Under the Semanggi bridge, tiny white paint drops are scattered in the cracked dirt, as if a million pigeons simply exploded. The air is thick with a wild mixture of paint fumes and kretek, which plays well with the cacophony of horns and drive motorcycles.
Herwan works in silence, angling her perfect weight on his heel to his pole rear extension long on the toll road rumbling above. A thick dribble paint forms as a first stalactite then slowly falls over, landing on his shoulder. Herwan looks down on it and then back up to the high ceiling, his eyes shining like to congratulate not take another splash in the eye. Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel have nothing on Herwan and underpass.
Nobody really knows why underground Jakarta get a facelift, not even the boss of Herwan who shakes his head and shrugs when asked about redecorating. Of course, like most things, people have their theories.
The crew of 40 men, who were busy to finish the underpass Semanggi before moving to Grogol, know is that they have two weeks to get the town looking pretty. Until then, they will try to paint as many underpasses as they can, working almost around the clock and sleeping a few meters from brushes and buckets of paint.
The underpass Semanggi, Herwan said, will take about 72 hours and about 100 gallons of white paint to look pretty again, with 21 years and his colleagues go day and night.
But painting a white underpass really do something to improve the aesthetics of Jakarta? Especially since, groups like Graffiteach, a volunteer group of street artists who have spent the last six months creating dozens of mural paintings learning under bridges in Slipi, Grogol and Mangga Dua, aim to give children manuals street from floor to ceiling to teach them all the facts about the solar system to geography and science.
Start a new coat of paint on anything is just symptomatic solution to a fundamental problem. But again, Jokowi probably already knew this, and just wanted to give everyone sitting in traffic Semanggi something to watch other than the cops smoking cigarettes. Thank you for the show!