JAKARTA (JP): I'm up until the early hours of the morning, so
I don't getout of bed before 9 a.m. Half my house is given over
to animals that need alot of care. There's a malu-malu
(marsupial) who's very stressed because hewas kept as a pet
before being donated to the zoo. He's always curled up ina ball.
They're very shy and nocturnal by nature, but he doesn't want to
move at all.
I have a big cup of coffee and smoke a couple of kretek
(clove cigarettes) before I do anything. My room is in the
middle of the animals' houses and bird cages, so there's a lot
of noise and things going on. At one end, the lions are roaring
and the birds are squawking back at the other end.
There's four other staff at the nursery, and they get on with
their work as soon as they come in. I'll go to the central store
in the zoo grounds and get a special food mix for the baby
birds. We've got a lot of cockatooshere and some of them are
very stressed out. One of the adult birds has lost all his
feathers because he wasn't looked after well as a pet. His
owners gave him chocolate and other foods that are not good for
cockatoos. But he's getting on well with the other birds.
It annoys me that Indonesians go to markets and buy
endangered animals. It's all about status, as far as they're
concerned. Nine times out of 10, the animals are mistreated or
poorly fed, and we end up with then. I wish people would stop
buying them.
There's a critical care center here, where we have baby
cockatoos under lamps. They have to be syringe-fed warm formula.
Some of them are only a couple of weeks old and are tiny. Other
birds in the center had been fighting in the zoo's aviaries, so
they've come here for a while to cool off.
At about midday, the cages and houses have to be cleaned out,
and I muck in with the other staff. Among the animals we have
now are a baby pigmy hippopotamus, dozens of otters, leopard
cats, lions, a Bengal tiger, a fawn, an eagle and various
monkeys, including a gibbon and Javanese and crab-eating
macaques. Some were given to us after the police raided markets,
others were born in the zoo and the rest are from the public.
We've had the lions and tigers since they were six hours old.
They were rejected. They're big enough now to leave the nursery
but there's no space for them elsewhere in the zoo. So they have
to stay here for the time being. Someday they'll move out.
My favorite of all the animals here are the otters. They were
born here as part of our breeding program. They're so funny when
they run up their cages and play with me. I have to be careful,
though, as they bite. I like feeding them fish and chicken. We
require a lot of food for the nursery butit's never a problem.
The zoo has built a new central food store and all the food is
subsidized by the Jakarta administration. We've never had any
financial problems, even during the early days of krismon
(monetary crisis).
Apart from stress, the animals here are healthy. My brother
is a vet at the zoo's clinic and he comes every day to check on
them.
I have an afternoon nap at about 2 p.m., as I stay up during
the night totake care of the babies, especially the new birds. I
became head keeper of the nursery and moved into the zoo in
1992. Before that, I used to sleep inthe zoo sometimes. I slept
with the baby animals, like otters and tigers, in my room.
I'm Muslim, but only on my KTP (identity card), and I don't
pray. I've never married and had a family - the animals are my
children. For me, this job is more of a vocation, which is just
as well because living in the zoo means no time off. When I get
bored or stressed, I go walking in the fieldsand hills outside
the zoo. They call me "Tarzan of the Jungle" because I
don't like the city. I take plant cuttings and bring them back
to the nursery, where I have a collection of potted plants. My
salary is small, less than Rp 1 million, but it doesn't concern
me. I'm happy here and will continue to do this job for the next
eight years, until I reach retirement age. If they still want me
after that, I'll stay. If not, I'll probably go back to Bogor,
where I still have my parents.
The evening is my leisure time, and I like to take care of my
plants and play with the otters. After that, I look after the
baby birds. Now I'm preparing for our new arrival - another
pygmy hippo, which we'll take from the mother, as she'd hurt it.
About 4 a.m., I fall into bed, these days on my own."
