During my one week thus far on the day shift, my commute was vastly different than it is on the evening shift.
Yeah, the holes in the sidewalks are the same and the traffic is a level of hell, but there’s an added element: it’s rush hour.
Mork once said “Why do they call it rush hour when nobody moves?” Boy, that is true. I go faster on foot than some of the folks in cars.
Apparently, Jakarta has attempted to implement some efforts at trying to speed the traffic. I learned on Friday that there’s some rule that basically equates to carpooling – on certain roads, there must be three people in a car to access them during rush hour.
But I didn’t know that during my one-week on the Blessed Day Shift. And honestly, even if I did, I still wouldn’t have been able to add up the elements.
See, during both legs of that walk, I’d walk along the same main street that I always do. It’s not a huge street, but shortly past the mall with the Walmarty store, it turns into something bigger. It even has a nickname, I learned – Casablanca. (Appropriate for me, but Rabat would have been better. Casa’s a dive and don’t let Rick convince you otherwise.)
Before I turn off into the neighborhood, I am on the stretch of the road right before the road turns into something bigger. There’s lots of construction going on, too.
That week, I noticed there were more people than usual standing out on the road, looking like they were trying to catch rides. This isn’t uncommon. I’ve noticed at peak hours a lot of people look like they’re trying to bum rides, but not catch cabs. There were more on the morning walk than on the way home. They’re all locals, and I understand that. I mean, in Morocco, you could catch a ride with someone, too. People with extra time, or maybe people who want a little on the side, whatever. It’s not unusual.
But here, I thought it was insane how many people there were. I haven’t noticed anyone stopping to pick them up, either. And where were they going?
And most of the people were women with small children, like babes-in-arms. For five days, I walked and wondered where the heck these women were going in the morning. I mean, come on. Unemployment is rampant and, let’s get real, most of the women – especially in the apparent demographic these women are in – don’t work outside the home.
I couldn’t help but wonder why they were taking their kids to day care or what else they could have been doing.
They clearly weren’t begging, because not a one looked at me like they wanted money. And, let’s face it, that happens so I can tell.
They also somehow knew I wasn’t competition, like vying for the same rides. I’d smile and say hi, and they’d all say hi back. I waved at a lot of babies.
All nice folks, but I had zero understanding of what this group of women with little kids was doing out there.
So, to wind this around again, on Thursday I was editing the little thing we to every day (which is maybe three days too many) called “My Jakarta,” where you find a random person and highlight them with a Q&A.
These things are lame in almost any paper, honestly. At AP, I had to do those horrid “exchanges,” and wound up using a story some local city’s drive-thru kid and send it to the other cities, as if they didn’t have their own drive-thru kid, or lady with cancer, or guy that collects beer bottles.
The ones here are pretty lame, too, just mostly because who is going to read those every freaking day? The answer to that, of course, is pretty much only the people who have to edit them.
This is rough because they are usually done in Indonesian and then translated, but that’s an aside. It’s also a heckuva challenge, but I digress.
Point is, on Friday I drew the short straw (for the third day in a row) and had to edit the lovely piece.
And suddenly, everything fell into place.
The first time I read the thing through, I had absolutely no understanding of what the heck it was about. It talked about how this woman worked as a “joki” and something about illegally beating “3 in 1,” which, at that point, I had never heard of.
I searched for the “joki” term in the archive and came up empty. I Googled it and wound up on Wiki, which, after using Google Translate (Google is a big part of my world, and so is Wiki), it turned out it means “jockey.”
So that cleared it up, right?
Yeah, like the mud I’ve been slogging through to get to and from work lately. I wound up having to ask the guy who translates the stuff.
Turns out, the story subject – and all those women I pass on the road – basically hire themselves out as “jokis,” which I guess means they ride in the cars with hurried drivers trying to beat the carpool quotas.
The “three-in-one” means total people, so if the ladies bring along their (or someone else’s) baby, that turns into a bargain for the driver, who meets his quota and only has to pay the adult. (Who, presumably, takes care of the young ‘un.)
This system (or “scheme,” as they call everything here) is somehow illegal. I’m not sure why because … well, like the whole Gretna debate about barrel racing, there is nothing against the rules on the book going on, it’s just that it ticks off certain people who are trying to make money.
In order to take a certain road, you need three people in a car. You’re single, you stop and pick someone up to meet the minimum. It’s legal to give rides. The big deal is what?
Oh, yeah, if the ladies weren’t getting a ride (earning about a buck in the process), the single drivers could be pulled over and forced to pay bribes to the cops.
Fines. I mean FINES to the CITY.
(No, I don’t. I mean bribes to the cops.)
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