BORDER CITIZEN ADHESIVE MARKET

Carlos and her son Martino looks seriously choosing a bag that is displayed in one of the wipes in the Mahuity Market, Lamaknen, East Nusa Tenggara. Carlos is a citizen of Timorese who deliberately came to Indonesia to shop her children’s school supplies. Each Monday, the market located on the border was crowded to visit the buyer both from the surrounding population and the Timorese citizens. "The bar is here cheaper than in my place and closer than my house," said Carlos.

In addition to Carlos, dozens of Memo and Heraklion Districts, Timor Leste many come to the market. Not only to shop daily needs, they also place aside their brothers living in Indonesia. Sometimes they stay due to a distance that is quite far from their residence in Timor Leste. To achieve the location of the Mahuitas market, it takes approximately three hours of walking with the hilly and terjal terrain.

Traders come from a variety of warriors. Locals climb traditional food and earth results while traders from the city of Atambua sell a variety of needs of sandang and food such as clothing, shoes, medicine and cooking equipment.

Mahuitas Market is one of the traditional markets on the borders that have been renovated by the government. The permanent building with the roof has established replacing the old building of wood. The market inaugurated in July 2015 was built as a form of government support to move the economic sector primarily in the border area.

One of the government programs on the 2015-2019 method is to build and revitalize 5,000 people’s markets. For 2015, the government targeted market revitalization as much as 1,000 units sourced from funding and special allocation funds with the budget reached Rp2,386 trillion. The allocation of funds includes the development of new markets and also the physical revitalization of the market carried out if the physical damage of the people’s market reaches 60 percent and has been over 25 years old.

Photo and Text: Utomo Presetyo