It is Like Walking Jakarta-Surabaya 15 Times Over

KOMPAS/FRANSISKUS PATI HERIN

Setiap pagi anak-anak sekolah berjalan kaki dan menyeberangi sungai dari Desa Yamalatu ke Desa Laimu di Kecamatan Telutih, Kabupaten Maluku Tengah, Maluku, seperti pada Selasa (4/12/2018). Di tengah minimnya infrastruktur di daerah pelosok Pulau Seram itu, anak-anak tetap semangat meraih cita-cita demi masa depan mereka.

That morning, Agus Rezky Walalohun, 17, and his friends were running from their homes in Yamalatu village to their school in Laimu village. They had to cross the river quickly before flooding began.

By the Punala river, the teenagers from Seram Island\'s remote region prepared to walk across. Then, one by one, they crossed the river by hopping from stone to stone. Fortunately, that morning in early December 2018, water from the river’s upstream had yet to arrive at the crossing point despite darkening clouds and rain on the hilltop.

On the other side of the Punala River, the teenagers hurried toward Ife River 1 kilometer away. Once they got to the river, again they crossed it by hopping from stone to stone.

This time, Agus and his friends got lucky for having passed the two obstacles easily. The two rivers are on their daily 4-kilometer walking commute between their village and school.

Every morning in the rainy season, they are in a race against the weather. If the water gets higher than their thigh, they just take off their school uniforms and change clothes.

If the river runs a little rough and they cannot withstand the fast current, help will come. Adults will come and form a line across the river to help the teenagers get across safely. However, when the river’s current is too fast, the children will decide to just have a day off from school. The school management understands.

Around 30 children in Yamalatu go to the middle school and high school in Laimu. If heavy rain falls at the end of the school hours, they will not be able to get home as it will be impossible to cross the river. Sometimes, they just spend the night together in huts in nearby plantations.

Like walking from Jakarta to Surabaya

Limited infrastructure does not dissipate the children’s will to go to school. Every day, they walk 8 kilometers and put their lives at risk to get educated.

If Agus and his friends go to middle school and high school in Laimu, and there are 240 effective school days per year, it means that the children walk a total of 11,520 kilometers in six years.

This is equal to going between Jakarta and Surabaya through the trans-Java toll road 15 times! It is also twice as long as the straight-line distance between Sabang and Merauke!

The children go through such an arduous journey, based on their belief that education is the best way for them to get out of poverty and get a better future. Through education, they wish to build dreams. “I want to be a policeman,” said Agus.

On the walls of many homes in Yamalatu, many of which are semi-permanent, there are photographs of children\'s graduations, including in Mel Tamala’s home. She proudly said that her two children currently worked in Maluku: one is a vehicle sales manager and the other a kitchen manager at a restaurant.

“If my children did not go to school, they may be processing copra or fishing nowadays. Even if we could not eat sometimes, the children still had to go to school,” Mel said.

Amid local families’ economic hardship, most children in Yamalatu help their parents after they get home from school. Eleventh-grader Jeklin Ipapoto, for instance, works on the plantation during clove harvesting season. In one day, children like Jeklin can earn Rp 50,000 (US$3.55), of which Rp 25,000 is used for school committee payment and the rest for snacks.

There is no free education in Seram and local children have never seen what the Indonesia Smart Card (KIP) looks like. Every school year, local parents wishing to send their children to the SMA 1 state high school in Telutih must prepare at least Rp 1 million to buy uniforms, batik shirts and for registration. Many parents have difficulties in finding the money.

Unpaid

The future of children in Yamalatu is saved by the sacrifices of people like Agusta Tamala, who has served as a casual teacher at SD Inpres Yamalatu elementary school for 14 years. In 2005, Agusta returned to Yamalatu after living the previous six years in a shelter due to a religious conflict in the region. At the time, Agusta reopened the school, which had also been closed for six years due to the conflicts.

Between 2005 and 2010, Agusta taught students how to read, write and count, as well as about state ideology Pancasila and religion, without being paid.

The high school graduate taught all students from first graders to sixth graders. Starting in 2010, Agusta earned a monthly salary of Rp 200,000. Even nowadays, there is never any certainty on when the monthy salary comes. “I just want the children here to go to school and get a better future. If I think about my salary, I will not still be here today,” Agusta said.

The strong will of Agus and his friends, of teacher Agusta who serves without pay and of the parents in Yamalatu who support their children at all costs, are proof that people in remote regions wish to achieve progress through education. Despite having to traverse 15 times the distance between Jakarta and Surabaya or twice the distance between Sabang and Merauke, they refuse to give up. We all need to take lessons from the struggles of the children of Seram Island.