Back to nature, 24/7
2009.08.25 08:42
It’s nice to escape the city once in a while. Like for a weekend once a month. Just every now and then.
As much as urbanites love to reminisce the natural way of life of their parents’ parents, not many can actually stand Mother Nature longer than a weekend getaway.
Well, 59-year old Eddy Djamaluddin Suaidy and 125 of his friends and relatives choose to do it 24/7. They more than just grow their own food or mow their own lawn; this community tries to remind us what communal living is all about.
That afternoon during fasting month, three women were peeling shallots, slicing red chilies and sorting spinach leaves in one of the houses tucked inside the 5-hectare suburban farm in Depok. Meanwhile, a man was sweeping dried leaves in the garden across.
There are no housemaids or gardeners. Just a clear job description for each individuals living there.
“If this weren’t Ramadan, during lunch hour the kids would automatically gather here. So would the adults who work here,” said the man who was sweeping the garden. A former colleague of Eddy, Erwin Yulianto Kosasih has just recently joined the community leaving his home in crowded West Jakarta’s Ciledug.
Done with his broom, Erwin helped the cook take what’s left of the spinach stems to feed a baby deer in a cage nearby. In that neighborhood of Kampung 99, nothing goes to waste.
Kitchen waste become animal fodder. The animals’ waste itself become organic fertilizer together with dried leaves. Even fallen branches become fuel for the stove.
It’s basically an ecosystem where man is more a manager than a mere exploiter.
“We try to make the most out of what we have here,” said Umi Santi, niece of Eddy who decided to take her family there and give up her teaching job at a private university to develop organic food processing for the community.
They make their own bread and yoghurt, consume freshly-milked goat milk and slaughter a cow once a week for their protein supply. Currently, some 80 percent of food comes from the farm.
Even the buildings they call home are made of local wood. Around a handful of houses in the complex are shared between two to four families. A reminiscent of the traditional Indonesian village life.
Up on one of the stilt houses there, a mother is feeding her baby while goats are tucked in their quarters underneath.
But don’t imagine these people going back to the pre-modern era. Cell-phones, TV, computers, internet connection and refrigerators are still part of their everyday life.
“We are not trying to live like some tribal community. We merely want a different way of living which can help us contribute something to nature,” Eddy explained.
At first, Eddy, initiator of the community only wants to escape the jaded city lifestyle. In 1989, he first bought a 500-meter plot adjacent to the Pesanggrahan river and built a wooden house on stilts, mimicking the traditional Tomohon house of Kalimantan.
Slowly, his idea of going back to nature went wilder. He bought more plots and slowly transformed the previously almost sterile ground prone to landslides into what he calls an urban jungle.
He bought cows and goats, planted 10 trees each day and in just three years can actually call his home a sanctuary. Eddy then invited first his relatives to join hand making this alternative way of living a reality.
“I want my grandchildren to be nurturers of nature, not exploiters. We have so long been crippled by the mainstream idea of living, having a house in a real estate complex, a motorcycle and a car,” Eddy pointed out. “When in fact, we are capable of so much more.”
“We have too often theorized about the environment, talking about preventing flood and disasters while rarely willing to actually live with nature,” he added.
Eddy’s children, niece, nephews and grandchildren have indeed learned more than just about caring for nature. They learn about living as a communal being amidst the increasingly individual urban lifestyle.
Everything here belongs to and is decided by the community to the extent that one should consult the weekly gathering if one was planning to buy a TV set, Umi Santi said. What one earns monthly is collected with others and spending priorities are set together.
“Here we are taught to be equal and set aside our own egos,” Erwin added. “It’s not easy, but if one wants to fit in here, that’s the basic rule.”
“The mentality we want to build here is that we don’t emphasize on the singer, but we emphasize on the song,” Eddy said. “It’s the collective work that counts instead of the individual.”
Sounds like a socialist utopia, but it works.
Children are still going to the nearest school and teenagers are receiving higher education funded by the collective fund. It’s in a way a separate world which stays in touch with outside reality.
Lately, the community has attracted outsiders charmed by the cool micro climate and various back-to-nature activities that people can do there. In its recent weekly gathering, the community decides to go more professional on opening their assets for the public.
“We don’t charge entrance tickets or anything here except for special outbond programs. People who drop by are simply asked to plant a tree in the area,” Santi explained.
That afternoon, two guests were getting their hands dirty planting 10-centimeter tall nyamplung trees (Calophyllum inophyllum) on the edge of a contoured plot that overlooks the river. Plastic sacks filled with soil were already lined up to prevent the land from sliding and roots of the trees are hoped to keep it together in the future.
The complex itself is as open as it can be, especially for its neighbors. Some 14 locals are hired to help with everyday maintenance and children are free to roam and play in the dirt with buffalos and other animals in the area.
Eddy’s dream is to see what he has done replicated along the stretch of the Pesanggrahan river and more are taking initiatives for mother nature.
“Imagine if we have that stretch of land each around 10 hectares from Parung Bingung to Pasar Jumat. We will have the largest botanical garden in the world,” he said.
Eddy and his community members have taken the first baby step. And they are waiting for us to respond.
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2 comments on “Back to nature, 24/7”
Best quote:
“We have too often theorized about the environment, talking about preventing flood and disasters while rarely willing to actually live with nature,” he added.
TEORI…!!! :))
mulane aja cuman cangkeman, kudu tenanan nek ngaku meh nglestari’ake lingkungan … nek mbadog ya sing alami, mangan tanduran sing bar didudut wae :))
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