Last posting for Nias

I left Nias on 1st November so this is the final posting. I am not expecting to go back. The next blog will entry will be for Uganda, I will be back in Patongo on 24 November.

Some people were very happy with what we had done. Below is the Hiliweabu community, a celebration of the opening of their clinic.

This was the same day that we evacuated Tuhemberua due to threats from another community where we had built a clinic.

The same day we also handed over bathing shelters in Sambulu - part of the project brought clean water from a protected spring to 2 parts of the village. These people were happy to have clean water in their end of the village for the first time.

The contractor completed the staff quarters for the clinic in Tuhemberua in just 6 weeks but then he demanded payment of the fee for completing the construction and the retention fee due in January.
In Ko'olotano, we built latrines, protected a spring and created a water tank

We completed mosquito distribution so that every household in Lolomatua and Lolowa'u has one or two mosquito nets. Here's a girl collecting her nets.

Every household has been registered so we know who gets one or two nets.
We had a party on Sunday 19 October to celebrate the end of the programme. In the picture is our doctor, Reksa, my boss, Hylton, the desk officer, Katharine and an independent evaluator, Kevin. And in the middle the traditional pigs head.
Nias people seem to be great musicians. Yusman, our translator, brought his band and led the singing.
And finally, some children peering out of the window of thier home in Tuhemberua

Post cards from Calang

I travelled to Banda Aceh to register for a temporary residents visa. Our base is 5 hours drive along the cost in Calang. The roads are quite rough and when they are near the ocean, it is clear that the old road was washed away in the tsunami. In some areas the coast line is now 100m or more further in land than before the tsunami. Evidence of its destructive power is everywhere to be seen.

This used to be a 2 story building, its made of reinforced concrete.

The twigs in the background are thousands of dead palm trees. My back was to the sea, these trees used to be on dry ground. The tsunami bent them over, stripped them of leaves. Now it looks like a convention for telegraph poles. The roots are in salt water so they are doubly dead
The stumps of palm trees where the sea has reclaimed the land
You can just about see dozens of new houses that have been built, just as vulnerable to a tsunami as before. They are almost all the same design, set out in neat rows like a cheap European suburb. I wonder what it will do to culture and community adhesion ?
It's an islamic country so of course there are mosques, I think this one is a gift from Saudi Arabia
The Medair compound in Calang is right on the coast, very attractive

The compound is large, there is a reasonably reliable electricty supply, running water (pumped up from a well), hot water in the shower (propane gas heater), internet access (satellite), satellite TV, plenty of living and office space. We took over the compound from another NGO that has left (there are other vacant compounds nearby).

On the right is a palm tree with nothing on top, stripped by the tsunami - one day it will simply topple over. They are about 20m high

Traditional houses and other pictures

Nias is very prone to earthquakes so over the years, local people developed earthquake resistant houses. The village of Tumori is 30 minutes from the Medair office and there are several there. And on the road that we take from Gunung Sitoli, we have found 9 such houses. They are built on wooden supports without foundations. The stilts and cross beams rest on rocks. So when the earth moves, the house is meant to float over the ground. The high roof is meant to absorb the stresses in the structure. Nias is heavily forested so wood is available and the roof is covered with palm leaves. The houses are typically over 100 years old so they have survived some major earthquakes in their time.

These are in Tumori

These on the road to Tuhemberua- most are still lived in, although the one below belongs to a museum in Gunung Sitoli

Old and new - this house is in Gunung Sitoli with its idol in the front garden (there is traditional veneration of ancestors) and a satellite TV dish behind.

Arjan Buitenhuis is with me for 4 weeks, his job to build 2 clinical waste incinerators. He is an industrial designer by training so the first thing he did was to build a scale model

Last week I went to Teluc Dalam in the south of Nias and the administrative centre of Nias Selatan of South Nias. You have to cross some interesting bridges !

This was taken from one of the bridges

But there are some lovely parts of the coast line.

Images from Lolomatua

Some more photos so you can see some of the people and environment in which I am working.

This is Kathleen Hagen Bakker, married to Pieter Bakker the construction manager. Kathleen manages the Gunung Sitoli and Lolomatua bases and is responsible for Beneficiary Accountability which means ensuring that the community know what we are doing and why and are able to give us feedback, positive and negative.


This is the Lolomatua kitchen where 2 cooks prepared lunch and dinner for about 15 peopl each day. Lunch today was delicious pork cooked in a rich spice mix. It's all cooked over the 2 gas rings you can see.
The main office, the front door is behind me, 2 offices off to the left, an office/dining room/meeting room ahead and beyond that the kitchen. Sitting is Sonyah who does hygiene promotion.
Mr Tema, the admin/finance officer. The custom is to call everyone Mr or Miss so I am Mr Geoff. Mr Tema speaks good English, he is very bright and will be standing as a candidate in the 2009 national elections
Sadymina has been doing mosquito distributions and running training at vaccination posts called posyandus. She is short of work at the moment, we are still waiting for more mosquito nets to be delivered. 4500 were due in Nias this week but an email today said there are customs problems and they are still in Jakarta.
Off the kitchen is the rain water harvesting tank - most houses rely on collecting rain water off the roof. Ours is a large tank, perhaps 10,000 litres when full. It was raining heavily when I took this photo as you can see from the flow of water. Of course you can't drink the water but we wash in it - that means a bucket and a dipper. You can have a warm wash if you boil the kettle !
Pieter Bakker at the Sambulu protected spring. We are building bathing shelters in Sambulu and we were not sure if the spring was properly protected so we walked about 2km up hill through rice fields and cassava fields and found a well protected spring built in1996. The water flows in a 1 inch plastic pipe to the village and provided the pipe is in tact, the water would be good to drink
And here is one of the 2 bathing shelters being built, one side for men, one side for women. Inside is a small tank of water filled from the spring - you take a dipper and wash in the spring water.
We handed over 2 clinics to the local authorities on 13 August. Proceeding started in front of the clinic with me reading my speech in Bhasa. Then the pastor read from Jeremiah 17 and prayed. Then the Camat cut the ribbon and declared it open.

The rest of the proceedings were at the next door school.
The contractor handed over the keys to Medair

Medair handed over the keys to the Camat

Then we had lunch. A Nias tradition is to present a cooked pig's jaw which is in front of the CamatAnd another pig's jaw.
After lunch it turned into a singing session with the clinic staff leading the way. Pieter sang a humourous Dutch song.

17 August was Independence day. We were invited to join the Camat's party. He was resplendant in a white suit with white shoes but it looked more like a S.American dictatorship of the 1980's.

After a lengthy process to raise the Indonesian flag, there was a competition between school choirs. We lasted till the end of round one (13 choirs) and left at 14.30 - we had arrived at 10.00