When people scatter flowers over a body of water, they usually honor loved ones that have drowned.

However, that is not the case for people whose family members are buried at Teko Cemetery in Cengkareng, West Jakarta. For them, scattering flowers over water is simply business as usual when visiting the cemetery that has been inundated since the 1990s, while the city administration’s plan to relocate graves in the 2-hectare cemetery remains up in the air.

In 2014, the parks and cemetery agency initiated a plan to move the bodies to Tegal Alur Cemetery, among the few public cemeteries that still have empty plots in West Jakarta.

However, the plan was halted for various reasons and as of December, around 1,500 graves in Teko Cemetery remain under water.

“[We are] still waiting for the development by Bina Marga since the location [of Teko Cemetery] is part of future road construction plans,” the Jakarta Parks and Cemetery Agency’s acting head, Susi Marsitawati, told The Jakarta Post, recently.

Rakim Sastranegara, the agency’s head for roads and bridges, said he had yet to receive an update on the plan to relocate the graves or future plans for Teko Cemetery.

While the cemetery is inundated, city cleaners under the environment agency have routinely cleared the flooded area of duckweed and plastic waste since July last year.

“Back then, water hyacinths and grass covered the surface of the water, all of it took around two months to clean […], but plastic waste would resurface from below every time we pick them up,” Marjoko, one of the cleaners, said.

They also appointed a caretaker for the cemetery to prevent people from building stilt houses over the cemetery.

Nur Andika, 28, the caretaker who has been appointed for the task, felt that people living in the village had lost all hope, as the graveyard was “unintentionally drowned anyway”.

A former neighborhood unit (RT) 07 head, Jegot Suparto, 66, of Kampung Kapuk Teko, echoed the same sentiment: “Well let’s just give up. What more can we do? It’s a force of nature.”

While he does not expect the body of his deceased son, who he laid to rest in Teko Cemetery in 1973, to be moved soon, he said that he hoped the city would instead build a public facility on the land.

“About my son’s grave, I’ve resigned [to the current condition]. I’d rather have a vocational high school built on the cemetery since other high schools are far away. As long as it is for the greater good,” Jegot said.

On the other hand, there are people like M. Nuh, 62, a Kampung Teko village native, who has taken upon himself to move the bodies of his parents to a nearby cemetery.

“I felt bad for my parents, who raised me. Now that I am [financially] capable, what’s stopping me from giving them a comfortable afterlife?” said Nuh.

He recalled that water had slowly begun inundating the cemetery in 1987, when the development of residential areas and industrial buildings mushroomed. “In 1997, it was totally inundated and remains in that condition until today,” Nuh said.

Meanwhile, as a solution, current RT 07 head Edi Siswanto, 52, hopes dialogue takes place
between district authorities and the people of Kampung Kapuk Teko.

“I’ve been to many meetings with the district authorities and they always say ‘we will try our best’ […] I hope we can get an answer soon,” said Edi. (mai)

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