Biography of Darmi

Darmi is a woman who works for the social service company in Surabaya. She works in one of the branches which is in Villa Kalijudan Surabaya.  Darmi was born on June 1971. She did not want to tell me the date of her birth. She was born in Jombang, East Java.  Darmi was not born in a wealthy family, just average and normal one. She recalled she did not have any certain unforgettable childhood memory.  She was a normal happy kid like the most of kids. Her family was a very loving one, they supported her and taught her so many things.

She started her education at the age of 6 like the usual kids would do.  Her parents had to work hard to pay her needs and school fees. Darmi appreciated that a lot. She would help her mother doing the chores whenever she got back from school of even in her free time. She was such a good and nice kid. After completing her elementary, she went to a public secondary school in Jombang. Civic was her most favourite subject at that time. For her, it was a really good subject that it taught people how to respect the others and so many morals. In her school, she liked to help whoever needed help. She would help with her best.  When the secondary was finished, she went to another public high school which luckily she thought she could pass within 3 years.

After her education was completed, she decided not to continue her higher education. She wanted to work instead. However, she met a man and fell in love with him. They got married and had their first born child in 1996. It was a baby girl. Darmi realized that taking care of a child and working at the same time was hard. Hence, she decided to stay at home and took care of her child. Her husband was the one who worked full time and she thought it was enough for that time. She kept a thing in mind that eventually she would have to work but not until her child was ready to be left alone or atleast could take care of her self. For her, family was everything. Family meant the very important thing and firt priority in life.

Once her kid was finally ready and old enough.  Darmi decided to start working. She applied in one factory as a labor. As a worker, she knew that she had to work hard full time. It was totally new for her. She had to leave early morning and came back late evening, even sometimes she had to stay the night when their work was too much. She admitted that working there was not bad and she enjoyed it. However, there was this time that she had to quit due to her family moving out to another town which was Surabaya. She was actually felt a bit glad because she said that working ina  factory as a labor was very tiring and took much of time.  

In Surabaya, she decided to look for a new job. Knowing Surabaya is a big city, she knew it was hard to get a proper job there. It was all until a friend told her about one vacancy to be a worker mostly like a nanny in one social service house. She doubted it at first but she was willing to try because she had no options that time. In this service house, she was expected to be the nanny of disable kids. This social service house had so many orphan disable kids who were abandoned by their parents and family. Many of them were found in the street so they were brought there to be taken care of properly and given attention. Finally, she took the job in 2011.

On the first two weeks working there, she did not feel okay with everything. She was only allowed to go home at the weekend so it was hard for her not to get to meet her family in the weekdays. Taking care of disable kids was not easy for her. There was 25 of them who were girls and had to be taken care of everyday. Darmi worked with a partner who was also new there and she felt the same way. However, they tried to cope up with all of that.

            

           As the time flies, she was getting used to everything there. She felt really bad watching all the kids who were disabled and yet abandoned by their families. She could not bear with that and did not want to do the same thing like their family did. That was why she decided to stay and take care of them. Darmi had to bath them everyday, prepared all their foods, played with them, taught them things, even calmed some of them down if they cried or sad. She slept in the same room with them. One big room consisted of 6 kids and there were around 5 room.

Now, she admitted she loves the kids just like she loves her own kids. She is so patient with them. For her, they are still the same human beings like everyone else, it is just that they are a bit different and need special treatment. It is such a wonderful feeling to see them growing and laughing. They are now part of her family. Darmi says that family does not always have to involve the same blood, people do not need to be biological to be a family. She is now enjoying her job so much as she can help others and all. She even goes on holiday with them because the house takes them to a holiday once in 3 months. Her own daughter has now grown up and studying her college education in STIKES. She is so proud of her.

Darmi is really grateful of her life. She said that it gave you another special feeling if you could help others in needs and make them happy. For her, happines has a simple meaning which is being able to help others and be loved is happiness. Now that she has been staying in the social service house for 5 years, the kids do not want to be left by her. They would cry whenever Darmi had to go home for the weekend to visit her family. It broke her heart to see that because they were all get used to be with her all the time. Hence, she decided to stay and will not leave them because she already feels comfortable enough and love them all equally like her own children.