May 19, 2011 -- Yogyakarta

DATE: Thursday, May 19, 2011

LOCATION: Yogyakarta

AUTHOR: Elaine Henrich

As I have for the past two weeks I had to heat water for my “shower”. Then I pour about one inch of the boiling water in a small pot, fill the rest of the pot with cold water and then pour over my head to wet my hair to shampoo. Then repeat the water procedure to rinse off and to wash the rest of my body. It’s amazing how little water can be used to get clean.

Breakfast is the usual fried egg, but after our first day with our host, we were able to buy wheat bread and a jar of peanut butter, so we had this for breakfast every morning instead of the usual fried rice.

Our tour today took us to Mt. Merapi, where we stopped at a damaged bridge to take a picture of the mountain and the lava flows. We then continued to the base of the mountain where we walked around for about half an hour. While most of the inhabitants had been displaced, people were beginning to rebuild homes and the vendors had set up their stalls. Much of the landscape consisted of the tree trunks that had been defoliated and broken.



Mt. Merapi destruction zone -- in the foreground is the rubble of
a home; the structure behind the rubble is the new house. Interesting
to note that they were using the same flor tile in the new house that
could be seen in the rubble from the destroyed home.



One vendor was making honey, by pouring the honey from the honeycomb through a rag over a soda bottle - so much for sterile filtering. Another vendor was the local “gas station” which consisted of one liter bottles of gasoline, which is probably all the gas you need to fill the tank of your motor scooter. I also bought a picture index that showed the various stages of the eruption of the volcano in all its fiery glory.



Typical Gas Station



We then stopped in the temporary housing village that had been set up by the Indonesian government for the people displaced by the volcano eruption. During the 2004 Orlando hurricanes we had many homes with blue tarp roofs, but this village was built with blue tarp walls and tin roofs. Each family had been given a generator so they had electricity and one of the “homes” we viewed had their TV playing. Since I volunteer for the American Red Cross, I was impressed by the blue barrels labeled PMI, which stood for the Indonesian Red Cross. Each family was given a barrel filled with supplies to re-establish their daily lives. There was also a white box labeled PMI which was filled with supplies for children under five.

Temporary shelter for victims of the Mt. Merapi eruption.

There was an easel sheet of paper hanging on a wall which listed the names of all the families in this make-shift village. They were categorized in groups of 10 families sharing 3 cows to be used for the plowing of their rice fields.

We then went to Kwuang Village where we were met by the townsfolk. We first made a presentation of three sewing machines that we donated. This was a symbolic gesture as we are actually donating ten sewing machines. The sewing machines will be used to put people back to work. We were served a snack before walking to the fish ponds to seed the ponds with the fish that we were donating. To the amazement of all of us, Roger Gatlin put one of the fish in his mouth as if he was going to swallow it. It still amazes all of us that he never got sick from this.



Phil stocking the fish pond.



We then continued to the rice fields where many of the FFI club members beat the rice off the stalks/reeds.

Another walk up the hill to the area where we planted the trees we had donated. These trees were to replace the trees that had been destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Merapi. Each FFI person had a placard with their name on it next to the hole where they were supposed to plant their tree. After the tree planting, we went back to the main house for lunch.

On the way back to the FF office where we met every morning, we stopped at an herbal factory. We found that this was owned by one of the local FF club members and I guess they were hoping that we would buy some of their herbs. The most amazing thing about this factory was that they glued each box together by hand. Talk about a small operation.

Since this was the last evening available to take our hosts to dinner, we went to the Royal Garden restaurant. Marcia and I ordered “stir fry chicken”, but what we got looked more like baked chicken. So we asked for another chicken dish that we thought would be cooked in a lemon sauce, instead we got something covered in honey and sesame seeds. So even though we didn’t get what we thought we were ordering, the food was good and the company great.

Our host gave us some farewell gifts-a batik shawl, a painted mask, a batik T-shirt and some replicas of Borobodur and Prambanan. A perfect ending to a wonderful week.