On a rainy day in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, three men coated in metallic paint known as the “manusia silver,” or silver men, brave the elements at an intersection near a mall to ask drivers for change.
It is an arresting act that comes with health risks, which some young Indonesians feel is necessary to make ends meet as the cost of living worsens and jobs dwindle after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’m ashamed to earn money like this. I want to find a real, more dignified job,” Ari Munandar, 25, said. “But the embarrassment disappears when you remember that your daughter and your wife are at home.”
Photo: AFP
Barefoot, dressed only in shorts and daubed head to toe by the irritating paint, Munandar, his brother Keris Munandar and their friend Riyan Ahmad Fazriyansah each took a lane in the road. When the cars came to a stop they struck robotic poses in front of the drivers.
“Good afternoon, have a nice drive,” Ari Munandar said.
The poses have little meaning other than to attract cash.
“I do them because one day I saw a friend earn more by doing them,” he said, moving between cars, holding out a bucket for donations.
On a good day they can pocket up to 200,000 rupiah (US$12.10), but they typically earn about 120,000, which is much less than Jakarta’s monthly minimum wage of 5 million rupiah and barely enough to cover daily expenses.
“I’m not going to eat lunch, just drink and smoke,” Ari Munandar said.
Every penny counts in a country where prices have risen steadily in the past few years. A kilogram of rice, the archipelago’s main staple, soared 27 percent from 2015 to this year, Statistics Indonesia data showed.
Behind the paint, the friends are clearly undernourished. None are taller than 1.72m nor weigh more than 55kg.
A lack of employment opportunity is the main cause of young men and women taking to the streets, they said.
“Since I was made redundant in 2019 I’ve been begging,” Ari Munandar said. “Before that, I worked cleaning toilets.”
The number of people living below the poverty line in metropolitan Jakarta — a megalopolis of 11 million people — was up from 362,000 in 2019 to 449,000 as of September last year, government data showed.
“Many young people with few qualifications between the ages of 20 and 40 have found themselves unemployed,” Center of Economic and Law Studies executive director Bhima Yudistira said. “Even though there is no national count, there has been a huge rise in begging in Jakarta after the pandemic of 2021.”
After five hours at the intersection, the group returned home by hitchhiking a ride on a tuk-tuk. The three piled into the back, counting their meager earnings and lighting a cigarette to share.
Once dropped off, they walk by a polluted river and across a railway line to their Jakarta slum.
Far from the capital’s high-rises, children play near the tracks to the rhythm of the trains as Ari Munandar makes his way back to remove the silver. Similar to that used for screen printing on fabric, the paint is not easy to remove.
Squatting in front of a well and buckets filled with water, he splashes his body before scrubbing fiercely, as his one-year-old daughter, Arisya Munandar, watches.
“At first the paint burned and I had a blister on my neck, but now it only stings my eyes,” he said.
Once dry, he heads home to play with his daughter.
“As soon as I’m here I forget all the fatigue and the hardship,” he said, smiling. “But I hope she never does what I do.”
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