Jumaadi: Through the mud

JP/Indra Harsaputra

In the midst of the arguments raging over the Lapindo mudflow in Sidoarjo, East Java, is the sound of singing, as an artist called Jumaadi tries to help the area’s children.

On a recent visit to the site, Jumaadi, a 36-year-old artist living in Sydney, Australia, asked the children to sing together a song titled “Desaku” (My village). He is using the music and similar techniques to help the children cope with their sense of alienation and the longing for their homes, now submerged under the hot mud.  

“I care about the children who became victims of the mudflow tragedy,” Jumaadi says. “They need attention because they are being denied their social and cultural rights, because whole villages they grew up in are now buried under mud.”

Children know little about the political ins and outs of compensation; for them is the problem of boredom, with no playing areas or other facilities.

Jumaadi, who lives with his wife, Siobhan Campbell, and her parents, says that he still feels close to rural life in Sidoarjo.

He grew up in a farming family in Pecantingan village, in the Sekardangan district of Sidoarjo. His late father, Trimo, and his mother, Sarmiah, now 52, worked in the fields and with fishponds.

As a child, Jumaadi often herded the family’s cattle to the fields.

Still fresh in his mind are memories of the sounds of rustling leaves and the running water, which accompanied him when he played in the grass.

That was how it was for all the children in the district — until May 29, 2006, when the earth split open and hot mud began spewing forth.

Children used to play in the rice fields after school and passed the time with traditional games and toys, such as puppets made from grass. Over time, the toys became obsolete, but the rice fields remained children’s favorite place to play, even after the development of industrial areas, housing estates and oil drilling sites.

Now those rice fields are, like the villages, covered in mud; the children have no place to play.

No wonder Jumaadi’s efforts to cheer up the children with some light-hearted activities are so warmly welcomed.

“Hurray! Pak Jumaadi is coming, we can play!” shouts 12-year-old Zulfika Rokmah, from Besuki village in Porong.

“He has come here several times, teaching us how to dance, play music and make grass puppets,” she adds.

Unlike some of her friends’ houses, Zulfika explains, her house has not been covered in mud, but her parents’ rice field has been affected by the disaster. Now, she says, she is sad and really bored living in the village.

And even this child has noticed the deeper effects of the damage wrought by the mud.

Every day she hears adults venting their frustration and disappointment over the continuing non-appearance of compensation from PT Lapindo Brantas Inc, the company accused of being responsible for the tragedy.

Her parents, she says, often quarrel now, especially after they found themselves without work, since their field was gone.

“Since he stopped working, dad gets angry really easily,” she says. “I was told not to play with some of the children from the neighboring village because their parents had different ideas about the compensation. I lost a lot of friends.”

Moved by the children’s plight, Jumaadi asked artists from Indonesia and abroad to use the arts to help mend their little broken hearts. In late July a small troupe, comprising Alice Ros and Francesca, from Italy, and some others accompanied Jumaadi to Besuki village.

Alice and Fransesca taught the children how to make giant paper balloon. Before launching it, the children wrote their hopes and feelings on the balloon in what was dubbed “a letter to the moon”.

They also wrote letters to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the National Commission for the Protection of Children’s Rights.

“... my father made a catfish pond. But it is not fruitful yet. Many catfish died because of the mud,” wrote Edi Purwanto, 15.

A comic-book artist from Jakarta, Rahman Seblat, taught the children how to make comics on kites. Poet Saut Situmorang from Yogyakarta taught them how to write poetry and musicians such as Heri Biola from Sidoarjo taught the children music.

“The arts are a way to interact with children,” Jumaadi says. “Through the arts, I can guide the children to find the real truth so that they are not trapped in the adults’ story of the hot mud coming from a furious giant dragon that guarded Porong.”

The children were quite familiar with the giant dragon story — the origins of which are not clear — just as they were with the legend about Sangkuriang, who kicked a boat that became Mount Tangkuban Prahu in West Java.

Jumaadi’s efforts to introduce the children to positive activities have already proved successful. An art class has been set up in the house of Mochammad Irsyad, a mudflow victim from Besuki.

Every afternoon, children gather in the house to learn about traditional arts such as jaranan (horse) and traditional music.

“This art workshop is free from any adult intervention,” says Jumaadi, who is also founder of Pecantingan Cultural House.

“I will never stop working and struggling for the children of the mudflow,” he adds.

Jumaadi is currently traveling around schools in Australia to introduce the children there to grass puppets and to Indonesian culture. There too, Jumaadi is using the arts, to make Indonesia known as a country with a rich culture and tradition — not just as the home of terrorists.

He will return to Sidoarjo in mid-November to realize his dream of establishing a “museum of memory”, a compilation of works and art performances by the mudflow children, depicting their memories and suffering caused by having their villages buried in hot mud.

The aim of the event, he says, is to ensure no one ever forgets the plight of the children, who always suffer the most.