Catatan Acak | Random Notes

Jan 7th 2009

His phone rang, its a woman who called him. First I thought it was his wife. But soon the way they had the conversation clearly proven that I had the wrong assumption. When he finished with the phone, he told me with a litle grin on his face.
“Adooo, taokne jak seninente lalo jeri tkw, selekene demen-demen njorak ite” (translation: “she knows that my wife is working abroad, so she tries to take the chance (to flirt) with me”).
I forced myself to smile while silently cursing his habit and then we have a nice 75 mins long chit chat about his life, from Selaparang airport to Selong.
The stereotype
He told me about his education background. A common picture of many sasak people that live in his era (he is about 40s now). Drop off from junior high school due to lack of money from his parent to support him back in the days. Became a construction labour after quitting school and then get married. His wife was turned out to be sterile and then he decided to take a second wife. Got one son and one daughter from his second wife and then divorced due to her request (he said that her second wife cant live as a second wife, implying that she expected him to divorce his first, hmm…. ironic). Now, his  oldest kid is in junior high while his second is still in elementary school.
His job
Just been a taxi driver for four days. He told me that his previous job was a “solar” (diesel fuel) tank truck driver, a decent job with a good pay (he emphasised that). Then he got fired couple months ago due to striking with his friends as they tried to demand more ransom for his laid-off fellow driver. Instead of meeting their demands, they got fired, all of them. Unemployed, he went back to work as a construction labour. It was not an adequate source of living for his family, a situation that soon forced his wife to go working abroad since 4 months ago. His son was ashamed of his job and ask him to find a job as a driver, and there he is, a taxi driver at the airport.
How much money can he earn a day? He got 20% from the total money paid by his customers throughout the day. So if I paid the taxi services 210K for a journey from Selaparang to Selong, he’ll got 42 K just for delivering me. But a customer that is travelling that far using taxi (Selong-Selaparang is about 60 km, 75 mins driving) is  like a jackpot for him. Most of the time, throughout the day, he’ll only get 4 customers and all heading to Mataram which costs only 20K, means by the end of the day he’ll only got 16K.
His hopes
His life is sure tough, but quitting or even whining is not an option. Life can be harder, he proved and lived that. His simple hope was to make sure that all his kids is able to finish high school, and find a simple decent job like shopkeeper or such.

“So, which is it, of the favors of your lord that you deny?” (QS:55)