One year after disaster, Mentawai slowly in motion

Transitory: Temporary homes for those displaced by the tsunami in Mentawai one year ago line the road at Kilometer 6 on Oct. 26. JP/Wendra Ajistyatama“There was a small ceremony at the church,” says Kristian, 50, sitting on a bench in front of his house on North Pagai Island in the Mentawai Islands.

He was referring to a local commemoration one year after a tsunami struck on Oct. 25, 2010, killing 509 and displacing more than 10,000.

Kristian’s previous home was destroyed, and he now lives at Kilometer 8 along the bumpy and deeply damaged road from the town of Sikakap.

After entire villages near the sea were leveled by the 3-meter-high wave triggered by a magnitude-7.7 earthquake, displaced residents in the worst hit areas were relocated per a presidential instruction to sites inland and uphill, 25 meters above sea level, outside of the tsunami danger zone.

Temporary homes were built by the West Sumatra Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) with the help of aid groups, and people once from Ruamonga, Muntei and Sabeugunggung began to forge their lives anew in makeshift relocation sites in North Pagai: Kilometers 5 and 6, Kilometer 8, Kilometer 10.

One year later, the BPBD, working with various NGOs and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), is continuing to assist those impacted by the disaster.

Sitting in a small warung along Sikakap’s shore, a deep blue ocean dominating the landscape, BPBD Mentawai head Torminta said, “After a year it is still difficult for [the displaced] to find sources of income because the places where they live now are far from their old homes, the places where their livelihoods were derived. One difficulty is they now want to rebuild their lives but if they plant crops they cannot immediately reap the benefits.”

Ujang Suparman, the team leader for UNDP’s recovery program in Mentawai, said the UNDP was focusing on capacity building initiatives to speed up the economic recovery of people living at the numerous relocation sites in Mentawai, beginning with North Pagai.

He said it was critical that they listen to affected residents’ concerns and needs. “[The program] is very much dependent on their expertise, what they want. We can’t tell them what they should do. It is their plan, the kampung’s plan that is important … We help them develop the resources that they choose, including the social capital that they have, including the life skills they have, whatever there is. The spirit that there is to rebuild their lives and rebuild their livelihoods, that is what we support.”

At Kilometers 5 and 6, farmers were gathered on rows of wooden benches in the center of town, cups of coffee and cigarettes at hand, to participate in one such program supported by the UNDP through its local partner, the Research and Development Resources Center (P3SD).

Improvised: Part of the road from Sikakap is impassable, so travelers and their motorbikes must take a makeshift wooden raft pulled by children who make a little money from the work. JP/Wendra AjistyatamaA coordinator from Sikakap, Felik, was heading a three-day discussion of patchouli planting, and led local farmers into a nearby field under a drizzle of rain to demonstrate techniques for breaking up the soil for planting as well as pruning methods.  

Several men asked questions amid the lush and scented greenery of patchouli plants, and there was a resounding “Got it” from a few after Felik concluded his explanations.

Felik said it was important to help those displaced by the tsunami begin to sustain themselves again through activities like agricultural trainings. But, he also described the difficulties in providing assistance in these far-flung villages. “Cars can’t come in on the road to help,” he said.

After traveling the road from Sikakap to Kilometer 8, this is eminently clear. At one point there is, in fact, no road. Travelers and their motorbikes must stop and take a wobbly wooden raft across a small river pulled along by dripping, eager children, the remnants of a partially constructed bridge looming several dozen meters away.

The issue of access certainly makes it difficult to provide assistance in Mentawai. The usual route is a once-a-week ferry from Padang. Then there is the jarring and often muddy motorbike journey to the resettlement sites. In late October, there had been no cell phone service or Internet for a month.

But, the particular difficulties delivering aid extend beyond just reaching the sites with supplies or maintaining contact with those on the outside.

“After a year, there is one issue. We will start building permanent homes [for displaced residents]. For the permanent homes, from the program side and the budget side we are ready, but from the policy side the locations where they are now are in forest production areas, so in order to continue with the building of their permanent homes we have to get permission first from the central government.

The process is already through to the central level but… the status of the land is not yet clear. So it is a major obstacle we are facing,” Torminta said.

The relocation sites set up for displaced Mentawai residents are on Forestry Ministry production forest concessions (Hak Pengusahaan Hutan or HPH), i.e. land not zoned for homes or farming.

The village head at Kilometers 5 and 6, Goertimus, said, “Before the tsunami I was a farmer, I lived below and grew chocolate, patchouli. The fields below were destroyed, now it’s the economic recovery. [We are] building anew.” He gestured toward the foundations of an elementary school just meters away being built through the government’s National Program for Community Empowerment (PNPM), with other indications of renewal in the form of modest churches, pens for raising catfish and a small store that may one day become a village co-op.  

Packed: The ferry between Padang and Sikakap in the Mentawai Islands runs only once a week, and is crowded with passengers and supplies. JP/Wendra AjistyatamaThose structures, those agricultural activities, those plans, they signal that the dispossessed of Mentawai are in motion – as are those trying to help them – looking ahead and striving to create a sense of permanence amid sites that retain traces of transience: a handful of tents distributed immediately after the disaster by a relief organization; row upon row of temporary homes of plywood and corrugated iron, all in close proximity, some still obviously empty; bright orange rainwater catchments lining the road, as water sources are far from some relocation sites.  

Kristian, who spoke in the local Mentawai language, said he still tends to clove fields that were spared by the tsunami near his old village, a place that retains the wreckage of homes and warungs. He is, it seems, still straddling realms like other affected residents, one eye on a previous life but planting seeds for a future, all while inhabiting land that awaits resolution.  

As to how he feels about the tsunami one year on, Kristian said, “I still think about it from time to time but no longer have nightmares.”