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When bargains are burdens
White-water rafting businesses have mushroomed in Bali
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hite-water rafting businesses have mushroomed in Bali. For a visitor, it's impossible to understand why some rafting companies charge substantially more than others.
However, for porter Pak Kremo the reasons are clear.
'In five months time, I will retire with a pension. I think it will be around Rp 70 million (US$5,744), because I've worked as a porter with Sobek for 22 years,' says the 54-year-old.
His colleagues, mostly women, receive pensions and healthcare benefits from themselves and their families from Sobek, their employer.
'All my family is covered by the healthcare package of Sobek. I don't know of the conditions for porters in different companies,' says Ketut Muliani, who faces another dozen years as a porter before she retires.
A porter's job is grueling.
Rubber rafts weighing between 55 and 70 kilograms are loaded onto the their heads. The men and women then climb steps from the Ayung River to begin a 500-meter climb to the road.
Dangerous track: The path from the Ayung River is potholed in places, making the trek with loads of up to 70 kilograms more dangerous.
A single trip along a winding path through the jungle strewn with rubbish can net a porter Rp 25,000.
Sobek's porters work in relay.
Muliani takes the first leg ' the toughest with its sharp climb from the river. Her load is then passed on to another porter, who lugs the 55-kg raft to the road.
'I can do two trips a day, so I earn Rp 50,000. When I am not carrying, I can rest by the river, so it's a good job for a woman, because we can help each other. Men do this, too ' so we all make a living,' says Muliani.
'With this income I can send my kids to school and have food for the kitchen. My oldest child has reached tertiary education, so my kids will never have to work like I do,' Muliani says. 'They will have light jobs, maybe in an office. If I did not have this work, I could not have sent my kids to school.'
Along the river, several other lower-priced rafting companies have been established. The workload for their porters is heavier, with rafts of 65 kg carried to the road. Conditions for workers are also different.
The bargain rate means margins are slim.
'We have no health care, no pension,' says a heavily sweating Mariani, one hand with a walking stick, the other raised to support the heavy raft on her head.
'Yes, that's the hardest part of the climb, these steps,' she says between rasping breaths. She has another 500 m to go.
The company she hauls for has not implemented the relay system of Sobek that one porter says saves stress on the knees.
In the other companies, it's everybody for themselves, says 45-year-old Pak Rosa.
'I've been carrying for seven months now. The rafts I carry are 60 kg. I can do two trips a day. They pay me Rp 20,000 each trip. Before this I traveled around as a farm laborer. I don't have any hope for my future. I can't see my life getting better. I've got two kids at high school and my wife is pregnant, so I still need money for them,' says Rosa, exhausted.
Another porter who worked for Sobek then moved to another company had a similar story.
'Working conditions were much better with Sobek, because we got sick pay, a pension and healthcare. At the moment we get nothing from my company and the rafts are heavier, so we need two people to take them to the top - that means I earn less,' says Lustari, 48.
The regular tourist trade that travels these steps alongside porters has attracted vendors such as Ibu Ketut, who has hunted out a living here for the past 15 years to support her family and ill husband.
'The small people of Bali stand alone,' Ketut says.
'We need to join together as a force. One by one we can't change things. No matter how heavy our life or work, we will do this for money. In Bali if we don't work, we don't eat ' like me with a sick husband.'
'Sometimes there is no money for food,' says the 45-year-old, 'but that's Bali.'
' Images by JB Djwan
