Rubber Plantation

I've been up and down Lampung visiting rural areas. it's been years since my last visit to Indonesian rural area.

I stayed at an old rubber plantation house. it was built by the Dutch in 1935 and most of the features are still original. It reminded me of Holland. The design is very much Nieuw Bouw (New Building), which was very trendy back in that era. You can see directly to the back garden from the front veranda, just like in NL, not fengshui approved.

It's a place, I think, where colonialist style still thriving. Ladies of the management board have a lifestyle of the haves, with vacationing trips to abroad, while a lot of their workers live in shacks. The gap is so huge.

I always belief that a company should invest in their workers well-being. As their workers (and their families) are well, they are more able to work diligently. Therefore I found it strange that such a big plantation didnt invest more on the road in and around its area, or building up more facilities such as schooling.

There are 2 roads going in and out to the plantation that we travelled. The twenty minutes trip from Hulu sungkai was pretty bad, while the one going to the north was really bad, very rocky, and it took us 50 minutes to reach an asphalt road!

Mind you these workers start their day collecting rubber at 4:00 in the morning and finish their day between 4 and 5 in the afternoon. Should something happen to these people, it's very difficult to get them to the neighboring town.

There is only one elementry school in the area. Judging by the fact those who are well off educating their children else where, it's not a good one. To further their education children have to go to the neighboring kampongs/town. One can only wonder the journey that those kids need to take each day to reach their school.

Apparently there's no market in the area, there is a small supermarket and some tiny shops, but to sell their produce, people need to go else where.

There's however a tiny health center with a doctor. I doubt they have enough equipment, and supply tho.

It is heart breaking seeing the shacks for the workers, they called it bedeng. A dutch garden shed looks much better and sturdier than that.

How come in 2009 we still live in such condition?