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Daily Activity Report

Posted by admin 26 - February - 2005

 

PRE-DEPARTURE

13 February 2005
Our team leader Mr. Johny Utama (JWU) left Jakarta for Medan to gather all the necessary resources for conducting our programs on this mission. JWU then proceeded to Banda Aceh afterwards.

14 February 2005
Some members received news from JWU that power is up and running in Desa Durueng and that there were several power generators available.

THE MISSION

Day 1: 15 February 2005
Members of Team-9 and other volunteers for this second mission gathered at Soekarno-Hatta airport in Jakarta at about 12:00 – 12:30 for the 13:55 flight to Banda Aceh. After a brief transit in Medan, we arrived at the Sultan Iskandar Muda airport in Banda Aceh at 18:00. Our leader JWU picked us up at the airport with 2 drivers, Im and Munawar who were both of Aceh native.
We proceeded directly to our base camp at Jl. Fatahillah I, Banda Aceh and started to unpack and get settled immediately. After a short rest and modest dinner of Acehnese fried rice, we quickly got busy with briefing of this mission’s programs. Our evening got interrupted by a series of pretty strong earthquakes that made everything around us tremble, causing the power cut.
The mission briefing comprised of:

  1. Briefing for our 3 main programs: Construction of clean water facilities (ferrocement water tanks), Community Economic Empowerment and Children’s Education;
  2. Familiarization of the sites: Desa Durueng, Bitai, Cot Gue and Pulau Aceh;
  3. Guidelines and cautions in dealing with the refugees;
  4. Guidelines and cautions in our field operations.

Discussions about job description and field operation went on until about 23:00.

 

Day 2: 16 February 2005
The day started early at 6:00 with counting and wrapping up goods to be donated, such as bath soap, underwear, feminine pads and spices. That day we were going to distribute our donation and conducted surveys of our sites.

Cot Gue Refugee Camp Survey

The Ferrocement Water Tank that Team-9 built for the refugees during its first mission was badly damaged due to improper maintenance. The clean water facility had attracted refugees from other camps to move into this camp, resulting in demand exceeding the capacity of the facility. Add Pertamina’s improper training of how to maintain the facility into the equation, and you have an overworked, poorly maintained facility to serve up people who did not appreciate its existence but demanded it to continue to provide them clean water.

Survey along the Way to Desa Durueng

There was a water treatment facility that treated water from a nearby river into clean water suitable for household use. This facility provided water to people for free and people came with their own containers to get their water.
The closer it got to the coast line, the direr the surroundings looked. There were huge areas still left untouched after the tsunami.

Desa Durueng Survey

At Cot Riwat, the main refugee camp of the village, the source of clean water came from a tarp covered well within the compound. People used the water for bathing, washing clothes and dishes while drinking water is supplied from elsewhere.
At Dianjung, within walking distance from Cot Riwat, we got busy updating our information about refugees and introducing our program to them. We also signed some people up for our training programs, especially for the Breadmaking Program that was starting the next day.

Desa Bitai Survey

This is one of the locations under the care of PASe. Ninety five percent of the area surrounding the main mosque of the village was a total wreck. The mosque had been haphazardly fixed and cleaned to function as a temporary housing facility for the village natives who wanted to stay and rebuild their destroyed homes. In addition, there was also a house on tall scaffolding, made of secondhand wood pieces (possibly from destroyed homes), built next the mosque.
The refugee camp here at Desa Bitai accommodates refugees from all sorts of places. Some of them came from villages so remote, that we wondered how they managed to come here with the roads being blocked and all.
During our visit to the PASe base camp, one of the staff told us their plan to build houses made of second hand wood pieces like we saw next to the mosque for families. The houses would each be 4 meters by 6 meters and would comfortably fit a family of 4. Each house would cost approximately IDR 10 million to construct.

Commentary and Observation:

We saw promotional flyers and banners displaying logos of donor companies/organizations being posted all over the PASe base camp. These donors include instructions explaining their own programs in the boxes of their donated goods; however, this created confusion among the PASe staffs as they did not have enough time or comprehension about these programs to be able to explain them correctly to people.

Back at our base camp in Banda Aceh, we continued counting and wrapping goods for donation.

 

Day 3: 17 February 2005
At our base camp, the Bakery Group began preparing for their programs. They used the living room and the patio for setting up and assigned 2 people to go shopping for supplies.

At about 15:00 we started our survey of hospitals to gather the number of minor patients, to look at how things were, and to ask whether or not we could give bread to the patients.

TGK Fakinah Hospital Survey

There were no more children staying at this hospital for treatment. We did not know how many made it or not or how many had adequately recovered and were discharged. This particular hospital has apparently returned to its normal day-to-day operations of treating people with illness for pay while there are still a number of other hospitals providing treatment free of charge.

MerC Supported Hospital Survey

This hospital had been badly damaged by the tsunami that all its surgical and electrical equipments were not operational until this day. There were enough donations of medical supplies and medicines but there had been no plan laid out about replacing their expensive equipments.

TNI Hospital Survey

The paediatrics wing had its walls painted with animals and cartoon characters by foreign volunteers, however, the room was hot and the beds were meant to be there temporarily. There were 4 children being treated for different illnesses when we visited and there was no paediatrician to treat these children. The hospital did not charge anything for all its treatments and surgical procedures.

We managed to interview the mother of one of the children being treated. She did not live at the one of the refugee camps but stayed with a relative whose house was still intact. The survivors who lived at their own housing facilities had a lot more difficulties obtaining donated goods compared to the ones who lived in refugee camps. At these places, the goods were distributed through a prominent leader in that particular community. As we all might have suspected, these goods did not end up in the hands of their intended recipients.

Commentary and Observation:

Early in the evening after surveying the hospitals, we split up into 2 groups: one went to the store for more supplies and the other went to an internet cafe to catch up with information and emails. Later that evening Team 9 had a meeting to discuss placement of the banners promoting products of Desa Durueng, as well as to discuss where to hold our programs (bread baking, sewing, making coconut oil, etc) and who were going to be the trainers for each program. The team decided that members of the Ferrocement Group were going to stay in the villages from the next day on, while the rest of the team would help the Bakery Group.

Day 4: 18 February 2005
We started early at 6:30 with Fitria and Aries preparing breakfast, while Bu Peni, Bu Elly, Bu Francisca, Kiyomi and Mira prepared for the Bakery Group’s program for the day.
At 11:00 the Bakers from Durueng arrived and the program began. The training included how to make bread properly, and things to pay attention to: cleanliness, appearance, shape, color, packaging, etc. This training is not meant to just teach people how to make edible bread, but also to teach them how to sell and make income from these breads.

At 15:00 the Bakery Group started selling the bread they made earlier to the offices of international organizations, such as UNICEF, ICRC, the Turkish Volunteers, and others. They sold their bread and got more orders for the following days.

The Group had dinner at about 20:00 with Bu Ami who was also in the First Expedition of Team 9, and by 22:00 everybody in the Bakery Group was back at our base camp.

Commentary and Observation:

There was a pretty big aftershock that rumbles the house we used earlier in the afternoon while we were training people baking. One of the women immediately turned pale and ran out of the house for safety. The area still experience mild to medium strength earthquakes until that moment while the survivors still had memories of the December 26 big earthquake and tsunami fresh in their minds.

Day 5: 19 February 2005
When we started the day as usual at about 6:30, we received news that there had been quite a big earthquake earlier at 3:00 but only a few of our team mates felt it. We continued on preparing for the day’s programs of bread making, going to Pulau Aceh and shopping at the traditional market.

At 9:00 the people who were assigned to market the breads went to visit ICRC, Japanese Medic, WFP and other places to get bread orders. The purpose of visiting WFP was also to gain access to flour supply, the basic ingredient of breads.

Among the problems the Bakery Group faced:

1. The yeast did not rise properly, putting a halt to the donut production for quite some time;
2. Not having proper equipment and misunderstanding in the production chain created pita bread in the wrong sizes.

When the bread production of the day almost finished, Bu Elly gathered the ladies of Durueng for a meeting on the patio discussing the continuance of bread production after members of Team 9 went back home and how to establish a bread business among the villages in Durueng area. At the same time the rest of the Bakery Group discussed order taking, production support, bread quality and other production and selling related issues.

Towards the evening, Bu Penny and Hendri who were with the Ferrocement Group came home from Durueng and we all decided to head out to where the crowd is. We tasted authentic local coffee, satay, fried rice and fried noodle.

Day 6: 20 February 2005
The day started much earlier at 5:00 and we all soon got busy baking bread, boiling water and cooking rice. At this time we had all decided to relocate the bakery training site from our base camp in Banda Aceh to Durueng, and consequently had to limit bread orders from Banda Aceh for the coming Monday.

As usual the Bakers from Durueng arrived at about 9:00 and everyone in the Bakery Group immediately started assigning jobs. At 10:00, the first batch of our locally produced bread was delivered to the customers. They commented that our donuts tasted too sweet.

The Ferrocement Group who had returned after staying for a few days in Durueng reported that there were 2 fundamental problems the people of Durueng faced: cattle breeding and farming.

1. Cattle Breeding
Because their ranches had been destroyed by the tsunami and they lost their owners, the livestock had returned to their natural habitat and lived as wild animals. Their presence posted security threats to the refugee camps especially at night as well as hygiene threat because they laid faeces and urine all over the place.

2.  Farming
Areas heavily soaked by salt water had to be cultivated with plants that can grow on soils with high level of salinity. A plan to rehabilitate the soils for future farming needed to be thought of and laid out carefully. In areas not soaked by salt water, commodity farming to fulfill people’s basic dietary needs, such as vegetables had to be re-developed.

At 11:00 the group that went to Pulau Aceh returned to Banda Aceh, and at 12:00 the whole Team 9 had lunch and prepared to move our base camp from Banda Aceh to Desa Durueng.

From 14:20 till 15:20, the Bakery Group had its last meeting at base camp. Among the things discussed were:

  1. Organization Structure of Durueng Bakery
    The people who joined our Bakery program elected their own Head of Bakery, marketing staff, treasurer as well as for other offices. This Organization Structure should be adhered to for the following 3 months.
  2. Holidays, working hours, delivery time and person in charge of taking orders.
    Bu Francisca donated a mobile phone as basic communication device for the new bakery to receive orders. For the mean time, the new bakery would ask for Bang Munawar’s help to provide the vehicle for obtaining supplies and delivering orders. Durueng Bakery would set aside some of its income to save for future purchase of its own vehicle.
  3. Profit sharing.
    At the end of the meeting, the people who joined our Bakery program expressed their gratitude and appreciation to Team 9, and Mira who assisted us, for our leadership and assistance.

 

Team 9 moved to Desa Durueng following the Bakery meeting. Our base camp was set at the Village Chief’s house and at a stage house that he owned. After settling down we visited Dusun Garut and while we were there the children asked us to join them playing. Dusun Garut looked quite orderly, both the tents in its refugee camp and the roads leading to it. In this village there were still quite a number of houses intact, untouched by the tsunami; however, the villagers all decided to remain in tents in the confines of refugee camp for the time being.

At 22:30 we had a meeting discussing the Children’s Education Program and the newly established Durueng Bakery. We checked our logistics and donated goods to be distributed to the villages in Durueng area.

Commentary and Observation:

Desa Durueng did not have power supply and was counting on the availability of independent power generator as well as the money to buy gasoline for it. A makeshift bathroom was set up by surrounding a well with tarpaulin and the condition of the toilets were very primitive. The residents of the camp, however, did not seem to mind this living condition very much. Fresh food needed to be supplied from Banda Aceh, therefore the only things to eat here were instant noodle, canned food and rice.

Another problem these people were facing was the absence of adequate medical facility, medical supplies and medical personnel. There was also no vehicle available to transport sick people to the nearest medical facility. The only resident that owned a car would not let people use his car without paying him. Thus, in order to go to the city, people needed to first obtain a vehicle from nearby villages or from vehicles that happened to pass by.

Day 7: 21 February 2005
At 7:00 we got up, got dressed, had breakfast and checked today’s activities. The Bakery Group and the Ferrocement Group went their separate ways.

At 9:00 we visited the refugee camp at Cot Riwat and played with the children, especially children who had yet attended elementary school. We played: origami and rope hopping.

At 11:30 we started training people how to make charcoals. Those who joined this training were mostly from Dusun Garut, a 30-minute walk from our training site.

The only equipment needed to make charcoal was a drum worth Rp. 50,000 while raw materials could be obtained freely from the surrounding environment, such as: excess shell from coconut oil processing. After the drum is filled with raw materials, it was topped up with mud and covered to instill the carbonation process while the drum was burned up. One drum could produce Rp. 7,500 worth of charcoals. By providing each village with 10 drums, a new industry could be established.

During this training Pak Johny never stopped stimulating people and tried to make them see new business opportunities such as: making organic fertilizer from cow dung and selling young coconut for its water along the streets.

Following lunch Fitria, Aries, Ruly, Bebek and Kiyomi discussed grouping goods into packets and plans to distribute the packets to people. Pak Johny, Bu Peni, Bu Elly, Heri, Kiyomi, Olo, Bu Francisca, Aries and Bebek then filled boxes with goods according to a prepared list. Each box contained: stationeries, toothpaste, toothbrush, women’s underwear (we didn’t bring enough number of men’s underwear), bath soap, feminine pads, spices, powdered milk and canned milk, as well as dolls and toys. We put together these goods, one box for each family, paying attention to the number of family members, age, sex, education level, etc. Each box was then sealed and labelled with the name of the head of the family. We finished putting together boxes at 1:00 a.m.

Day 8: 22 February 2005
At 7:00 we got up and got dressed. Aries went back to Jakarta at 8:30. Today, other programs had also started, such as: making coconut oil, sewing, embroidering, baking bread and children’s education.

At 10:00 we transported our boxes of goods to Dusun Dianjung. We went straight to our site and started to distribute the boxes to families immediately. Our program did not receive the enthusiasm it deserved because at the same time the Turkish volunteer group was holding a clean-up program that paid more than Team 9. They paid Rp. 40,000 per person to collect garbage and rubbles in the area to a site they built to be burned, while Team 9 only paid Rp. 25,000 for distributing boxes.

While the rest of Team 9 was giving out boxes, a young couple chatted with Kiyomi about their experience. They were originally from Dusun Dianjung but ran away to another place when tsunami hit. They were registered as refugee at that other place as the result and decided to stay at the new place because they found an inhabitable house there. They thought a house would be better for their young children to grow. However, supplies were hard to get at that new place and therefore came back to Dusun Dianjung. They asked if Team 9 could help them.

Being a volunteer with limited time frame and inadequate resources, our hands were tied for a lot of reasons. We had to focus ourselves and limit our target to the refugees who were registered only to the camp at Dusun Dianjung. However, circumstances in the field often differ from the plan and volunteers often experienced unexpected hurdles. Therefore, we must also be flexible and try to solve each hurdle case by case.

In late afternoon/ early evening, a lot of us went to Banda Aceh to work on our tasks: Bebek and Heri went to PASe to collect donation of sandals for the children as well as other goods; the Bakery Group did their job of delivering orders and more marketing. Bu Peni, Fitria, Pak Johny, Kiyomi and the Ferrocement Team stayed at Cot Riwat to prepare dinner. Until 23:00 those who went to the city had not yet returned, and our base camp felt so quiet since there was no electricity and our mobile phones batteries had run out. Fitria and Kiyomi even sent their phones with the team who went to Banda Aceh to be recharged.

When our team mates finally returned, we had a quick late supper and started putting together donation packets. Although we had enough goods to distribute to people, we realized as we put together these packages that we did not have equal number of goods. We decided to exchange the goods in shortage with other stuff in some of the packages we were going to give.

We found out the problem with our new Durueng Bakery when the Bakery Group returned. They did not make enough bread for the next day’s order. As a result we ended up baking breads in the middle of the night to make up for the shortage.

The Bakery group and those who were putting together donation packages finally finished our tasks at 2:00.

Commentary and Observation:
Although Durueng Bakery was no longer the responsibility of Team 9, but because of love and our big urge to help by the Bakery Group we ended up helping the Durueng Bakery’s staff to meet the next day’s order. We told the new bakery’s management that they needed to consider their production capacity and limit their orders accordingly.

There was a mild incident at the stage house. While we were sleeping we heard glass shattered. Pak Johny was the first to realize that it was the lamp shade that broke into pieces because of the cold air. The lamp had been used earlier and it was hot so the immediate change of temperature shattered the glass material. After this incident the Team 9 members sleeping at the stage house became really sensitive to sounds and could not sleep. They reported hearing animals gathering underneath the house, coconuts falling off trees, etc.

The morning temperature between 6:00 – 7:00 felt really cool. This is probably because it felt more like dawn than daylight. Although Aceh follows the western Indonesian standard time, it felt as if days were 1 or 2 hours behind.

Day 9: 23 February 2005
Our day started a little late today between 7:00 – 8:00. The groups divided areas in and around the stage house for training sites:
– Sewing group in the living room;
– Coconut oil group in the area beside the stage house;
– Embroidery group at the Village Chief’s house’s backyard;
– Charcoal group at a remote site away from the house; and
– Bakery group at the bakery in Banda Aceh (they left the base camp early to deliver breads to hospitals)
We further divided ourselves into separate groups: Adi and Hendri from the Ferrocement group left for Pulau Aceh, Ruly and Bang Munawar went to the city to shop for supplies, Heri and Bebek went to PASe, and Bu Ami managed our base camp kitchen. The group that was distributing goods for children was often left without means of transportation because the vehicle assigned to them was often used by the other groups.

Later that day we delivered our packages to Dusun Cot Riwat and part of Mata-ie. Pak Johny, Bu Elly, Bu Peni, Olo, Bebek, Fitria and Kiyomi were assigned this job. At Cot Riwat, the children were so excited that they quarrelled with each other over choice of dolls and other kids’ stuff.

The team went to the beach to soak in the warm ocean later in the afternoon, between 17:00 – 19:00. Could it be to celebrate Kiyomi’s graduation? We had started building our own make shift bathroom so that we can bathe in fresh water, too bad it was still not finished.

As this was our last day at Desa Durueng, we held a small dinner party and get together as well as celebrating Kiyomi’s graduation. We held a singing competition among all the ethnic groups present: Japanese, Mexican, Javanese, Kalimantan and Jakarta.

 

Program Evaluation Meeting

After the small party we had a meeting to evaluate our programs while we were in Aceh and our next step forward. The meeting went on until 2:00. The success of our bakery program was mainly due to the lessons taught from Team 9 first mission. Other programs that were not as successful needed to be given consideration because they were pioneers. They were meant to open up the survivors’ horizon about choices of industries to rehabilitate their economic base. In our review, we believed that our next missions would depend heavily on the amount of donation, and that it would be hard to draw up a plan because we did not even know then who still wanted to go back to Aceh after this.

Commentary and Observation:

According to one of the refugees at Desa Durueng, nobody dared to give children dolls or other toys before Team 9 because they were worried about religious constraints, local Aceh customs, etc. However, as we were handing out dolls and toys we could see the children’s faces lighting up and felt their joy. Some of them even complaint they didn’t like their toys and ended up quarrelling with other kids. We had our panic moment because of these small fights, but they listened to our suggestion to trade toys with other kids or to come to our base camp to exchange their toys with something they prefer. At the end of the day they were all happy and the mission was accomplished successfully.

Some members of Team9 still had doubts about soaking in the sea after the tsunami because there must still be rubbles and bodies floating about. However, all of us turned out enjoying the experience of bathing in the sea while the weather is clear and the water temperature is comfortable for bathing. The refugees were mostly afraid to even look at the ocean and forbid their children to play on the beaches.

Day 10: 24 February 2005
We started very early packing our personal stuff and goods for our programs to get ready to move back to Banda Aceh.
Fitria and Bebek packed donation goods for refugees in Mata-ie whose names were registered at Cot Riwat due to their small number (only 13 families). Bu Elly and Bu Peni packed the rest of the donation to be brought back to Banda Aceh, Kiyomi was in charge of the kitchen, and Bu Francisca, Olo, Bu Elly and Ruly made up the Bakery Group, Bebek was in charge of the stage house, Pak Johny and Heri went to town and were to bring back lunch. We used Bang Im�s car to transport the sewing machines to the surrounding villages.

Later that day, the job of handing out donation at Dusun Mata-ie was done well by Kiyomi, Fitria and Olo without any mistakes in registered refugees.
We got ready to leave between 15:30 – 16:00 and said our goodbyes to the staff of Durueng Bakery. We finally headed for Banda Aceh at 17:00 with 2 cars: Bang Im’s and Bang Munawar’s. Bang Munawar’s car was to make a stop at Cot Gue’s refugee camp to distribute the remaining women’s underwear and kids’ sandals. The group made sure there was enough underwear for everybody and announced our arrival at the camp through a loudspeaker. The group handed the underwear one by one to the registered female refugee and cross-checked it with our ledgers; wrong sizes were immediately exchanged on the spot. The remaining stuffs were to be brought back for distribution elsewhere.

The group joined their team mates at Bang Im’s house, and they enjoyed the refreshing young coconut waters served to them.
As we reached Banda Aceh, we first had dinner and later split into 2 groups: one was to stop by PASe, the other was to drop Bu Ami, Mira and Dede at their places as well as stopping by a supermarket to drop Durueng Bakery’s breads for sale.

When we finally arrived at our base camp, the electricity was out. Apparently this was not a problem that happened only in villages, but big cities too. We got settled in the dark and prepared a small birthday party for our leader, Pak Johny.

At midnight, we all sang Happy Birthday to Pak Johny, had some cake and went to bed all in the same room not to long afterwards. The ceiling fan was on but the rom felt really hot that night.

Day 11: 25 February 2005
At 6:00 we all got up, took shower and got ready to head back to Jakarta. Pak Johny and Heri went back to Desa Durueng to say their goodbyes to the Village Chiefs and to collect documentation for the Ferrocement group. Pak Melano and Olo went after Pak Johny and Heri to Desa Durueng by motorcycle. The rest of Team 9 was escorted by Bang Munawar to places where the effect of tsunami was still apparent.

We all arrived back at the base camp at 10:00 and went straight to the airport. After checking in, we decided to linger in a nearby coffee house while waiting for our flight. We all left Banda Aceh with the 11:30 Garuda flight heading for Jakarta. It was quite a big plane ordinarily used for Garuda’s international routes, and inside were passengers of different nationalities.

After a brief stop at Medan, the flight finally touched down at Soekarno-Hatta airport in Jakarta at 15:30. We all said our goodbyes and each headed for his/her home: Bebek to Yogya, Fitria to Tangerang, Pak Johny and Bu Elly in Jakarta, Bu Peni to Semarang and Bu Francisca and Kiyomi to Bogor.

Commentary and Observation:

All the way to the airport Kiyomi did not feel like having stayed in Aceh at all. Whether it’s because of the time constraint that everything went so fast or because she had great team mates that time simply flew, she did not know.

When Kiyomi saw Ibu Francisca’s feet wearing only flip-flops instead of the sandals she wore from Jakarta, she knew that Bu Francisca had given away her lovely sandals. Bu Francisca insisted they were lost at the last base camp. Bu Francisca really cared about the refugees that she did not care how she looked.

During the last 2 – 3 days of this mission, our leader, Pak Johny, seemed exhausted and looked even older. Probably because he’d been training members of Team 9 with their own unique characters as well as refugees and others.

We used most of our flying time to Jakarta to catch up with some sleep.

 

POST SCRIPT

After getting enough rest, each member of Team 9 made a detailed report of their tasks and activities back in Aceh that included lessons learned so that it would be useful for the next missions.

In this second mission, this writer, Kiyomi, did not have experience in any of the programs so she offered her help in whatever program that needed extra hands. After joining the bakery program, the coconut oil program, the charcoal making program, the sewing and embroidering program it was apparent that the refugees was only interested in the bakery program. This writer did not know how Desa Durueng was like before the tsunami or how people lived but from her observation during this mission she concluded that the people in this village still lived a very traditional life. The programs held by Team 9 then were right on target because they were meant to develop the economies of villages left behind by the general development programs of the country.

During this mission, we did not manage to reach the refugee camp in West Aceh where we heard a lot of people still did not receive sufficient food supplies, medical supplies and other life supporting goods. If there was a plan to develop agriculture in the area this writer would like to join that program.

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