This title may be unimaginable for those who live in the developed countries, or even those who live in Indonesian cities, yet this is a 2010 story.
Her name is Y. She's about 12 years old when I met her. She now lives with my Mom. The story about how she eventually ended up in my Mom's house is probably just a normal story for those who live in Timor, or Kupang to be precise. There are way too many poor families live in rural Timor areas; Y's parents are among those hundred of thousand families. Her parents have 6 children. She's number 3, and has 3 younger siblings. One of them is still breastfed. She comes from a typical poor farmer family, who has very small plot of land, living subsistently, and very much depends on the so called 'social capital', a.k.a, social network: the neighbour and uncle who work as construction worker in Kupang. I don't know how it started, but my sister happened to find Y's older sister to work for her from one of the construction worker uncle. A, if I'm not mistaken, is her name. A's work is very good, that when my sister needed a boy to help her family with gardening etc, the uncle and A ask for A's younger brother to join with my sister's family. And Am, that's the boy's name, came and joined his sister, by living in my sister's house. Since he was in school already in his village, my sister and her husband, -both are teachers, continued to send him to school where my brother in-law teaches.
Then came my younger brother's wife, who has a 'babysitter' for his infant daughter, who also the A's family connection (yes, this is part of the 'social network' I was talking about). She said that A's parents 'offered' their younger daughter to be a help for her, with cooking and babysitting. So, that's how Y came to our family's life.
One day, my sister in law found that the fruits she kept for my niece were missing. Someone stole it from the shelve. Y denied that it was her. Several dramatic interrogations by my in-law, who believed that Y's a cheater, resulted in her being transferred to my Mom's house (to shorten the story, I wouldn't give any details here), as per our advices. We're concerned to keep her in school because she was just transferred from the school in her village for a week, so if she had to return to the village, no school will accept her back.
After staying at our home for some days, and I suggested Mom to feed her well, we found out that this girl apparently had never been exposed to different kinds of food. Terribly enough, she doesn't eat fish because she was not used to from her 'landlocked' village. As for fruits, she had never practically seen apples, oranges, moreover grapes or strawberries for example. It's amazing how we take it for granted, that fruits must be available in our daily diets, to keep us healthy. Some people have never imagined such fruits. We, at home, started to get the real picture now. Imagine oneself, in one's teenager days, eager and curious about the world, and looked at a red apple, or a shiny rounded orange, and one just can see it but not allowed to touch it. It's probably hard, unless, one's parents educated one very good on ethics and morality, good and bad (eg. stealing is not good for whatever reason, even it is deep poverty). That, is too much to expect from a poor family who has 6 mouths to be fed with the crops from their small plot of land. The most probable thing is, one would like to try taste it, at any cost. And Y, has just made sense for her circumstances. She chose to take it. She tasted it. And she became a thief in common people's eyes. But she was given second chance I supposed. With a bit of effort to understand the circumstances, she was given the opportunity, as Mom said, she was too young to be punished. It was just oranges, by the end of the day. Imagine her future as a human, capable of learning and doing much better things than her parents in the village, for herself and for others, must be damaged because of the stolen oranges*.
Just because she has never eaten oranges before, doesnt mean her life must be ruined....
Epilogue: I was just rang home, Mom said that Y got good marks at school. The teachers admired her, since it is very rare that a student transferred from village would make a good rank in the city school.
* I remember Les Miserables that is about this theme.
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