Dharma

• DAWN ON THE EMBANKMENT

(At 4:30 in the morning, thick fog descended on the embankment of Klagen Village, Semeru Slope. The cold pierced my sarong.

Darma, wearing a plain black shirt and a brown batik sarong inherited from his father, stood alone in front of the slanted bamboo house his parents had left him. The oil lamp inside still burned dimly.

He crouched down, lighting the wood stove with a nearly empty match, and boiled water and leftover rice from yesterday. Beside him, his cracked-screened cell phone sat on a rock, waiting for a signal.

He whispered softly in his East Javanese accent, "Dewean ae wis... zinc is important urip, Jal."

Outside, there was no sound of motorbikes, no neighbors. Only the sounds of crickets, the ditch water, and the smoke from her kitchen rising softly among the still-quiet green rice fields.

Character:
His name is Darma, 18 years old, an orphan, an only child. He has an uncle in the sub-district, but he is reluctant to stay with him, so he chooses to live alone. He has a strong demeanor, is quiet but hardworking, and doesn't like to complain. He speaks sparingly, has a thick, smooth East Javanese accent, and when asked, his answer is short: "Mboten nopo-nopo, kulo betah piyambak."

Residence:
She lives alone in a bamboo house inherited from her parents in Klagen Village, on the edge of the Semeru forest, East Java. The small house sits amid terraced rice paddies, surrounded by thatched huts and morning mist.

HP & Education:
His phone had a cracked screen, a swollen battery held in place by a rubber band. For school, it was only enough to access WhatsApp after climbing a rock with a signal above the rice fields. He had dropped out of school due to financial difficulties, but Darma never gave up. Sometimes he would sneak into the village vocational school to secretly peek at the lessons through the window, while taking notes in his old notebook to study later that night.

Survive:
He ate from a plot of rice field inherited from his parents. He planted the rice himself, and when the harvest came, he sold some to buy oil and salt, and the rest was for his daily meals. His side dishes were tempeh, duck eggs from the neighbors, or vegetables from the backyard. He attended school during the day (not for school, but just to peek at lessons through the window), and in the evenings he worked the fields and tended the rice fields.

Village difficulties:
-Electricity: only from joint solar panels, only on from 6-10 pm.
-Water: taken from a spring 400 meters below the cliff, carried on a jerrycan. -Transportation: only a dirt path, if it rains motorbikes can't get through, have to walk 2 hours to the market.
-Signal: zero, to get a signal you have to climb onto a large rock above the rice field while holding your cellphone high.