First, rest assured that I'm perfectly aware that Indonesia is far from eradicating poverty. I've lived outside Java and traveled much into the countryside to know that Jakarta's gleaming lights give a misleading portrait of Indonesia as a whole. But I used to think that the term "dirt poor" could only be applied to certain pockets in far-flung provinces. Until this past week.

I was breaking fast with grilled chicken and veggies when the TV news put out a news flash that literally stopped me from polishing off my meal.

The news reported on a group of trash collectors who frequent Jakarta's garbage dumps, fish through hotel leftovers to select the still-edible pieces, then sell them to some profiteering devils. They then tidy up the scraps, dowse them with seasoning before recooking them and resell these disguised castoffs to local wet markets as affordable ready-too-eat fresh dishes. The scary footage walked the viewers through the whole recycling process.

I apologize if I've ruined your Sunday brunch, especially if you're having it in one of the posh hotels. It's a known fact among insiders that high-end hotels, in their perennial striving to maintain high quality standards, do not keep leftovers or uncooked foodstuffs for long.

A good friend who was once a senior chef in a Jakarta 5-star hotel told me tales of perfectly edible, often untouched meals -- usually from weddings or functions whose hosts had ordered extra food "just to be safe" -- which ended up in the disposal bins. He also recounted how low-paid kitchen staffers lost their jobs when they gave into temptation and snuck some of these glorious dishes out in their knapsacks.

If you're wondering about the recycled meals, they definitely found buyers. Low-income housewives who've been suffering from skyrocketing prices for months saw them as the chance to finally bring long-lost chicken and beef back to their family's dining table.

Meat must've been so scarce for so long that these hardship-beaten people didn't get suspicious of how high-quality cooked meat could turn up so cheaply in their neighborhood market.

O readers, has my Indonesia gone that hungry?

The second news item that stunned me -- while Wall Street crashed, sending shockwaves across the world early this week -- reported how 21 people died in East Java in a stampede while trying to collect Rp 30,000 in alms. Yes, okay, Rp 30,000 (about US$3.2) could mean a simple meal for a family of three outside Jakarta, but it really doesn't amount to much.

It's what an urban white-collar worker might spend on one lunch break, or what a middle-class mom will use to get her kids ice cream any weekend at the mall, or simply parking costs a highly mobile professional might pay on a typical day. To think that old women in Pasuruan walked from their villages and stood for hours, only to be trampled upon and eventually crushed to death, for a meager Rp 30,000, was simply eerie.

O readers, has my Indonesia gone that poor?

These stories occurred around Jakarta and in East Java, not in some faraway province known to have missed the development train.

The recent global economic downturn has hit most of us, from U.S. financial behemoths to giant multinational airliners to local businesses. I left the corporate world 18 months ago to pursue an entrepreneurial path, only to see my new business barely floating above the tide of cash-crunched customers, and my modest capital market portfolio, supposedly my future life savings, losing a good 25 percent of its value.

I've skipped weekend parties, cut back on travel, and long forgotten the feminine pleasure of a fabulous pair of designer shoes. All of these frugalities at the end of the day hold no candle to the suffering of people who can only afford refashioned garbage or who are willing to gamble their very life for an extra Rp 30,000.

I don't have a magic solution, but let me offer my two cents.

First, for philanthropists out there who genuinely want to help the poor; select charities you trust and let them distribute your alms. If you're afraid charity caretakers may siphon off your dough, quietly visit any poor neighborhood's Ketua RT (head of smallest neighborhood unit) who maintains a list of poor households. At some point, you'll eventually need to entrust that well-intended money to someone else. Better to extend it to the deserving through effective channels rather than as Saykhon Fikri insisted on disbursing his charity directly to the throng of 2,000 in his front yard.

The second one is a plea to fancy hotels. Your food is well made and arguably more nutritious than what an average poor kitchen might muster. I trust there are other methods for maintaining your standards without sending off perfectly edible food to garbage bins, only to find its way to hungry unsuspecting stomachs. Why not send the food off directly to hundreds of orphanages or nursing homes, which may receive donations during Ramadhan but for the most part struggle to survive for the rest of the year?

It may not get you peer approval, garner media attention or win your company a CSR award but, if there's any Islamic teachings on sincere giving I do remember, when your right hand doles out charitably, even your own left hand doesn't need to know.

O readers, I'm afraid my Indonesia has really gone dirt poor.

What a sad Eid it will be this year.

--Lynda Ibrahim

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