Daniel, not a rich man himself, reaches out to the poor.

I went to the same person this morning around 8 AM. The husband and the wife are ready to leave for searching garbage. but when I came with my wife, they let us enter their "home" made from materials salvaged from the garbage. I saw their children sleep on the dirt floor covered with kapok. The whole family sleeps together in the same room and the room is very dark. They have to pay $3 a month for the land. The land is owned by a Chinese man. This garbage man's real name is Sudira. The former name I mentioned was his nick name. He is from Losarang Indramayu with no inheritance after the death of his parents. His wife also had no inheritance, so they moved to Bekasi and became garbage collectors because they have no education and no skills. They have an 11 old year girl who is not able go to school. He also has other children aged 6, 5, and 2 1/2 plus their last who died because of sickness. He collects garbage, especially plastic and glass. They only eat once a day and they told me that just yesterday they didn't eat anything. They sometimes can't go searching for garbage because the government officials appear to be in the area and could arrest them including the children. Just recently they had to pay a fine of $20 because the children were arrested while searching the garbage. The small children beg for money and search garbage at night when the market place is full of carts selling food. The girl also used to beg when she was smaller, but now she has become ashamed of begging. She just takes what she can from the garbage. I urged the oldest (the girl) to attend school, I told her about about the girl who worked at my mom's house and then she agreed, I asked the father to register at the school closest to their area and inform me about the cost. The village is filled with people in the same condition but I am still very careful about taking pictures of the place. I couldn't do it this time. I had to see their condition first. I saw most of them had tattoos and were looking at us with suspicion. Here, people like that could be criminals. I saw many carts (gerobak dorong) so I realized that they are in the same condition as the garbage collector. Their homes are the same as the garbage collector's. When I asked where my man lived, one of them pointed to the place. It seems they knew I had met the person before and while I talked to the person, some of them were watching us. The person I met agrees that if we have a place where we can put their children and help them to have a better life, he is willing to place them there; but, they would still want to visit them from time to time because they still love their children. They do not like the other children's homes because they forbid the parents to visit them and that's why they do not send their children there.

Abdi also had a problem when he wanted to take pictures of the children sleeping at the market or shop corner. They were suspicious that he came from the government to arrest them. Most of the children have strong suspicions about others.
Daniel