Can you imagine how a chicken soup vendor can generate Rp 10m a month?

I hope you would be inspired from this story.

Ow, by the way, I only publish pieces I wrote or I wrote with a friend or more (I would have told you, if it was not my piece). Because otherwise, it would make me not genuine anymore.

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Vendor making chicken soup solely for money
Friday, November 17, 2006
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta



The roads are a constant cacophony of horns and hollering. People bustle by as the street vendors at Blok M bus terminal in South Jakarta beckon to them to buy their wares.

Nanik Hindaryati, 39, had just finished setting her pushcart on the pavement at the side of the terminal entrance. Inside the small food stall sheltered under a sheet of blue plastic, she was preparing her mainstay menu, chicken soup.

After almost 20 years in the capital, Nanik, born in Probolinggo, East Java, is doing well to survive life on the city's dog-eat-dog streets.

"As long as you're not lazy, you can survive in Jakarta," said Nanik, who came to Jakarta in 1978 with her husband and three-month-old daughter.

Day in, day out, she wakes up at 2 a.m., after only three hours of sleep, to prepare ingredients and get together her things for work.

"I don't feel tired when I thank God for his blessing. On the other hand, too much complaining wears me out."

She opens her stall from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day. At dusk, her husband, Haryono, who works for an insurance firm, usually comes to replace her.

Currently, Nanik owns three stalls with six workers, selling chicken soup, fried rice and fried noodles in separate places in the city.

"I earn approximately Rp 10 million (US$1,096) in gross income a month from the stalls," she said.

Nanik, a successful businesswoman, is only one of hundreds of street vendors here. The huge number of street vendors who can be found in virtually every corner of the city have become something of a problem for the city administration.

Earlier this year the local government started a pilot project to accommodate vendors in Blok S, South Jakarta. The program has been successful and the administration plans to replicate it in 24 other locations.

An illegal vendor, Nanik, said she had no problem with the authorities as she paid Rp 15,000 ($1.65) weekly as a "security fee" to the local security and order officers (Tramtib). "I don't have any problem with the officers, as long as we do as we're are told. We will even be warned by one of the officers the day before, when the administration plans raids against street vendors."

She also gets along well with the terminal hooligans. As she put it, "It's not that I'm intimidated by them, I'd just prefer to placate them, rather than get them off side."

She added that most of the thugs she met never did her any harm. "I never give them money, even if they are asking for only Rp 1,000 (11 US cents). However, I'll give them food, if they ask me politely.

"I am here to make money, not to give them money," she added firmly.

Nanik, who has two daughters and a son, paid for "the not-so-cheap education" of her two older daughters who go to Trisakti University. She spends at least Rp 7 million ($767.71) every semester for each of them.

According to Nanik, she does not allow them to help her at the food stalls, preferring them to be serious in their studies.

As the educational achievement of the oldest daughter has impressed her father's employer, her parents are in hopes of having their daughter continue her education with a master's degree program overseas.

Over the years, Nanik has changed her business several times. Initially she sold cendol (iced drink) with start-up capital of only Rp 25,000 ($2.74). Within two years, she was able to expand her business from one cendol pushcart to 10.

However, she then left that business and turned to selling fruit. "I get bored so easily," she said.

Not long after, she turned to selling vegetables and managed to make enough to buy a 50-square-meter plot of land where she built a home for her whole family. They have been living there since 1996.

Then, seeking more profit, she shifted gears and started up a bird and birdseed business. In May 1998 -- during the rioting that ended the New Order regime -- Nanik lost her kiosk making her Rp 5 million ($548.4) poorer.

She has switched her business to food vendor since then.

She brushed aside the notion that she was successful, saying: "Success for me will be when all of my children finish their degrees and have proper jobs."

Moreover, Nanik and her husband have bought three hectares of land with 1,300 teak trees on it in Ngawi, East Java, for their children's future.

"I don't want my children to live the kind of life I have. They have to exceed me," said Nanik while stirring some fried rice in the noonday heat.