The rice bucket has been empty for a long time, but it is filled with white rice today. In the evening, the aroma of cooked rice wafts from all the homes in the neighborhood. Fifty thousand tons of rice from Taiwan will benefit six million poor people in Indonesia.

At five o'clock, the crack of dawn, the most vibrant, central district of Jakarta was still asleep. However, outside the main lobby of the Sinar Mas Company several hundred people--company employees dressed in Tzu Chi volunteer vests and Tzu Chi people dressed in sky-blue shirts and cloud-white pants--gathered together.

They walked to waiting buses parked along the street. Someone said, "I usually don't get up this early for work, but I'm a volunteer today and I was too happy to fall asleep last night!" Everyone was smiling as the buses drove to Bekasi and Tangerang counties.

Gifts from heaven

Bekasi is located by the sea north of Jakarta. Residents there make their living in fishing or aquaculture. Floods last year destroyed the fishing ponds and homes of many local people, and Tzu Chi volunteers have gone there many times to distribute relief goods and to hold free clinics for the residents.

Many villages in Bekasi County can only be reached by boat. One village, Pantai Bahagia, has around 6,400 residents. Many of them have attained no more than a junior high school education, and many have never even left the village in their entire lives.

The village chief, Nawawi, is from Jakarta. He was raised in the village and so has strong sentiments towards it. He remarked that the roads around the village were quite poor and the ferry ride to the village from outside took at least 30 minutes. He felt helpless to improve the lives of the villagers because the local government wouldn't give him any money. A visit by Tzu Chi volunteers to the village seemed like a gift sent from heaven.

On that day, all the villagers came to see us regardless of whether they would be receiving goods from us. The temperature was 37 degrees Celsius (99 F). A 30-year-old woman waited in line to receive rice with her two children. She had five children and her husband was a fisherman. When he wasn't able to catch much fish to sell in the market, she had to buy food on credit from stores. She told us, "Ever since I received a rice coupon from Tzu Chi, I have been looking forward to receiving rice on this day!"

Distribution of rice in Tangerang

Tangerang is about a one-hour drive west of Jakarta. More than 70 percent of the population are farmers who live hard lives.

An old woman with a wrinkled face came to pick up rice with her niece. The old woman said that seven people lived with her. Her son made a living by transporting passengers on a tricycle cab, but that only brought in 2,000 rupiahs [US$0.24] a day, so sometimes they would have nothing to eat. When the income was better, they could buy some rice; otherwise, they would have to eat vegetables they grew themselves. She expressed her gratitude for the rice from Tzu Chi.

Tzu Chi will distribute rice in Indonesia for two years. The first stage was conducted on four weekends beginning on May 30, 2003, in the following locations: the northern and western regions of Jakarta, Tangerang, Bekasi, and the central, eastern and southern regions of Jakarta.

The central district of Jakarta is the commercial and political heart of Indonesia. But in Tanah Tinggi, next to the central district, many poor people live next to railroad tracks.

Their homes are made of wooden boards, plastic sheets attached together, or canvas tents. For their beds, they simply clear away rocks on the ground and then place some flattened cardboard boxes to sleep on. If they have jobs, they may have rice for one meal; if not, they have to go hungry for three to five days, which is quite normal.

While I was observing this, someone suddenly pulled me from behind and I stumbled backward. At that moment, a train sped past behind me and disappeared from sight thirty seconds later. When I had regained myself, someone told me that they had to avoid trains many times a day. They had already gotten used to it.

Marsinah, 70, told me that he had been living there for 30 years already. Every morning, he would greet the people on the train and at night, he would count the stars before going to sleep. He and his family came from Java to Jakarta hoping to become rich. They hadn't realized how difficult it would be to make a living in Jakarta. They settled next to the railway when they first arrived, and they have been there for 30 years.

Another shantytown in the central district of Jakarta is a "sleepless town." People there all rent their homes together with other families because they don't have much money. Since there is not enough room in the homes, they have to take turns sleeping! The police once told us that when they pass by the town at 2 a.m., some children would still be up playing soccer because they couldn't go to bed until 4 a.m.!

Poverty hidden away from prosperity

In addition to the central district of Jakarta, shantytowns can even be found in the eastern and southern districts of Jakarta, where the majority of buildings are mansions.

Surtiah lives in Tengah in eastern Jakarta. She brought home two bags of white rice from the Tzu Chi distribution. As soon as she got home, she opened a bag and poured the rice into a rice bucket, saying, "This rice bucket has never been filled with so much rice. We would starve tonight if it weren't for this rice."

Surtiah has two children, and her husband works as a laborer in a nearby market. He earns only a few thousand rupiahs a day and sometimes no money at all. Surtiah says that the rent is 50,000 rupiahs [about US$6] a month, and the children need tuition to go to school. Her husband's meager income cannot provide for all that, so when they don't have the money to buy rice, they go hungry.

Along with Surtiah and her family, forty other families also live in the same community. Each house is less than 35 square feet. The walls are made of bamboo scraps, and the roofs are broken and leak whenever it rains. Surtiah said, "The rent here is cheap, so laborers can afford it. My neighbors and I have lived here for so long that we have become close to each other and don't want to move away."

At noon, Surtiah scooped up one and a half cups of rice from the bucket and started cooking. Sweat dripped from her forehead, but she was smiling. "Today is the happiest day in my life. Thank you so much!"

Surtiah's neighbors all received rice today, and at noon the aroma of cooked rice wafted through the whole community.

Grateful old people

Poor Indonesians are simple and kind.

Alen, a 62-year-old woman in Kamal Muara, wore a pair of old shoes that had been sewn over countless times. She was waiting in line to receive rice. Her bony body and sunken eye sockets indicated the hard life she had had. She was the only one working in her family, and she made $150,000 rupiahs (about US$18) a month. There were times when she could only eat one meal a day for up to six months.

Idurs, 65, had had a stroke. He had been waiting in line ever since dawn, so he was already exhausted. Because he moved rather slowly, he would be pushed forward by others waiting in line behind him. When he received his rice, a volunteer immediately shouldered the rice for him and chatted with him as they walked back to his house. Indurs hadn't expected that someone would help him carry the rice and even show concern for his family life. He was so touched that he kept thanking the volunteer over and over.

In Tugu Utara, an 85-year-old woman was the first in line to receive rice. She had left home at 5:30 a.m. and walked to the site by herself. Her slouched body made her look very lonely. When a volunteer brought the rice to her, tears rolled down her face and she kept thanking the volunteer. She even kissed the volunteer's hands, a Muslim's most respectful etiquette, to express her most sincere appreciation and blessing.

Five thousand volunteers

Taiwan's white rice is being spread to the poor in Jakarta.

When Minister of Social Services Bachtiar Chamsyah came to the distribution site, he was very impressed to learn that Taiwan donated the rice and that Tzu Chi helped build the Tzu Chi Great Love Village for the residents of Kapuk Village. The police superintendent pointed out that when he saw the happiness on people's faces as they took their rice home, he could imagine that every family would pray sincerely before eating and enjoying the rice.

The first stage of distribution ended on June 22, with 278,700 poor families in Jakarta receiving rice. Each family received one bag of rice weighing 20 kilograms [44 pounds]; families with more than three people each received two bags of rice.

There are few Tzu Chi volunteers in Jakarta. After floods occurred in Jakarta in 2002, all the volunteers devoted themselves to the construction work of the Great Love village. While Liu Su-mei, CEO of the Tzu Chi Indonesia branch, was pondering where to find more people to help distribute rice, the presidents of local Chinese corporations such as the Sinar Mas Group, the Artha Graha Group, CCM, Honey Lady, and other companies took up the task and asked their employees to join in.

At the distribution sites, Tzu Chi volunteers, corporate employees, and military soldiers were all involved in distributing rice to the poor. Huang Jung-nien, general manager of the Sinar Mas Group and deputy CEO of the Tzu Chi Indonesia branch, also busily moved rice back and forth. He sweated all over; his shirt would become damp, dry, then damp again. Still, he smiled through it all. He said, "I usually work in an air-conditioned office, so I don't sweat much. It really feels good to help these people carry their rice!"

Even with 5,000 volunteers helping with the distribution, there were still not enough volunteers because of the large area involved.

Kuo Tsai-yuan, president of the Artha Graha Group, remarked, "I'm grateful to everyone's contributions in the past month." He added, "I saw company employees helping recipients carry the rice and many women helping old people and other women carry rice home." He was delighted to see the offering of love and the genuine smiles on people's faces.

One Artha Graha employee told us that she hadn't known there were so many poor people in Indonesia and that she was happy to help her own people. Before coming to the distribution, she hadn't wanted to do volunteer work because she felt it was just more work her supervisor was assigning her. However, after coming to the Tzu Chi distribution, she was happy to have the chance to help. She expected that she would become more involved with volunteering during her spare time.