The ride home

This photo was taken in the car about a month ago as I was driven back to the hotel after work in Jakarta. From 4 to 7pm, to alleviate traffic congestion, the city authorities require all cars to have at least 3 passengers. In theory, this is to encourage car pooling and hence reduce number of cars on the already choked up streets of the city. It hasn't really worked because those who can afford cars in this high Gini-coefficient city can also afford a driver. So a new industry of car jockeys arose. Unemployed men and women would offer themselves to be picked up as the third person in the car, thereby allowing the car owner to be driven to wherever he needed to be at the peak hour.

In a decade and half of travelling to Jakarta, I have made use of many such jockeys but never one as young as this. Aliyah, as she told me her name, is merely 15 years old, the same age as my daughter. She should be in school or doing her homework but no, she's helping me get back to my hotel. I struck up a conversation with her because I while I understood she was trying to earn a living (for herself and her family), I wanted to encourage her to arm herself with the weapon that truly would get her to a better place: that is to gain an education. 

At the end of the trip, I paid her three times more than the usual jockeying tip and urged her to study. I have always been moved by scenes of kids having to look after me, esp kids who are the same age as my kids, whom I love and care about dearly. Also in Jakarta, some 10 years ago, I remember it was pouring and in order to ensure i remained dry, a young boy (about my son' sage then) offered to shield me in his small umbrella as I walked to the car. I refused because I couldn't bring myself to have a young boy getting drenched on my behalf and tipped him anyway.

Just last weekend, I was again seated at the back of the car as my wife and daughter sat in front. She was being picked up from school after a peer support board event, and heading to her usual cathecism class. For M, the car ride is a time to unwind, connect with the driver (one of her parents, usually the mom) or even catch forty winks before arriving at the destination. 

Truly, a child's trajectory is so much determined by his or her station at birth. 

Bill Gates was quoted to have said something like, "it's not your fault to be born poor, but to die poor is". I do hope Aliyah takes my advice and launch herself on a better trajectory.