Posted 9:27 AM by Paul
Report from Indonesia

I have not blogged for ages for three reasons

• Flu over Christmas
• Hectic at work
• The Tsunami

There was nothing I could add that had not already been said about the largest natural distaster of the last 100 years. An Amercian friend Tom Turley - who I first met in Spain in the 80s - has been over there working. Here is part of his report.

I've only had a chance to see the destruction in the downtown and port areas, i.e. I've not gone to other coastal areas. The enormity of the destruction is staggering and mind boggling to see in person. Hard to grasp. Photos and video do not sufficiently convey what has happened here. It blows you away. If any of you got to see ground zero of 9/11, now imagine that type of mess over several square miles when thinking of the port and downtown area of Aceh. And then think about the fact that it happened all along the sumatra west coast and in other countries. Bodies will be discovered for several weeks to come I believe. There is so much massive debris to still be cleared. Despite this hurdle and the disaster, the people are highly resilient, looking to move forward and making a great step in that direction. This disaster is really all encompassing in ways that aren't always apparent - families lost, livelihoods ruined, housing gone, etc. etc. Think about the ramifications of a place instantaneously losing 25%-50% of their teachers, medical professionals, and so on.

As for those of you who have asked about the reports of insurgents taking action and the government restricting movement, these reports are false as far as my experiences and as far as what I've heard from other workers who have been doing assessments in other parts of the country. the police/military have asked/required that groups register in some regions and that they keep the authorities informed of comings and goings and activities, but these are reasonable measures. They need to know what is going on in their country and the information is necessary so that resources aren't wasted, efforts duplicated, and so that affected populations are hopefully not overlooked. My experience with the Aceh people has been very positive thus far, even with the large language barrier (heck, in Aceh alone there are 20 dialects).