Yogya quake victims show initiative

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Sun, 10/08/2006 10:04 AM | Life

Christina Schott, Contributor, Yogyakarta

Welcome to Yogyakarta, the heart of Javanese culture, center of Indonesian arts and crafts, tourism destination and student town. Signs greet you everywhere on the way from Adisucipto Airport to Tugu Station. Driving along the main streets in the center, almost nothing but a few cracks hints at the destructive power of the May 27 earthquake. The view of construction sites is shielded by high fences, the rubble in front of damaged houses has disappeared and the shopping malls have re-opened.

But there is no way to overlook the damage left by the 5.9-quake as soon as you leave the city center. Going anywhere south or east will provide the same sights of destroyed houses, piles of bricks and tiles, bamboo and triplex huts or tents on empty foundations. An estimated 300,000 houses were destroyed or damaged, leaving around 1.5 million people homeless.

More than four months after the disaster, most of the victims live in makeshift homes built close to the remains of their former houses. In many places, construction materials and tools were provided by local and international NGOs. Some villages, however, did not receive any other help than food supplies and emergency items during the first weeks after the quake and have to be content with plastic covers and recycled bricks for their temporary homes.

Food stalls and shops have re-opened in improvised shelters. In the handicraft village of Kasongan, whole new facades are already rising out of the debris. However, the few new houses already built in the disaster area are all financed by private funding and donations. Except for the initial emergency support of Rp 90,000 and ten kilograms of rice per family, no one has received any help from the Indonesian government yet.

""There are rumors that the money from the government will arrive soon. Everybody with a broken house is supposed to get Rp 15 million. But I will only believe it when it's here"", says Muhammad from Sembungan village in Bantul. ""Nevertheless, there is already fighting between the villagers about who gets the money and who does not, whose house is damaged enough and whose is not. The strange thing is that one has to build a completely new house with this money. Recycling the remains is not allowed. What a waste,"" continued the father of two, whose house was half destroyed.

Due to the uncertainty about the official money as well as the uncountable rumors and mystic predictions about new disasters that circulate around the area almost every week, many quake victims are still reluctant to build a new house. But whether it is official or private funding, temporary or permanent buildings -- in the meanwhile, the reconstruction has started to become a race against time, since the rainy season is expected to start soon. In many villages, the inhabitants still live with their undamaged furniture under plastic covers. Not really comfortable and definitely unbearable in a heavy tropical rain storm.

Facing this pressure, some NGOs have seemed to intensify their efforts to provide construction material and tools. Every now and then the obligatory truck convoy from the International Organization for Migration, Oxfam, Red Crescent or Red Cross passes by with logistic supplies. Huge piles of bamboo and coconut wood wait at the main roads of Bantul and Klaten. The production of gedheg (traditional bamboo mats) is running at top speed, since most NGOs use this traditional material for their temporary houses. ""Most of our transitional shelter projects will be finished by October,"" says Heinke Veit, speaker of the European Commission Humanitarian Organization (ECHO), which finances 16 different emergency projects in the disaster region with 9.5 million euros (Rp 117 billion).

Fortunately, most villagers in affected areas have proved to have a very high degree of initiative. They have already cleaned up the sites and improvised as much as possible, so that they can start building a new home as soon as they are provided with the necessary means. ""It is a lot easier to help people with this kind of motivation than starting from scratch,"" says Marc-Andr Souvignier of the German Red Cross, who arrived in Yogyakarta just three days after the quake struck.

""Who else will help us, if we don't help ourselves?"" says Wagiyono, chairman of the Indonesian Red Cross in Klaten. ""But the motivation is definitely much higher, if people from outside care for us.""

The magic formula is the gotong royong (community work) spirit, which makes any cash-for-work program look silly. Like many other organizations, the German and Indonesian Red Cross include this local spirit in their cooperation plans. Since mid-August they have provided construction material and tools donated by ECHO to 8,000 families in Wedi district, Klaten.

At the beginning of September, around 15 men in Pacalan, Sukorejo village, were taught on how to built an earthquake-proof model house with a cement foundation, wooden pillars and walls of gedheg, following the sample provided by the NGOs. The set up house was given as a new home to the poorest of the community: a widow and her 100-year-old mother. Later, the trained men will help other villagers use the equipment distributed during the coming weeks. Everybody is free to use the provided material according to his own needs.

""So far, this is the first support for reconstruction we have received and we are really grateful for it,"" says village head Pak Teguh. ""These simple houses are absolutely enough in our current situation and we can look a little more relaxed about the rainy season.""

Nevertheless, the deeper one goes into the countryside, the more places one finds still overlooked by voluntary organizations, both in Central Java and in Yogyakarta.

In some areas, rice fields have dried out, since the irrigation systems collapsed in the earthquake. The farmers need tools to dig their wells deeper and afterwards they will need new pumps. In the meanwhile, they help themselves by growing corn, peanuts or ketela instead of rice. There are already plans by several organizations to help the farmers regain their livelihood. But at the moment the focus is on health, shelter, water and sanitation projects. So the Javanese seem to be trained once more in a virtue they know already very well: patience.

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