MONDAY 22 JANUARY:

No show this morning, so I have arranged for Muslim Aid to show us their new brick and cement permanent houses in Banda, as I think that at least some of the Festival money should now go to permanent rather than temporary accommodation. Ides have done a great job down in Teunom, building 28 temporary houses with Festival money, and it may be appropriate for them to build a few more (particularly for families who do not own enough land for any of the other NGO houses to fit on – most NGO’s are very rigid about the size of house they can/will build – but Ides, being splendidly flexible will convert their 6m x 6m houses into 7m x 4m or even, if necessary 7m x 3m houses if people simply don’t have wider land).

(I WILL WRITE MORE ABOUT THE WHOLE HOUSING SITUATION AND TALK ABOUT THE BRICK AND CEMENT HOUSES, AND THE WONDERFUL WOODEN PERMANENT HOUSES THAT MUSLIM AID ARE BUILDING WHEN I HAVE MORE TIME!)

Quick chat

BRICK AND CEMENT HOUSES BEING BUILT IN A SUBURB OF BANDA ACHEH BY MUSLIM AID

On our way back through town, after inspecting the brick and cement houses, we spot Dedy, who was our main taxi man in April last year, and leap out of the Muslim Aid vehicle to greet him. We have a quick chat, and arrange that he will pick us up at 3.15 to take us to the port to catch the ferry to Pulau Weh this afternoon.

Then we go to the ATM to get more cash, buy more pencils for badge circling and go to a travel agent to book our Banda-Medan flights for the 29th – a week today – I don’t feel ready to leave! Then we are given lunch at the Imperial Kitchen by Louse and Nina of the Australian Red Cross, so that Louise can interview us for a piece she is going to write and place on the Red Cross website. (We will put a link from our web page to theirs, once this is up.)

An hour left

Back to Green Paradise, and we have just one hour left before we need to leave for the ferry. I leap onto the hotmail, where there is nothing particularly interesting as it is still before 9am on Monday morning in England. I manage to post the diary up to midway through Saturday 20th, and manage to send all the photos to accompany the diary to our web master up to the end of the 2nd show on the 19th. I will try to do more from Pulua Weh, but internet access has been incredibly hard the last 2 times we have been there, so I am not entirely hopeful of succeeding.

Late for the ferry

I start throwing things into our suitcases, and suddenly it is 3.30 and we realise that Dedy has not turned up in time, and that we are in danger of missing our ferry. We ask for Yulfrita’s help and, bless her, she lends us her car and driver. It is getting nearer and nearer to 4.00, the time the ferry should leave, and we receive frantic calls from Dr. Farid, who has already reached the dock – we’re nearly there, we say, and indeed we manage to get onto the ferry with one minute to spare. The ferry of course then sits around for another half hour before hooting and leaving – talk about “hurry up and wait”! We munch on the ears of corn that Ulfrita has given us and eat the green cake that is handed out to passengers (someone in Peter Pan says one should never eat green cake, but I do). Everyone else looking a bit sickish as the sea is pretty rough and the fibreglass ferry is banging its way across the water. Hags seems to be mastering his seasickness far better, and sits determinedly reading the Jakarta Post with loud music from his ipod playing through his earphones. I try to catch the diary up to date, but the bumping is too much for me to be able to type with any accuracy.. I go on deck to have a cigarette, and again see the devastation caused by the tsunami – you really couldn’t design a place better to be an area of devastation and destruction in the case of a tsunami – shallow sea and huge shallow areas of land – still at least there are many more houses than when we were here in April – that’s a blessing. Housing really has speeded up quite a lot since we were here in April. BRR say that all rebuilding will be completed in 2007 and that BRR (the Government agency that is overseeing all the rebuilding and rehabilitation of Aceh) will close in 2008. Although it would be wonderful if everyone were rehoused this year, it seems overly optimistic considering the rate of progress so far – and BRR really must not close till all is complete and they are sure there are not people who have “fallen through the net”.

APPARENTLY THE WAVE HERE AT THE HARBOUR WAS DOUBLE THE HEIGHT OF THIS TOWER!

Mr Fir, our favourite Pulua Weh taxi driver, meets us off the ferry. He hadn’t realised that we would have Dr Farid with us, so has brought his brother, for whom there will now be no room in the taxi.. The brother is dispatched to the show on the back of someone’s motor bike,,and we just manage to squeeze all of us and the luggage and show stuff into the taxi.

Fifty excited children

We drive about a km down the road to Balohan, and guess what? It’s raining! About 50 very excited children are waiting for us and they clearly remember Haggis – who is so touched by their excited response to his arrival, that he decides to do the show regardless – but he is absolutely determined not to drop his hats in the mud!

The children sit and stand in the tiny balai (holding the banner) then there is a deep sewage drain, then Haggis performing on the road. The speakers are in the car.

TO THE LEFT: HAGS PERFORMING TO THE 40 CHILDREN IN THE BALAI THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SEWER (AND THE 100 OR SO ADULTS SCATTERED IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS AROUND HIM - THEY WOULDN'T COME ANY CLOSER, BUT LOVED THE SHOW NONETHELESS!)

TO THE RIGHT: THS SOUND SYSTEM IN MR. FER'S BEATEN UP TAXI

It works surprisingly well and we also have audience groups under shelter to the east, south and west of us….and quite a few extra in the road – probably 150 in total. It is a great success and I am very proud of Hsggis for pushing ahead in such crappy weather. There doesn’t seem to have been a lot of progress here at Balohan since we were here in April – and we hear that the Government wants the land back, so we wonder what is going to happen to these families.

Joy of joys

Drive to Laguna – joy of joys Room number 1 has been reserved and has been really well cleaned for us this time – a pleasant surprise after our arrival 2 weeks ago when the room was absolutely not ready and incredibly dirty. Farid joins us for dinner on the beach and then it’s straight to bed. Tomorrow we will go and inspect some of Muslim Aid’s traditional wooden permanent housing near Iboih, then we will have a meeting with Fadlullah Willmott, the big boss of Muslim Aid, and then we are ON HOLIDAY FOR TWO DAYS. Yeeha! We will catch the Friday morning early ferry back to Banda for our last five shows.