 |
| Close to home: Mount Merapi serves as a backdrop and a constant reminder amid the rows of dwellings at the ACT shelter in Yogyakarta. (PHOTO: Benjamin Rogers/The Jakarta Post) |
YOGYAKARTA, JAKARTA POST.com - At 2 a.m. on Nov. 5, 2010 Mariyani sped away on a motorbike, clutching her two small children as she wove around cars amid the hot ash, sand and gravel spewing from Mt. Merapi.
Caked from the raining muck and facing treacherous roads, the glowing red peak over her shoulder and the two young lives in her lap impelled her forward.
“I knew my life was not in my hands,” she said.
It was her second evacuation in as many weeks, having left her hometown of Kali Tengah Lor, 4 kilometers from Merapi, during the first eruption on Oct. 26 by order of her village head. She and her husband took their two motorbikes and children and joined the exodus from Merapi.
“The roads were very crowded, full of sirens, horns and some accidents.” She said. The volcanic ash raining down on them did not burn, but was rather “warm like cooked rice”.
Their first refuge in Gela Gahorjo was a hall built especially for refugees. But the ferocity of the eruption on Nov. 4 drove them away again. This time she made the trip without her husband, who was away on a night shift with a work crew.
Without husband or helmet, she fled to the shelter in the Maguwoharjo soccer stadium, making the
15 kilometer trip in 30 minutes. They arrived, so covered in dried ash-rain she said they looked like terrified statues.
But the nightmare did not end there. The stadium shelter was so crowded she could not find friends or family and would not be reunited with her husband until the next morning. She and her family stayed at the stadium shelter until Jan. 20, nearly 11 weeks, enduring zero privacy, declining health and insufficient facilities, all the while evacuating and returning several times as Merapi refused to quit.
The toilet queue was unbearably long and her children developed coughs. Conditions were bad.
Her friends told her about another shelter. The Fast Action Response (ACT) shelter in Gondang Legi, Pakem, Yogyakarta province, was a godsend for her and many others like her.
The blocks of dwellings are built on stilts set in thick concrete pillars, constructed of bamboo to be resistant to quakes, floods and wild animals, and there are plenty of toilets and baths to go around.
Beny Syamnsul, 29, the director of the ACT shelter, makes his way through the blocks, saying hello and checking in with some of the 466 people living there. He greets the kids as they return from school and welcomes visitors.
“ACT is about total disaster relief. Our organization operates in disaster mitigation, emergency aid and recovery. This shelter is the foundation of our Merapi recovery program. We provide physical recovery, in the form of the shelters and schools. We provide mental recovery with trauma healing and medical services. And we provide economic recovery for the refugees, arranging programs to help them stand up on their own again,” Beny told The Jakarta Post.
For Somarti, 42, from Petung, ACT’s shelter offered much needed relief for her elderly mother-in-law, who developed fever and asthma from the conditions at the Maguwoharjo Stadium. At the ACT shelter, with an improved environment and available medical facilities, her mother-in-law regained her health.
ACT’s recovery initiatives include a patch of rice fields where the adults can work as well as provide a harvest of food for the shelter; the women make handcrafts and a livestock farm is currently in development to provide further work training and opportunities.
For Superti, 43, that is just what he needs. He evacuated with his family from his village of Mengong on Oct. 26, but returned shortly after.
“We only went 2 kilometers away. The ground shook and trees fell over, but it was like the other eruptions, so we went home. We thought it would be safe,” he said. He had endured eruptions in 1994 and 2006, but they were relatively minor, “only bringing about some smoke”, he said.
When Merapi exploded on Nov. 4, it was the biggest he had ever experienced. It took his village, his cattle farm and his whole way of life with it. Here, Superti and people like him have a chance to rebound.
“ACT is not just a shelter, but people empowerment, community empowerment, to help them stand up again,” Beny added.
For the kids, the frightening days of eruptions and evacuations have given way to better times.
Fian, 10, from Mengong, has been in three different schools in three months, and one of them was conducted in Sunda, a language he is not familiar with. But all the kids in the ACT shelter agree they are much happier there. Despite the challenges of adjusting to a new school, life at the ACT shelter provides a sense of normalcy again. Boys like Apri have their soccer field, and girls like Lina have their friends, and they can begin to put the trauma behind them and just be kids again.
ACT was on the scene the moment Merapi’s warning status was elevated. During the eruptions, ACT went to work evacuating and rescuing victims. As the volcanic activity abated, ACT adjusted to the new threat of floods of volcanic mud.
Although the emergency is over, the devastation remains and the road to recovery for Merapi’s victims is a long one. That is the crux of ACT’s mission. The shelter’s recovery program lasts one year. In addition to the training and healing the people receive, the recovery capstone will be the construction of a new home for each of the 140 families.
However, such a comprehensive effort requires financial support.
“This whole shelter was built from donations from people and corporate social responsibility initiatives,” Beny said. “We depend on the public 100 percent, but this is not about obligations.
It’s about how much people care about people, how much they care about their brothers. People responded well to the emergency, but recovery is the bigger job.”
— Article and Photos by Benjamin Rogers – The Jakarta Post -Sat, 03/12/2011
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar