REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, By Ahmad Syafii Maarif
Life in rural areas are very dependent on the mercy of nature is laden with risks. For 18 years I was in an environment that completely depends on it.
At the age of eight heads, memories of the rural atmosphere it sometimes seems very tense. Moreover, since the last two years the price of rubber in my hometown Sumpur Kudus (West Sumatra) were in free fall.
People scream, get rupiah is difficult. Try to imagine the rubber price of about Rp 12 thousand per kg plunge to around Rp 4.000 per kg. For those who completely rely on rubber, her life would sob, plus rice fields to grow rice is not necessarily available.
Most of those risking their lives into Indonesian workers (TKI), mostly to neighboring countries with all like grief. For those who do not have official documents, the risk is very large overseas.
Early 2016, the roll is not just a rubber tapper, rubber skipper was in contact with the impact. When prices are high, rubber supply is so abundant, in the present rubber is no longer a source of livelihood. Exactly the fate of coal producers are also stumbling.
Sumpur Kudus since hundreds of years ago not yet made it out of the category of villages. Younger siblings who had the same father with me coming from other districts, after our father died in 1955, all of them have left the Sumpur Kudus because they have no other choice to survive, but broke away with their father's homeland.
I myself could not pursue higher education because of a supportive environment, nor since has the ideals of luxury to change fate, but more because of "stranded to the edge thanks to the mercy of the waves".
Life is not uncommon paradoxical. When the price of rubber was victorious, my hometown habits of most people hardly ever think of saving. Everything purchased, including electronic items that completely attractive.
When it was in lepau, they are happy to talk high politics while playing dominoes. I was never too late in the habit of this sort. Most of the rubber tappers had a motorbike and a mobile phone which is pretty much drain funds. Not to mention the cost of cigarettes to deflate the pocket.
As a result, the education of children so neglected and in disarray, the household can be messy. Generally, when there is a divorce, the child followed his mother, while the father looking for another wife.
Panorama of this kind is still going on until now. There my classmates, who knows how many his wife with children are scattered in various neighborhoods. What is known as a broken home (household burst) is something that is plural in my village. The victims are mothers with children who are neglected.
The father just landed to sow the seeds, after the child is born and then abandoned. Then become her mother as a single parent, to be a husband again. The practice of divorce, it seems to have lasted for hundreds of years, including his half brother with my father.
Originally I hope with the inclusion of electricity to the Sumpur Kudus in 2005 will be very useful for the improvement of rural economy. But because people are not trained to build a small home appliances industry, only very few who have been using electricity for economic purposes.
Not only that, hardly anyone my hometown that use garden soil for planting pelawija. All the purposes of the kitchen as much as possible buy into the market much though. It had not occurred to them that the garden soil is quite generous when treated only for plants that turn.
Since the fall of the price of rubber, I had not yet had time to return home. Therefore, not much may be done to help the lives of villagers who lived for decades with horses load before it is fully taken over by the vehicle engine.
Sumpur Kudus is a village of thousands of other villages in Indonesia that should immediately improve itself in order to shut out of poverty can be overcome by changing the perspective and way of thinking, something that is not easy, but it certainly can.
