They have constructed a neat cluster of 32 modest houses, connected by brick paths winding through boulders and green shrubs, on a small rise surrounded by patty fields.

Photo by Guy Wulfing

Ratna Refida, a James P. Grant-Ashoka Fellow whose perseverance led to the creation of Menur, stands next to a root-bound rock that commemorates its completion. Behind her, women and children gather in a central courtyard.

The island of Lombok remains one of Indonesia's poorest regions, despite its proximity to a booming tourist economy on the neighboring island of Bali, which looms on the western horizon. When drought triggered rice crop failures this past year, some Lombok residents began eating dried cassava to survive.

Menur is occupied by poor, dry land farmers, and is part of the village of Darek. Prior to building their new community, Menur's residents lived a precarious economic existence, renting water buffalo to cultivate fields, and facing hunger when crops failed or prices plummeted. Like many of Indonesia's rural poor, they lived in rough, flimsy structures. Lacking sanitary facilities, they used a nearby river as a toilet, with attendant health problems from polluted waters.

© 1999 Changemakers