20 hours from Jakarta: another world
In mid May I asked for leave from my union activities at GSBI and returned for a fortnight to my parent’s house in a village near the city of Solo, Central Java. At the village I kept busy helping my parents in the fields. My parents are farmers and do not have any regular income. Their own land doesn’t yield enough to cover every day necessities. So to fulfil their daily needs they work as labourers on other people’s land. With their meagre income, my parents still support two of their children (my older sister and young sister), as well as three grandchildren (from my older sister).
