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Jakarta Post

Africans unite over lunch in Tanah Abang

Sixty-one year-old Haji Ismail Coulibaly has steadily grown in stature over the past 17 years of his stay in Jakarta

Tama Salim (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Wed, April 22, 2015

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Africans unite over lunch in Tanah Abang

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ixty-one year-old Haji Ismail Coulibaly has steadily grown in stature over the past 17 years of his stay in Jakarta. He is a somewhat skinny man, easily recognizable by the contrast of his greying beard, dark skin and white Muslim cap.

His eyes and mannerisms betray the humble man underneath, even in spite of the attention he has garnered for operating his now-famous food stall, Sate Domba Afrika, in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta.

Ismail said he first came to the country on the advice of a friend in Bangkok, Thailand, where he was looking for work. '€œI came here on my own because I found it difficult to work in Bangkok '€” there was no Muslim community there,'€ Ismail told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

Officially an Indonesian citizen through marriage, Ismail hails from the village of Sang, in Bamako, Mali, and recounted his humble beginnings selling shoes around Jakarta in 1998 while learning the local language and gaining new friends among the Muslim community.

'€œNow almost everyone here is a friend of mine '€” and the majority of them are Sunni,'€ he explained.

Ismail is one of the senior figures in the Malian migrant community in Jakarta, which has successfully assimilated into Indonesian culture; he has served as treasurer and is first-point-of-contact for new arrivals, in addition to running Sate Domba Afrika.

He told the Post about how his food stall '€” serving chunks of triple-roasted lamb and diced onions with a side of grilled bananas '€” used to be a regular place of gathering for the African community before Jakarta'€™s resident foodie, Bondan Winarno, popularized the joint in 2006 and brought masses of hungry Indonesians to his stall.

Ismail checked off the many African countries that were represented around Petamburan and Tanah Abang '€” Mali, Senegal, Nigeria, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Mauritania.

Until several years ago, many African traders visited Tanah Abang to buy textile products. They were popular among the vendors in country'€™s largest textile market. Many have since shifted to China. Unfortunately, however, there are also negative perceptions among some people in Jakarta because of the perceived criminal activities of a minority of people from Africa.

Meanwhile, a Congolese diplomat has described his own experiences of Tanah Abang.

Kasongo Musenga, counsellor at the Democratic Republic of Congo'€™s Embassy in India, said that he and his friends visited the food stall to try the famous African dish. He often goes to Tanah Abang when he visits Jakarta although his country does not have a representative office here.

'€œWe come here at least two or three times a year.'€

Meanwhile, according to the Nigerian Embassy, there are fewer than 1,000 Nigerians currently working in Indonesia, comprising mostly small traders that need to periodically leave the country to renew their visas.

Data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) shows a total of 42,607 visitor arrivals from Africa in 2013, while the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry registered 68,957 foreign workers in the country.

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