Padang earthquake area, Sumatra

Thursday, January 14 we fly Garuda Air to Padang on the island of Sumatra (Jakarta is in Java).  My partner Dan has arranged with Save The Children to have us come perform and do workshops with the children affected by the earthquake that happened last fall, October/November 2009.  

Upon arrival at the airport, the call to prayer greets us through loudspeakers. It is noon and time to pray.  I don't notice anyone doing so, though.  Nonetheless, I am told this area is more conservative than Jakarta and other parts of Indonesia.  Better dress prudently, although not everyone wears the 'jilbab' (head-covering for women).

As we drive to the small town of Pariaman and onward to the surrounding villages where we will play with the children, we begin to see the extent of the damage.  Every other house is either completely collapsed or has cracks or gaping holes in the walls. Barely any buildings have been repaired or rebuilt thus far.  We are informed that the Indonesian government will not allow foreign aid organizations to help rebuild, as the government wants to take care of that itself, but so far nothing has been done. In the meantime, people have no homes and are living in tents or temporary shelters.

Our mission feels somewhat overshadowed by the disastrous earthquake that has just happened in Haiti.  Certainly the earthquake did not hit as hard here in Padang.  But whether a 1,000 or 100,000 people died matters little to those who lost loved ones or their homes.

We visit an area where a mountain side collapsed and buried a whole village.  On the way we drive through a makeshift road dodging gaping holes.  It looks like the earth has been turned upside down and inside out.  We arrive by a hillside overlooking a valley, which is where the village was swallowed up.  As we stand there contemplating the outcome, an older man approaches and begins to talk to us.  Luckily, Dan understands Indonesian.  He proceeds to tell us what happened to his village. It had been raining for a day and a half when suddenly without warning the earthquake hit, causing an immense landslide.  Forty children died in the school and thirty in the mosque.  He gives us gruesome details of bodies found, which I do not need to describe here. It seems he feels a great need to share, as one of the only survivors.

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