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ust one week away from this year’s end-of-fasting-month Idul Fitri festivities, estimated to fall on Aug. 19 and 20 this year, Jakartans begin to prepare everything to keep their homes safe while they leave for their hometowns during the holidays.

For civil servant Nandia Yudha, 24, this year’s Idul Fitri would be the first time she ever has had to leave a house in Jakarta behind or during the holiday, as she had been staying in a rented room before moving to the house a few months ago.

“Of course I am worried,” she told The Jakarta Post over the phone. “Even more so because there are no civil defense officers [hansip] in my neighborhood and I’ve heard that, once, a motorbike was stolen not far from here.”

Nandia stayed alone in the house, which is located in Halim Perdanakusuma, East Jakarta, and is owned by one of her close relatives. She will leave the house and go to Malang, East Java, for a week starting from Aug. 17.

She said that she would trust the house to a local man who lived nearby and worked as a motorcycle taxi, or ojek, driver at the neighborhood.

“My family has always trusted the house to him for every Lebaran in the past few years. We would give him the key to the house so that he can come by when he can and clean the place up a bit,” she said. “I’ll give him money as a Lebaran bonus as a way to say thanks.”

In a city where around four fifths of its 10 million residents will leave for their hometowns during the holidays, many in Jakarta use Nandia’s way of leaving their homes to someone they can really trust in order to stop worrying and enjoy their time away from home.

Others, such as IT worker Wicaksono, 25, go one step further.

Wicaksono said that his father had installed a few CCTV cameras at the family’s home in Rawamangun, East Jakarta, so that they could keep an eye on the house at all times from their hometown of Surabaya.

“The cameras can be activated by a video call from a cell phone. As long as we stay on areas covered by the 3G wireless network, we can contact the cameras and check on our house anytime we want,” he said.

The cameras had their own power source, he said, so that they were still active, even when the electricity was down. “We place [the cameras] at strategic places around the house so that we can monitor the doors and windows.”

Apart from that, the family would also keep contact with their neighborhood hansip officers who would be on duty during the holidays, he said.

Wicaksono and Nandia are among the estimated 8.3 million Jakartans that would leave the city for their hometowns during the holidays in what some cite as one of the largest annual outflows in the world.

Jakarta Police have said that they would prepare 8,000 officers to safeguard the city during the holidays.

“We will cooperate with various civil security forces, including security guards, hansip officers and other informal security forces to keep the city safe,” police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto said.

Rikwanto said that the police would remind all travelers not to forget telling their neighborhoods’ local watches to keep their homes safe during the holidays. “Those not leaving Jakarta during the holiday season must work together in keeping the city safe and secure from crime,” he said.