We walk over a grave

19.11


The first work day in Malalak is good. After the work we speak with the teacher in charge and ask her about what she experienced in the earthquake and how she see’s the children now.
She explains that the children have massive problems of concentration, that they are not obeying like they used to, that they are afraid at night and that they get often scared of loud noises.
All this are signs of a post-traumatic situation.

We walk over a grave
It is wet, hot and noisy in the jungle of Malalak- we walk up and down the small road, passing cacao trees, some destroyed houses, the shelters in front of them and a green Mamba. The jungle opens up in a valley and I see a vast area of earth, mud, and stones in front of me.
A huge palm tree just broke down at the edge of the earth slide and I look up the mountain not believing that the earth-slide came down from such a small hill.
It takes a moment to realize that this is the place where 33 people lost their lives- that this is the grave for the 12 still missing corpses.
I try to picture the 12 houses and the mosque that where home to life here. The gardens, the children playing...
Latest when Lukas called us to come down the field where he went with one of the villagers the reality catches me.
They had smelled something strange and looked around- they found a place where maybe animals had digged and something soft, black-brown came out. The villagers digged a bit- the smell was horrible and I started to take pictures.

This was a corpse- tomorrow they wanted to burry him. A strange mood came over me and I felt tears coming up. The way back was hard and hot but the march up the hill calmed me down, made me feel comfortable again.
In the village the news went around fast. Some women wanted to see the small part of the corpse and the material of clothes next to it on my camera. one women was convinced that this was her sister.



Today I can say I connected to the people and what happened here.

Malalak

18.11
Our new place to work is called Malalak, a village in the mountains in the jungle. 2727 persons ( 765 families) are living there.
In the earthquake and the following earthslides 62 ( 12 from them children) people died and from 808 houses 566 got damaged destroyed or totally vanished under the mud and earth. 21 corpses are still missing. People cannot life in their houses anymore and sleep in tents in front of their houses.
There is a small health centre in the village where we meet the responsible Mr. Indra. He is happy when he hears that we do work with trauma and kids and invites us to work with the children in the school.
In the evening we drive 3 hours back to Maninjau to back our bags because the next day we wanna leave to a new Hotel near Malalak.
THis night I spoke out what I had realized before: All the destroyed houses here doesn’t touch me emotionally. This makes me quite desperate- did it become normal? Or is this a good sign because I learned to keep distance from the work?
As a reason I can see that we only had little contact with people until now and that people dont share their stories easily.

evangelized

17.11
This morning when we came to the camp and started to work with the children we realised that a lot less came than before. We didnt know why it was like this so we asked Foas, the manager from the camp. We found out that this day a scandal was uncovered in the newspaper. An american group went to some camps christian around, gathered people, distributed gifts and than started to pray there. Now the people of our camp started to think we are like this too. They found evidence in some activities we offered for them:

making puppets out of wool that had the shape of a cross

for very small children we had good smelling oil that we put on their hands

and one meeting with women was set up at prayer time

Besides this was another reason for the parents to ask their children to stay in the tent that the school kids have soon their examens and that they shall study for.
So there are 2 things that we were not sensible enough about:

first of all that the fear to be evangelized by christians is present and that puppets in shape of a cross can be seen as an intention to missionate.
The second point is that in our intention to work with traumatised children we were not aware that the camp has its daily life and duties like school and examens.

The camp manager Foas asked the community elderers for a talk to clear the accusations. The meeting will take place next saturday.

work in Maninjau

16.11

The children in the camp are somehow unbelievable- when they look at us with their deep dark eyes- somehow far away, but so open. They learn very fast and can copy movements and rhythms easily. The most beautiful times are the ones where we sit with some women and men under the tent that gives shade and just start doing little “finger-games” with the kids.

Today we visited the 4 destroyed villages. because we wanted to understand more what happened to the villagers.
about 3 days after the earthquake it started raining a lot. The villagers knew that there is now a danger that rocks and earth that got destabilized by the earthquake might slide downhill. They decided to leave their villages. And it happened: huge earth slides came down

The situation is unreal- houses are lightly damaged by the earthquake but then you see masses of corrosion, stones and earth that partly buried houses. At one place a 40 m earth slide went over 7 houses: they vanished completely.
Some houses are still intact and people could live there, but the government declared the area as red zone- forbidden to live in.
Villagers still go to their houses if they are still standing, they take the fruits, spend the day and the men still fish from there.

Maninjau

15.11

Indonesia:
Indonesia is a muslim country ) 88% muslims ca 2000 mio), but has minorities of christians, buddhists and hindus. There are over 300 ethnics in Indonesia and hundreds of languages.


For me it was the first day of work today- the others worked yesterday already in the camp.
The camp has 705 inhabitants, 170 families that come from 4 villages from the other side of the Maninjau lake. They are fisher families since generations. When the earthquake happened it started to rain heavily. The villagers knew that there is the danger of landslide on the villages- so they left. And it did happen. All houses got trapped under the rubble and the area was declared as red area- forbidden to settle- fortunately nobody died.
Around the lake there is no place for the inhabitants of the 4 villages anymore and the government decided that they will be displaced and resettled in a different area 80 km from here and what is worse- there will be no lake.
90% of the villagers already agreed on the resettlement as they have no other choice. Until the resettlement will happen they will have to live in the camp.
Another subject seems to be difficult in the camp said Foas ,the manager of the camp, who is employed by the European Commission for the UN and comes from Jakarta.



The 4 villages have problems under each other that couldn't be solved until now.
Further more the camp has a problem of space. Build on the football field of the village they can only put 70 tents for the 170 families. this means that there are families that have to live together in one tent (around 8 m2). For security reasons no cooking is allowed near the tent- but still families are cooking there as they do not want to use the community kitchen all the time.

The work with the children was good. Additionally to our Experience education sessions we offer art therapy ( painting), playing sessions for under 3 years old children and their mothers, Eurythmics and a women circle where women can talk about their problems and get counseling.

In the afternoon we wanted to visit the destroyed villages but it started to rain heavily, so we used the time in our hotel to discuss questions of psycho-trauma.

In the evening we were invited by the camp and village inhabitants to a traditional music event. The location was the market and women, men and children where sitting on the ground
When we arrived the men where standing in a circle around about 8 huge drums that gave a great rhythm. inside or between the drummers some men were dancing like in trance.

After the drums an old man playing drums, one old woman and 3 young women entered the stage and sat down. After a muslim prayer and a encouraging speech by the leader of the village for the people of the camp the old man started to play on his bamboo flute. The women were singing one after the other in the microphones. People started to write on papers and to give keywords for the singers that they improvised on. A little donation followed. The themes can be different from love, over pain and even problems between people that can be solved during the 6-8 hours sessions over the poetic singing.
It is interesting how traditional culture and Islam get combined here- it is refreshing.

destroyed house in Padang Indonesia

Indonesia-driving through West Sumatra

14.11

Today I visited together with Vina, our Indonesian teamer and Bernd Ruf, the head of our Team the city of Padang. We wanted to document the effect of the earthquake there before leaving to the mountains.
As we went into the city centre we saw more and more destroyed, collapsed houses.
Here some of the stories of the 31 of september at 5 pm

The security guard of the Abuacang hotel Padang tells us that he was outside the building when the earthquake started. For 2-3 seconds the earth was waving. Then she was shaking up and down for about 22 seconds. people started running out the hotel.Only after the earthquake the hotel started to collapse. 48 people were found dead in the ruin- the last one 9 days after the earthquake. There are still people missing.
Today half of the building is put away by caterpillars and they still go on.



Lian, a christian man tells us that when the earthquake started he was with his wife in the second flour of their house ( Padang) . His wife screamed and went under the table- he followed her. he also describes the 3 seconds of waves and 22 seconds of shaking up and down.
Lian and his wife were lucky that they stayed in the second floor, because the first floor doesnt exist anymore, the house collapsed on it.
Lian says that he s not afraid of another earthquake or natural catastrophe- what he is afraid of is a catastrophe cause by humans like war.
He thins that the humans forgot the earth and looked up to the sky too much- the earth was breathing to much dust and started to cuff- thats how the earthquake happened.




We meet granny Saada in the ruins of her house at the side of the street ( near Pariaman) . The house was old and build after the traditional indonesian way in wood and since generations her family lived in it. Now just one room is standing, the whole back of the house just collapsed. Also Saada hid under the table when the earthquake happened while her family ran on the street- she followed them soon- luckily nobody got hurt.
The maybe 70 years old small and skinny woman sleeps next to the street on the veranda of her destroyed house. Today her son wants to build her a tent. Saada still is afraid and made a very disorientated impression.




I ask our driver Auk how he experienced the earthquake. He was sitting in front of the already mentioned Abuacang hotel in Padang drinking a coffee after he drove some guest back there. He describes the waves and than the earth shaking up and down. After it ended he stood up and everyone screamed: Tsunami! Tsunami!
together with many others on the street he started running towards the Campus of Padang as it is laying higher and the assigned place to run to when a Tsunami comes.
In the streets was a total chaos- cars standing on the streets, many motorbikes had had accidents during the earthquake and people where screaming. All electricity and cellphone and land lines were not working anymore.
When he realised that it was not a Tsunami he returned home to look after his wife and 3 children ( 5, 12, 15) He found his wife there in panic as their children where not home and they didnt know where they were.
Auk took his scooter and drove from one friends house to the other to find them. Only 5 hours later he brought his 3 children back home- none of them got hurt.
His house is a bit destroyed but its still possible to life in it.
In the night he went again out on the streets that where dark- many people asked for help but he could only tell them that he cannot help them as there is no light and he is just one person against the collapsed concrete. Only in the morning when the light came back the first ambulances, fire-brigades military and rescue teams came to help the people.
Auk’s children are still afraid when they here load noises like planes- they say: earthquake, earthquake then. Auk himself is not afraid of another earthquake but of a Tsunami- and there is a relevant danger of Tsunami on Padang city.

Indonesia: arriving in Sumatra

12.11

Some hours ago we arrived in Padang, a city at Sumatra, one of Indonesia’s Islands.
We means: 11 therapists, psychologists, doctors, experiaciel educators and Eurythmists that will work with traumatized children for two weeks.
On....an earthquake happened in and around Padang in West Sumatra. around 1000 people died, about 50% of the houses in the city are not safe enough to life in anymore or actually collapsed.

On the way from the airport to our hotel and on a little walk around the block here I could see already some of the destroyed houses- and two huge shopping malls that partly collapsed.
After my experience with destruction and trauma in Gaza, here I meet both again, but in very different forms.

13.11

Today was the day of organizing and having a look on what happened here. Its depending on the area but many houses are destroyed. Some just collapsed, some just have Risse. Houses just collapsed over the people and buried them under the rubble.
This morning we had a meeting with our partner, the Regional mental health department Padang. A team of Psychologist’s- all women- received us and gave us our assignment. A refugee-camp in the mountains.
We drove up to the mountains, near a lake- there in a small village that will be our working place for the next week. A village not far away collapsed under the rocks that fall down from the mountain during the earthquake ( actually a part of the mountain fall down) 750 people where displaced into tents on the football field of their neighboring village.
As the ride from Padang to there takes about 3 hours we will move next to the village in a hotel beside the lake called: Maninjau near a city called: Agam in West Sumatra province 80 km from Padang. The Area is extremely beautiful, the lake is surrounded by up to 2000 m high mountains and rice fields. Water-buffalos are everywhere.
About the refugee camp and it’s people tomorrow more as i don’t know a lot yet.
Its warm here but not to hot and since the sun went downs its raining- that will be a mud fight in the camp tomorrow.