Staying Above Water

With her hand stretched upward, the elderly storekeeper in batik dress and white headscarf indicates the height of the waters that poured into her home in Jakarta's great flood of 2007. Sukaesih is a diminutive figure, but she points to a ridge on the doorframe about two meters above the threshold.

The 60-year-old grandmother lives in the down-at-heel waterfront neighborhood of Muara Baru. Her front room-turned-store, where she sells soft drinks and clove kretek cigarettes, looks unassuming, but is at ground zero in the city's battle for survival.