Today I'd like to introduce Ibu Umi to you. Ibu Umi is one of our neighbours and the mother of Ibu Nina about whom I've written before. Ibu Umi moved here from Surabaya a long time ago. While living here she met her husband who at that time was an angkot driver. Although he was much shorter than she, they fell in love. They got married and had four children. The oldest is a girl who is married with four children and is in her mid thirties. Then comes Ibu Nina, then August who is single and about 28 and then comes Adit. Adit is only 11 years old. When Adit was about 7, his dad died. At that point Ibu Nina and her husband Aep lived with them. And they still live together. Only the oldest daughter lives somewhere else in Bandung with her family but they don't see her very often because it takes one hour by angkot for them to come. So the rest of them all live together in the one-windowed house beside us. Ibu Nina's husband works in the apotek (pharmacy) of the local hospital. I'm not exactly sure what he does there but he works from about 7 until 1 and then from 5 until everythings done. He has a strange schedule. August studied computers but hasn't been able to finish his studies since his dad died. So now he fixes motorbikes for people. Sometimes he can't fix the problem but he brings the bike to someone who can and just charges for his time. Last week he got a new cover put on our motorbike seat. He charged us 40,000 rupiahs. The cost of the repair was between 20-30,000. Now we've asked him to repair the brakes on the bike and that will cost about 60,000 rupiahs. Not even $10! Ibu Umi sells something called gado-gado and another dish made with rice boiled until it sticks together in a glob and bean sprouts and peanut sauce and tofu. Gado-gado is a kind of cold salad made with peanut sauce, potatoes, cabbage, bean sprouts and some other green vegetable. So together this family works hard to get by. But it's always hard for them. They had borrowed money from me a month ago to buy books for Adit for school and they paid me back on time. A few days ago they borrowed to pay Adit's school fees. It costs 45,000 rupiahs a month for him to go to school. That's just over $5. Because they had to pay for the books they didn't have money to pay the three month installment for school. Adit was called to the school office about it and he was very embarassed. So I leant them the money. I like to help this family because I can see that they work very hard and live very humbly. They are also very happy to help me with my homework. On mornings that she needs to buy ingredients for her dishes that she sells, Ibu Umi goes to the market at 4:00 am. Ibu Nina's husband brings her there on his motorbike. He does this because if he didn't, she would have to pay for the transportation on the angkot and she would have to wait a very long time to get home as it is very busy then. Once she comes home she gets the ingredients ready by washing them and cooking the ones that need to be cooked. Remember how I described their house? There isn't one single sink in the entire house. Once everything is ready she helps Ibu Nina with her baby and with washing the clothes. Ibu Nina is too scared to wash her little baby, so Ibu Umi does it. Around 9:00 Ibu Umi brings her stuff up to her cart and begins to get it ready for the day. On an average day she earns about 20,000 rups on a busier day she might earn 30,000 rups. I have discovered here that the mark-up on things is incredibly low. Most people only earn about 10%. This money that she earns she uses to by food and to pay for Adit's transportation to school. It costs him 4,000 rups a day to get to school and back. Sometimes she gives him an extra 1,000 so he can buy something to eat at school. He is only in school for a few hours a day so he doesn't need to bring lunch with.

I feel bad sometimes when I buy things that for me are cheap but for them are a small fortune. Like yesterday I bought some Reebok flip flops that are that nice light rubber material for 100,000 rupiahs. That's about $12.50 CDN. Back home the same sandals would probably cost around $20-25. But for them to spend that much on sandals is just incomprenendable.

Tomorrow I am planning to take Ibu Nina with her daughter Asila and my other neighbour Ibu Sri and her boy Bilal to the Jump'n Gym again. I have some coupons and I know how they love it. These people never get to anywhere because they just simply can't afford to. Even to pay for the angkot is a hardship for them. Hopefully Marc isn't sick, he didn't eat supper today, he just went to bed.

Today Aidan had his teacher over to play. He was so excited about it and then Mr. Adams even stayed for supper! Aidan was over the moon about it. Very cute.