TRI, A MUJAHID OF KNOWLEDGE AT BONGKARAN
Totok Wijayanto, Kompas

The word jihad came across her mind when Triningsih (37), a woman with one child, decided to be a Qur’an reading tutor for children at Bongkaran in Tanah Abang, Jakarta. The rough life at Bongkaran is unsuitable for children and it concerns her.

Bongkaran is a squatter area of 25m x 300m wedged by two railways of Tanah Abang-Serpong and Tanah Abang-Manggarai. About 600 families live in small 3m x 4m huts atop the land belonging to PT KAI, the state-owned railway company.

Bongkaran residents work as beggars, scavengers, buskers and workers at the nearby Tanah Abang. It is also known as a place for low class prostitution.

Tri teaches the children of Bongkaran how to read the Qur’an. She has about thirty children aged 3-10 as her pupils. Not everybody could attend every evening as they have to work the streets as scavengers and beggars while some who doesn’t work would rather play.

Tri would sometimes complain of this lackluster effort by the children’s parents in helping her guard the morale of the Bongkaran kids. “When it’s time to chant the Qur’an and their mothers would ask them to earn a living instead, that’s when it saddens me the most,” she said.

Even though it seems that she works alone and her students are of different children every day, Tri always make the time to be there every evening. She is relentless in teaching the Qur’an amidst her tight schedule in caring for her son Febri and her husband who works as a freelance button maker at Tanah Abang.

Tri dreams that someday these children will have a better life.