasi before going home. or students from universitas pakuan nearby having their meals there.

i dunno. it just bothers me. i mean, in general i hate these roadside stalls that block the street or the sidewalk so cars and pedestrians need to swerve out of their way. they create traffic jams and leave a lot of trash behind. but these guys were really on the side of the road.

*well, ok, so they should pay a small fee for trash removal and using public property*

i hope they are getting moved elsewhere in the city, and not just getting removed and having their shops taken down. :(

Posted by Yasmina at February 16, 2005 07:13 PM

Comments

Posted by: lely at February 17, 2005 07:23 AM

Posted by: echa at February 20, 2005 08:11 PM

Posted by: Judith at February 28, 2005 10:05 PM