For The Next Two Years

For the next two years, Warsun will have to take care his only daughter, Rola, when Yuni, his wife, is in Singapore to work as a foreign domestic worker. Yuni is currently still doing the training in Jakarta. Warsun does not really like that idea. Why is that? “Because I will have to do all of the chores. I will have to wash the clothes. And, I will have to help my mother selling the mendoan”, said the 37-years-old man. Life is not easy when the wife is not around, isn’t it Mas Warsun?

But it is not all exciting either for Yuni who had worked in the Middle East three times before trying her luck in Singapore this time. Of those three times working in the Middle East, only once she managed to bring her salary home because two of her ex employers there did not pay her salary after all the hard work she had done for them. She said the family that she worked for in the Middle East got houses as big as a football field and had so many family members. Did those employers get busted for not paying her salary? You bet they did not.

Nevertheless these experiences never stop her from trying again. In fact, she is still very much determined to work overseas. To her, being a successful foreign domestic worker is a matter of luck. It never occurs to her that it is her right to get protected, to demand the salary she earns. Perhaps she has never heard that by law (UU No. 39 / 2004) the government is obliged to protect Indonesian migrant workers while working overseas. Apparently, many foreign domestic workers from Pekaja, Kali Bagor, Banyumas also subscribe to this point of view. Their only hope is to be lucky that is they get good employers. They do no have so much faith in the government, don’t they?

So despite her painful past experiences as a foreign domestic worker, Yuni has set her mind to go to Singapore. Given her education level (junior high school) and Indonesian high unemployment rate, being a foreign domestic worker does not seem to be much of an option to her. She basically follows the examples set by people around her like her own mother, her mother in-law, her relatives, her friends in the village who had gone overseas to work as foreign domestic workers. As a part-time construction worker, her husband does not make much money. Her husband’s mother, with her mendoan business helps them with their daily meals and housing. But obviously they also have other needs and Yuni who had once earned money on her own feels the need to have her own money. They have already sold the motor bike that they bought from her only one-time success working in the Middle East. They need money now. Yuni said she wants to use the money to renovate the kitchen, to pay for the bills, to pay for Rola’s education and buy other stuffs. So it’s time to go.

Unfortunately for the next two years Yuni will have to leave Rola at home, her daughter who turns 8 this April and already misses so many years being with her mother. I am not sure what Rola really feels this time. Yuni first left her when she was 4 months old. But she is big enough now to feel and understand the absence of a mother. Perhaps Rola hates the situation. Or perhaps she is growing accustomed to not having her mother around. But for Yuni, it is a dreadful situation. The guilt is so much to bear. But I don't know what else to do, said the 24-years-old woman quietly.

The sad thing is, she is not sure when she will stop doing this because the money she earns will only be enough to feed her family for maybe 2 or 3 years apart from the renovation. She will have to work 253 days per year (she only gets 1 day off per month in Singapore) for the next two years to bring home Rp 17 million (US$ 1,900) after taking into account the 8-months salary deduction. She knows she will need to do at least another period after the current one. If only she knows how to manage the money into a productive/income-generating activity, maybe 2 periods are enough. But for the time being, Warsun has to wash the clothes for the next two years …

How Much Money Does She Actually Make?

Her name is Sumirah, a mendoan seller from Pekaja, Kali Bagor, Banyumas. She makes the best mendoan (snack made of fermented soybeans or known as tempe) I have ever had in my life. But she does not quite know how much money she makes. Or so I thought ... perhaps I was wrong ...

I went to Banyumas, the hometown of mendoan to accompany Chi Yin, a journalist from Straits Times Singapore, to write some reports on domestic migrant workers. We were staying at Sumirah's house because her daughter in-law, Yuni, was leaving to Singapore to be a domestic worker that week.

Sumirah wakes up at 2 am in the morning to make mendoan so that she could sell them at around 5 – 6 am. This morning session will last at about 8 am. She would then start the second batch of mendoan making at around 2 pm which would normally end at around 5 – 6 pm. As a business owner, she has already established her loyal customers who are basically her own neighbors. Every morning and evening they come to her kitchen. The transactions take place in there. Her other customers are the school kids. In the morning, Yuni takes the mendoan to the kiosks near the schools. Yuni also goes door to door to sell mendoan. As she is now in Jakarta doing some training to be a TKI in Singapore, the mother in-law would need someone else (and that would be her son, Yuni’s husband I suppose) to do what she used to do. The business must go on, mustn’t it?

In between those 2 sessions she sometimes helps her husband taking care of some plants like chilly, peanuts and tapioca in their small piece of land. Sumirah usually ends her day in front of TV before going to bed at around 9 pm. There goes her daily activities, 7 days a week. She hardly takes a day off because a day off means no mendoan which means no money for the day. This is not something that she can afford because she is the breadwinner to whom the whole family including her son’s family depends on. She has to work every day, 10 – 13 hours a day, 7 days a week. Besides mendoan, she also makes other kinds of snacks like bakwan (fried vegetables), tahu isi (tofu stuffed with vegetables), meniran (rice cooked with coconut milk) or buntil (tapioca leaves cooked with coconut milk). They all taste so good.

Fired with the spirit to start up a microfinance program soon, I could not help but wondering how much money she actually makes after all the hard work. So there I was sitting in her kitchen asking her questions about her business. The mendoan (and other snacks) was priced at Rp 250 each. To find out about the revenue was an easy task. Her daily sales turnover was Rp 140.000. The problem arose when I asked her about the cost. She could not tell me. So I tried to calculate the cost by listing down the main ingredients which consisted of tempe (fermented soybeans), flour, some spices and coconut oil. Then I asked her the quantity and the price of each item to multiply and add them up to get the so called “cost of good sold”. To my surprise, I found out that the cost exceeded the revenue. Instead of making money, she actually lost money.

I told her about my finding and she just smiled at me. She did not seem to be bothered. Perhaps she thought I was just a smart-ass city folk who had no idea about this mendoan business. Or perhaps I simply got it wrong. I had a feeling that something was wrong with the information she gave me. It must have been either the coconut oil or flour. 10 liter of coconut oil or 10 kg of flour a day was rather too much for her sales turnover. Even if they were for 2 days of consumptions, the number would still be red.

It was such a simple calculation. Yet I could not figure it out. Where does my 10 years working experience as a fund manager go? This time I hope my calculation is wrong because otherwise she would need to increase the price. She actually mentioned to me about this possibility saying that people sold mendoan at Rp 500 in the nearest town. However she dares not to do it because she would lose her customers. But why bother doing business if you are losing money? So I really hope my calculation is wrong.

Anyway, she has been doing her job for 2 years now. She wouldn't survive that long if she keeps on losing money, would she? Well, perhaps I should have gotten up at 2 am, watched her doing her thing and done my own calculation. Too lazy, though.