Once kids frolicked amongst fruit trees

Years ago, it was not uncommon for parents to find their children at home with purple lips and tongues after playing all day long in the neighborhood.

"You've been eating buni fruit, haven't you?" they would ask.

Nowadays, trees bearing the sweet purple buni and many others backyard fruit trees once abundant in the city have become a rare sight for Jakartans.

"Those fruits have vanished from Jakarta in past years because much of the backyard-farming land owned by Betawi people has been sold for urban development," plant expert A.F. Margianasari "Riris" said.

"Most Betawi people have been forced to move to the outskirts of Jakarta, while their backyard farms have been turned into empty plots of land ready to be built on," Riris said.