SUNDAY 14 JANUARY 2007:

Nina of the Australia Red Cross and a driver arrive at 7.45, to take us to Cot Cut where we are going to run badge workshops, parachute games and a performance for children and families living in temporary housing the Australian Red Cross have built. The houses are built on a long strip of land, with individual houses on either side of a central road, with a river one side and lush paddy fields the other side. There is far less rubbish here than in most places we have visited, and lots of the houses either have pots of flowers in front of them, or have planted little gardens. This is certainly the nicest temporary housing we have seen so far.

A GROUP OF BOYS DESIGNING THEIR BADGES VERY CALMLY

Better organised

This session has been far better organised than the gig last Sunday for the Australian Red Cross at Lhong Raya Barracks – partly because the number of children is far smaller, but also because Nina has put a lot of effort into planning the session really well and she takes it very slow, which is fine by us. The session goes so slowly that we spend almost 3 hours there – and it was a very happy and enjoyable time for the children, their families and us.

ME RUNNING A BALL ROLLING PARACHUTE GAME

We start with badge making, with the children in small groups on the floor of the balai – there are only about 60 children, so we let them make 2 badges each - they seem very keen on Gam here, and several badges are made in the Gam colours. Then Haggis runs parachute games on the roadway (which have to be stopped at moments to allow the occasional vehicle through) – there really is a space problem in so many of the barracks and the temporary housing shelters – it would be so nice if somehow communal space could be made available to the communities!

A WONDERFULLY CALM GROUP OF GIRLS DESIGNING THEIR BADGES

I take over the games from Haggis so that he can have a quick “breather” before his show. We play some Parachute Football and then try rolling the ball around the perimeter of the parachute – this is a great exercise and involves everyone working together,lifting and lowering the parachute alternately to help the ball on its journey – we get the ball around 4 times before everyone collapses in laughter and it is time for the show.

A WONDERULLY CALM AND HAPPY MOMENT AT THE BADGE TABLE - ALL BADGES MADE - EVERYONE VERY HAPPY - NO STRESS! IT'S NOT ALWAYS LIKE THIS!!

Huge applause

Haggis emerges from where he has hidden behind the balai, to huge applause. The man who had made the announcement over the tannoy system about the show taking place, had neglected to turn off the microphone, so there are some awful feedback noises until we manage to sort that out. I badge-make the whole way through the show and for a good 20 minutes after it, until at last the final badge is made and the children made their way home. A really nice morning.

What happened to the children

I wondered why there were not more children as this is quite a big temporary housing shelter – 166 houses for 166 families, who were moved up here from the Calang area after the tsunami, as their village had been completely decimated and the area is still flooded. I check with Nina, and yes, there are only 56 children “on roll”. With 166 families, you would expect to find at least 300 children – but no, there are only 56 - it dawns on me slowly what a huge number of children must have died in the tsunami. What a horrible thought! I suppose children, being smaller and probably not knowing how to swim, had less chance of survival than adults when the wave came. I feel very sad, but am then somewhat cheered by being introduced to several post-tsunami babies and toddlers.

Coffee house

Nina and Irvin take us for lunch at a “coffee shop” on our way back to the hotel. They all believe that “Aceh coffee” is the best in the world, and it must be said that it was excellent, and this coffee house was amazingly full and lively – at least 200 people (98% men) sitting round tables talking loudly and animatedly – it was something we just hadn’t come across before and it felt very “alive”. When the Call to Prayer came, about a third to half of the people left (presumably to pray) and the shutters over the windows to the front road were pulled down – it was like a “lock-in” in an Englsih pub! I believe you can ask for “special coffee” at this and several other “coffee shops” and be given coffee which has marijuana in it – but we didn’t ask for any.

Back to Green Paradise for some hot-mailing, a quick rest and a dip in the pool before Farid and the nice Malaysian volunteer come to collect us at 3.00 for a gig out at Leupung Housing in Riting.

Beautiful beaches

Riting is 45-minute drive west and then south. Here the rocky hills/mountains are very near the sea, and you can really imagine how the wave came in, smashed everything against the rocky lower reaches of the mountain and took people and houses out to sea. It must have been horrendous. We can clearly see where the wave reached on the rocks – about 40 ft high.

There are some beautiful beaches alongside the road, and as it is Sunday, many Acehnese are bathing or playing around on the sand. We eventually arrive at the venue, but no one is clear where we should do our “stuff”. The balai seems to be a praying-only balai rather than an all-community-stuff balai, but someone eventually agrees that badge-making is a nice quiet activity and that I can do that with the children in the balai.

A GAM FLAG BADGE BELOW

Forty-five children

Apparently there is a celebration in a neighbouring village and many of the children have gone there, but we have about 45 children to work with. As there are so few of them, we let them make two badges each (and some indeed may have managed to sneak more!). Several of the boys design Gam flags on their badges.

IMMENSE CONCENTRATION IN THE PICTURE ON THE RIGHT!

GAM

(GAM is/was the revolutionary group that had “conflict” with the Government from the mid-60’s onwards. Many thousands on both sides died in the Confilict, and many NGO’s believe that the Conflict caused more trauma even than the Tsunami. In August 2005, eight months after the Tsunami, the Government and Gam signed a Peace Treaty, which seems, thankfully to be holding. (Though you wouldn’t know that from reading the British Foreign Office website – they make Aceh sound incredibly dangerous and advise against travel here – which I think is wrong – we feel extremely safe here.) It is wonderful that both sides realised that to heal and recover after the tsunami, they all had to work together. They have created a real silver lining! Oh that the Tamils and the Sri Lankan government could do the same! Very recently, just before we arrived here at the end of December, elections were held in Aceh Province, and the Gam candidates did very well, winning many of the seats. The heads of many areas are now Gam ex-leaders of the Conflict. Some people think this is a very good thing (the head Gam man is the only one who has spoken out about the Shariya police, saying he does not think they are needed. We have not seen the Shariya Police at all while we have been here, but there were recently photographs in the Sunday Times of a whipping of women by the Shariya Police.) Other people seem less keen on Gam being in charge. Hard to know which way it will go. Anything that reduces corruption and ensures that aid money goes where it should, is good by me.)

THE ADULTS LOVE THE BADGE-MAKING TOO!

There is a young man with only one leg who joins us for badge-making in the balai – he draws the wave on his badge. I didn’t question him, as I think people prefer not to be reminded of the horrors too much, but it did make me realise that we had seen very few physical disablements – this young man was the only amputee we have seen. You would expect to find more – I certainly saw more amputees in Thailand and Sri Lanka – I think what it must be is that here in Aceh the wave was so incredibly strong, that if it got you, you were dead not damaged. I wonder how many really died, and what it must have been like in the aftermath – perfectly horrendous, I imagine. Yet, only just over two years later, these people are going about their lives. They have dealt with it far better than we in the west could cope with a disaster of this scale, I think. I admire them very much!

THE ADULTS ARE VERY KEEN ON THE SHOW TOO!

Hags takes the children out to play parachute games on an OK-ish bit of grass. We still haven’t decided where to do the show – there is nowhere perfect. In the end we set it up right by the road in a gravely parking lot area. We lay the parachute down as a seating area for the children.

No electricity - use the car radio

There is no electricity available – what to do? The show really is not so strong without music. There is a radio in the Muslim Aid jeep, so while Haggis is changing, I fiddle with the I-trip, and lo and behold, mechanical incompetent that I am, I manage to line up the radio to 87.9 and we can play the show track through the radio which turns out to be far better and louder than using our own speakers! A great success, that we will repeat in future. So we have about 45 children, but because we are so near the road we gain a really big audience which probably reaches 250 at its peak, including a huge posse of passing motorcyclists.

THE BALL'S BEEN SPINNING FOR AGES - THE BOY'S A STAR!

BUT OH DEAR, IS HE ON THE VERGE OF FALLING OF THE SUITCASE!

BE SURE TO CLICK ON THE PHOTO TO SEE THE AMAZING LOOK ON HAGGIS'S FACE!

Traffic jam

We set off back to Banda at about 6.30 but don’t get there till 8.00, as there is an absolute traffic jam of people who had been enjoying the beaches all day, heading back to Banda too. We had come over a single file bridge on the way here, and we all have to queue to get back over it. I go for a walk along the queue to have a cigarette and have to fight my way through the chewed corncobs and plastic water bottles that litter the verge.

Once back at Green Paradise, we start our packing so as to have less to do in the morning, and eat take-away pizza (again! The only drawback to this hotel is that they don’t do proper dinner in the evening, only Acehnese local stuff, which we aren’t wild about, and we are quite far from everywhere. We are almost always too tired to head out to eat after a show, so we have been very good customers for Pizza Express – but I’m really not sure how many more of these I can eat!) Set the alarm for 4.00 am and hit the sack.