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Thousand Islands. On a bright, muggy Friday afternoon, Windy, 15, waits with dozens of other junior and senior high students at the small dock at Pramuka Island for a boat to take her home.

Winda lives with her family on neighboring Panggan Island, and takes the boat every day to get to school in Pramuka. The commute takes only five minutes, and students always travel free.

The islands are part of the 110 that make up the optimistically named Thousand Islands just off the north coast of Jakarta.

Panggan, one of the most densely populated islands in the chain, has only state and Islamic elementary schools, and no junior or senior high schools.

On Pramuka, however, another basic service, electricity, is not always available.

Siti, 47, who runs a food stall in front of the district office in Pramuka, said electricity on the island is only available from 4 p.m to 7 a.m.

The island relies solely on costly diesel generators operated by state utility PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara, unlike neighboring Tidung Island, which is connected to the mainland’s grid through an undersea cable and enjoys power 24 hours a day.

Siti, who has lived here for 30 years, said the electricity situation remained as dire as ever.

“It’s ironic that we don’t have full-time electricity, because the seat of the district office is right here in Pramuka,” she said.

She added potable water was also in short supply, saying her family was forced to buy drinking water for Rp 5,000 (55 cents) a gallon while using the saline water from the well to wash with.

Suhairiya, 38, born and raised on Pramuka, agreed that life on the island was harder now than in years past.

She said her husband, Khaerudin, had been a fisherman but now earned even less ferrying people between the islands. Suhairiya was forced to open a meatball stall to help keep their four sons in school.

She said significantly higher food prices here were particularly hard on the family. Food is not grown locally, and all fresh produce in the islands is shipped in from Jakarta.

“Chili, rice and other basics are way more expensive, and you feel it when you don’t earn as much as you used to,” she said.

Suhairiya added she took some comfort in the fact that visitor numbers to the islands were picking up, particularly over the last several weekends.

“My husband gets more passengers looking to island-hop, and I get more customers looking for a meal, while my oldest son works as a tour guide,” she said.

Despite the hardships she has no intention of moving away, saying the close bonds between neighbors was what made life on Pramuka so special.

“We’re almost like family,” she said. “You can borrow money or ask for help from your neighbors at any time. We can always count on each other.”

One of Suhairiya’s neighbors, Janabon, 31, runs a small vegetable stall and is married to a fisherman.

“Most of the men here are fishermen,” she said.

“That’s what they know best. They can’t work in the civil service because they’re not educated enough for that.”

She said the local fishing industry, however, has been severely threatened by consistently diminishing catches.

She said the average five-kilogram tuna netted by her husband on a single fishing trip would fetch around Rp 75,000 at the fish market in Muara Angke on Jakarta’s coast, while the diesel used for the trip costs at least Rp 60,000.

Janabon helps out by selling vegetables that she buys in Jembatan Lima, North Jakarta, every week and hires three others to sell the produce from carts around the island.

However, her profit is cut by myriad costs incurred on each trip, including the Rp 2,000 for the cart to haul her shopping from the market to Muara Angke Port, and the Rp 1,000 “protection fee” charged by dock workers.

Another concern for island residents is the rash of gas cylinder explosions that has killed and maimed people nationwide.

Janabon said she cooked with gas because kerosene was too expensive, but was worried about the safety of her family if she continued to do so.

She said she hoped Pramuka Island, as well as the others in the Thousand Islands chain, would receive more attention from the Jakarta administration.

“This is our home and we want to make it better,” she said.

“For that, we need at least the basic services: electricity, water and food.”

Janabon added that these requirements were more pressing with the fasting month of Ramadan set to start in mid-August.

During this time, she said, local households’ consumption of electricity, water, food and fuel increased sharply.

For the younger generation, though, the impulse is to leave behind the hardships for a better life elsewhere.

Local seventh-grader Musahdan said that while he enjoyed being on the island, he did not want to follow in his parents’ footsteps. His father is a fisherman and his mother a caretaker for other people’s children

“My dad’s a fisherman. Why would I want that?” he said.