Kemang Festival goes Green

Yayang’s mum and dad and sister Ani and her kid Vivi and cousin Rina were over for the week-end.
It really is a god send for me that Indonesian’s have such a close knit family structure. At 10 months, Jessy can be a real handful, so it’s great to have family around to keep her entertained.

On Sundays I have the Jakarta Post delivered to my house. I don’t subscribe to the rest of the week because it’s too depressing. Sunday’s paper is a leisurely read though. Simon’s column always gives me a laugh. On this Sunday there was a front page article about the Kemang Festival. Vivi spotted a clown on stilts in the accompanying photo, so we decided to make a family outing out of it and head down to check it out.

The theme for the Festival was ‘Green Kemang’ in an attempt to raise public awareness about the environment. The main road in Kemang was closed to traffic and stalls lined the streets. There were a couple of bands playing and the usual loud MC yelling enthusiastically into a microphone. A few ‘Green’ stalls here and there , which was encouraging to see but I felt they were a little lost on the idea of how to ‘Green’ Jakarta. A couple of young nice looking Uni girls were handing out WWF brochures showing people how to conserve energy – the usual ‘turn your lights off to reduce the Green house effect’ thing.

It’s not really fair to criticize because they are making an effort. I wonder though, I they feel futile in their efforts, like I do, when you consider the rate at which forest is being cut down and the powers-that-be that you are up against should you wish to protest.

There were a number of Bamboo-styled bins along the streets demonstrating how to separate organic waste from non-organic waste. I noticed a street scavenger who was probably delighted by this concept as she only had to go through the non-organic bin to find her recyclables without having to ferret through the mouldy muck.

The BIKE TO WORK community were there as well. Pioneering warriors for clean air on an uphill battle.

A twenty minute stroll up the street was about as festive as my camp wanted to get though. One things for sure ; mid-day in Jakarta is hot outside. If you bike to work, you’d want to leave early.

The humble folk of Kemang seemed to be enjoying themselves though. It never ceases to amaze me how the kids over here seem so happy despite the hardships they endure on a daily basis.

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