'Umbrella Children' Love Rainy Days in Jakarta

Boys with umbrellas wait in front of a gate of the state university in a Jakarta suburb as rain pours down.

“Umbrella, ma’am?” asks a boy to a woman who passes by athe university in Depok, Indonesia, on the western outskirts of the capital.


The woman takes the umbrella. Fiki Ilham, the umbrella renter ("ojek payung" in Indonesian), walks behind her. The fourth-grader's body gets soaked by the rain. He hugs himself to minimize the cold. After 15 minutes, the two arrive at a bus shelter. Ilham takes his umbrella back, and the woman gives him 20,000 Indonesian rupiahs, or about $2.

“Thank you, ma’am!” Ilham says, excited at getting the largest sum he has ever received for his service. Ilham has no set price for umbrella rentals but says he lets customers pay whatever they choose.

Ilham and his friend Ardyansah Yansah, 12, rent out umbrellas to earn extra money after school, just as many other young boys do in Indonesia. The duo says their parents have never asked them to do the work but that they're not forbidden from doing it, either.

"Sometimes if we get too tired, we forget to do our homework," Ilham says.

If it doesn't rain, the boys say they like to stay home and play.

Ilham says he gives his parents half the money he makes and keeps the rest. He has done the job for two years.

On a rainy day, Yansah says he can earn as much as 30,000 Indonesian rupiahs, or about $3.20. He says he sometimes catches cold from the rain but he can buy a pill from a nearby pharmacy with the money he makes. His brother also rents out an umbrella to passersby.

But the job is not without danger for the young boys. An older boy one time tried to take their money, Yansah says.

"He asked, ‘How much did you get today,’ and we answered, ‘Nothing,'” Yansah says.

The older boy let them go but it's not only time the two boys have dealt with problems, Yansah says. People prefer to use bigger umbrellas than the ones the boys have to offer, for example, Ilham says, but he doesn't have enough money to buy a new one.

Ira Ratna Juwita, 20, a college student who uses umbrella renters' services, says that she never lets boys get wet from the rain because she asks them to hold the umbrella for her. Juwita says she usually gives 5,000 to 10,000 Indonesian rupiahs (as much as $1) to umbrella boys.

About 70 umbrella renters work in Jakarta, according to Indonesian Social Ministry data from 2007-08, with boys making up slightly more than half of the total number of children. That group is about 5 percent of the estimated 1,300 street children who do small jobs in and around Jakarta to help their parents earn money to fulfill their daily needs, social agencies say.


---

Written by Fitria Rahmadianti, as published in UPI (United Press International). Click here to go the original site.