Article #2 Urban Poor Families
the-read Series on Understanding Poverty
List of tasty snacks that you can find in High Schools all across Bandung (2012):
1. Pempek (Chewy fishcake with sauce): Rp5,000 (0.52 USD)
2. Seblak (Chips in spicy sauce): Rp3,000-Rp10,000 (0.31 USD-1.04 USD)
3. Gorengan (Fries): Rp1,000 (0.10 USD)
4. Indomie (Instant noodle): Rp3,500 (0.36 USD)
5. Cimol (Chewy Fries): Rp3,000-Rp5,000 (0.31 USD-0.52USD)
Prices are from 2012 inflation-discounted, currencies based on 2012 exchange rate.
If you are a late 90’ (born between 1997–2000), you may still remember how much your pocket money was. I asked several friends of mine who went to the same school in Bandung, the rate falls between Rp15,000 — Rp100,000 (1.56 USD — 10.4 USD)/day. But for Bulbasaur who lives with his 6 siblings whose father Rp40,000 (4.16 USD)/day payroll is the family main source of income, having Rp2,000 (0.2 USD) for his pocket money was a non-negotiable state, considering that his older siblings are still in college and his younger siblings still in school means that it is ungrateful and unwise to ask for a raise in pocket money.
I introduce this article with pocket money on high school students to put up a context on how poor people compared to those who aren’t. Poor people are often taking extreme measurements — condition forces them to do so — in order to keep their priorities on track. As for every opportunity has its own sacrifice, (economics 101 called it opportunity cost) in this world of capitalism, the number of sacrifices — for instance; family fortune, time, options — becoming less and less as you are becoming less and less prosperous (poor).
The Opportunity Cost
For Bulbasaur’s family, to take an opportunity on schooling him and his 6 siblings, the costs are; 1. The oldest brother has given up college and went to Malaysia as a TKI, 2. They only eat chicken once a week and meat once a year (during the Eid al Adha) 3. They have to sell snacks and fries at school during lunchtime to help the family’s economy, 4. He eats half of an egg and a bowl of rice for breakfast, 5. They have to go to their neighbor to watch tv, and the list goes on.
As a disclaimer, the story of Bulbasaur’s family may be the luckiest among the luckless, as there are people who live under extreme living conditions worth to be the cover of UNICEF or UNDP, but we will delve into these stories in the next article: The Mosquito Net Dilemma, while this article will be focused on the phenomenon of urban poor families.
While his family sacrifices most recreational and ‘luxuries’, the case are not always like that for his neighbors. They live in the same slum area, with pretty much the same income level — most of them work as low-paid workers, construction workers or a ‘serabutan’ — but they demonstrating a different approach in family expenditure and how they dealt with poverty. In terms of family expenditure, a lot of them spend it like this; the family spent more than 50% of their income on pocket money for their children, housewife, or other conspicuous consumption such as a credited dress, cigarettes, moonshine liquors or joining an arisan.
Their spending oftentimes offsetting their income, which in turns they have to borrow some money to the local moneylender or ‘bank keliling’, while paying a hefty interest for it, so the next time they won an arisan or receiving a BLT or any kind of fresh-bulk-money, they use it to pay their loans. I’ve nudged about this in my earlier article: Understanding Poverty #1: What it Means to be A Poor, and talked about a poor family who owns broadband internet connections and smartphones, even though being unable to schooling their children. These are the real cases of what I’d like to say ‘poor-people-pretending-to-be-not-to’, and this seems to happen not just in a slum area in Bandung, but in another city/region too.
A friend of mine once told me about the story of farmers behavior in his village, as the microlending program rolls out, they formed up a farmer association to help them get the loan for fertilizers and seeds and tractors. The results, a huge portion of it goes to their pockets, becoming either new dresses or anything one will describe as ‘less productive’.
In an effort to not just ‘bullshitting’ about this kind of phenomenon, I would like to quote a story from Poor Economics (I suggest you all read this book) a book written by Esther Duflo (Nobel-prized Economist, founder of J-PAL) which describes pretty much the same issue.
We asked Oucha Mbarbk, a man we met in a remote village in Morocco, what he would do if he had more money. He said he would buy more food. Then we asked him what he would do if he had even more money. He said he would buy better-tasting food. We were starting to feel very bad for him and his family, when we noticed a television, a parabolic antenna, and a DVD player in the room where we were sitting. We asked him why he had bought all these things if he felt the family did not have enough to eat. He laughed, and said, “Oh, but television is more important than food!”
They already poor, why did you do that? Why spreading bad stigma about them?
Why Spreading Stigma?
Before I got bashed by these types of questions, I would like to remind you all that these practices are based on what I have been experienced, what others also experienced and research conducted by J-PAL with its MIT class researchers. And to be fair, these practices are common and humane, means that with further explanations, I believe that we can understand what these stories are all about. This part of the article will help you to understand that.
It is boring to be a poor. It is more boring to be a poor in an urban situation. You may go to school without knowing which episode Itachi reveals his true intentions to Sasuke, or just plainly watching your friends playing some new toys or PubG mobile, hoping that they will give you a try, or keep on eating the same lunch menu, and to be honest, that’s sucks. Life even more and more boring if you are alone and unemployed (housewives), there is not much that you can do after you completed all of your daily chores, not to mention they already stressed out through many aspects of their life, so for poor people, enjoying a bit of a refreshment might be good.
And that’s what these poor people in the earlier examples are buying. Their need for a pleasant life, the things that make their life felt less boring. Of course, there are those who willingly sacrifice that need in exchange for a hope (still not a certain thing) for a better life, similar to Bulbasaur’s family. But for those who are not, this quote from the same book Duflo wrote may express their condition:
We are often inclined to see the world of the poor as a land of missed opportunities and to wonder why they don’t put these purchases on hold and invest in what would really make their lives better. The poor, on the other hand, may well be more skeptical about supposed opportunities and the possibility of any radical change in their lives. They often behave as if they think that any change that is significant enough to be worth sacrificing for will simply take too long. This could explain why they focus on the here and now, on living their lives as pleasantly as possible, celebrating when occasion demands it.
Apparently, The Lessons is Not in Here
For those who wonder about what this article tells you in terms of poverty alleviation, I would say that this article is not telling you that much (I’m sorry).
This article sole purpose is to unravel poor people behavior and for those who have the excitement of learning more about what they are and how they lived, I suggest you all to read the next article in understanding poverty series, or just simply live with them in one roof in one or three months OR, try to understand them via book narratives, one that I am suggesting is Poor Economics by Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee or if are into movies, Grave of Fireflies by Studio Ghibli or if you are into novel books, Angela’s Ashes or Laskar Pelangi will be a good supplement of mind.
Trailer for the upcoming article in understanding poverty series: The 3rd article will be about the mosquito net dilemma, an economic view on how we dealt with poverty, the 4th will be about education and its impact on poverty (rather a ‘basic’ discussion but enthralling) and the 5th will discuss in what can we do if we do wants to end poverty, what kind of actions that possible in individual, collective, or a bigger collective-bodies to take.
I want to be rich, as rich as possible.
Bulbasayur’s little sister, currently a student in an Indonesian University
BONUS: A cute photo of kaonashi that has nothing to do with this article.
