Hardship of Common Indonesians

There are many definitions of poverty. One that I feel is correct is: ‘Poverty is a situation in which you are struggling every day to provide for your basic needs. A struggle requiring your full attention throughout the day, leaving no time for analysis of the situation and planning to move out of poverty. In the meantime you realise that all you have (or parts of it) can be wiped out, by illness, weather conditions (floodings, storms etc.) or other hardship.’

Current driver of the family (Hardship example 1)
The driver of my father in law seems a responsible fellow. I cannot quite judge, never come to his house, but most of all, we never communicate (other than friendly mutual smiling), my Indonesian is by far not enough for any conversation above the ‘baby’s first words level’, and his English is possibly worse than that.
But he is a good driver, I feel safe when driving with him in a car (those using Indonesian taxis from time to time know this is not to be taken for granted). So for some reason I feel he is a responsible fellow, who has also a quite secure job, and therefore a quite secure income. He can provide for his family, can even have some savings.
But then his wife gets ill. Needs to be operated, operation needs to be paid, during operation it is concluded the diagnosis was incorrect. Another operation needed, operation needs to be paid again.
And that is just an example of the hardship Indonesian families suffer. Illness, wiping out all your savings.

Former driver of the family (Hardship example 2)
His name is Muhassan. He was the driver of my father in law for some time. Somehow he moved on to another job, a job however he could not keep. And naturally my father in law has another driver now.
Today (this text is written somewhere in February 2010) he came to my father in law’s house. Friendly smiles (all communication we are able to have, with my limited knowledge of Indonesian, his limited knowledge of English) were exchanged. Later on my wife explained he still has no job. Now that is bad in itself, worse is that as a result, his 13/14 year old daughter is no longer attending school.

Just trying to imagine what it means;

- having to survive without diploma in this Indonesia, which opportunities will this girl have.

- to have to take your daughter from school because you lost your job and food is more important than knowledge.