"Aceh Province
As the cumbersome coach lurched blindly round the bend into the beam of two large headlamps the air conditioning did little to stop the beads of sweat running down my back. Our driver dismissed the oncoming lorry with a brief cry from the horn before heaving the bus back onto the correct side of the road in front of a frail looking motorcyclist. “ Don’t worry this is how they all drive over here, to get a licence all you have to do is turn up with the fee” I was reliably informed after the ride, had I known this I would have shared more of Alan’s hesitance before agreeing to a 12 hr journey on the twisting roads from Medan up to the Tsunami torn Banda Aceh. Busy streets were filled with lean men in tattered clothes. Pedalling large boxes balanced precariously on their bikes they battled against the blaring horns of blacked out 4x4’s. Stalls hawked odd shaped fruits covered in grime off the muddy streets while partially paved back streets hid dingy rooms containing anything, from diesel engines to crates of live chickens. We were in Indonesia.
Arriving in one piece we were taken to find western friendly food by our SOS representative Panut Hadisiswoyo. Based in Medan he and his team have to take the treacherous journey to Banda Aceh regularly transporting the Oranguvan to the region in an effort to educate locals to the importance of caring for the environment. He had originally set up the organisation Orang-utans Information Centre (OIC) that now works in conjunction with SOS in Sumatra. Over, what both Al and I hoped was chicken at dinner, we discussed our plans for the next few days to visit several different projects that he had running.
On a tight timetable we were up and out of our basic accommodation the next morning and on our way to their mangrove project. As we pulled round the tight corners between ramshackle houses we were suddenly faced with a huge vessel lying amongst the village buildings. Cars crushed beneath it like empty coke cans trampled by this colossal steel foot, the vast mass of the once floating power station brought home the sheer force of the waves that had carried it five kilometres over land and indiscriminatingly dumped it here two years ago. Unable to move its gigantic bulk the victims remains still lie under its hull. A sombre memorial to the people of the Tsunami.
Reaching the mangrove projects we saw the modest wooden hut that they were using as an education centre, previously it was a building before it was washed away leaving nothing but its foundations. A group of around twenty women were busy selecting plants from the varying ages of mangroves developing in the makeshift nursery. “ They have to be the right age to plant, if they are too young or to old they won’t take” we were told. Another German NGO present expressed his frustration that he had purchased hundreds of saplings for his project to be planted but government bureaucracy meant that when the go ahead would be given the plants would be useless. Panut explained that they had had real trouble in establishing a successful replanting scheme. Early on they had lost large areas of sapling mangroves as they were incorrectly planted. He said he had sought specialist advice on the matter and now their success rate was much higher, other charities, however, were still experiencing problems. Indeed through out the course of the day it became evident that many of the mangrove planting schemes had failed, regimented lines of brittle twigs and piles of the small empty black bags they had arrived in lined the beaches.
The women were part of two volunteer groups who operated here, one female and one male. They make a wage from helping out, as they wouldn’t be able to do this work otherwise. As they dug deep holes into the muddy banks along the waters edge the sun beat down and we wondered how they could work in the close heat that became almost suffocating. Scattered along the banks of a small river mouth laid six or seven brightly coloured small boats, their oddly exaggerated bows pointing dramatically up to the sky. Some on their sides others muddy and unused this too became a common sight along the coast line. Donated to the fishermen of the villages during the aftermath of the disaster, these boats had been hastily built and as the first of the fishermen set out back onto the ocean with trepidation their villages watched in dismay as they gradually sunk into murky water. Now they lay discarded by the locals who were hoping for more improved vessels.
Next we visited Linda, an English NGO married to an Indonesian. She had been working in the area a decade prior to the Tsunami on social projects with locals caught in between the struggle for independence that raged before the Tsunami struck. GAM (Free Aceh Movement) were active in the province for many years and had had between five and ten thousand core members hidden in the surrounding jungle. Now they were largely employed by the government or local projects due to their unique knowledge of the area and the tempting influx of funds after a peace deal was brokered in Jakarta last year. Aceh had always been an area of concern for international governments and its strict Muslim society provides concern in the current climate. Efforts had been clearly made by the US and the West to ‘infiltrate’ the area. KFC and western restaurants had sprung up in recent years catering to the European and North American NGO’s, some of whom we saw lunching in the expensive Chinese restaurant we ate at. However, over the course of next year the permission from the government for NGO projects expires and many of the projects and the high wages they pay will leave the area. Accustomed to the benefits the Aid projects brought, locals have seen an unprecedented inflation of prices from property to food in the region. However, the impact this will have as global interest and cash drains from the area may have unknown social effects. Already communities are suffering from corruption and greed. This is alongside a newly implemented Sharia Law, a strict Islamic law running parallel to the state. It polices the predominantly Muslim community and has the ability to cut off the hands of thieves, stone adulterers and enforces mandatory headscarves for women.
After our lunch we ventured into the local villages worst affected by the disaster. Poorly painted houses sat like an odd patchwork across the often desolate landscape. Lime greens and bright pinks thinly disguised the shabby concrete walls of the homes, many unoccupied. Some allocated houses were for dead members of the community there names assigned by duplicitous authorities, empty schools looked out over childless communities, never had the area had such opportunity to build for free and they were taking full advantage.
We pulled up by a small unpainted mosque. Inside a project teaching arts and crafts skills on the brink of extinction to local women, a psychosocial event aimed both to engage communities and save traditions. Outside we found the Oranguvan, chased by a smattering of surviving children as they gleefully ran clutching books and leaflets, some in local language and others in English. Meanwhile the men of the village took frail looking shoots of fruit trees distributed by SOS to plant in their new gardens. These fragile communities were still picking up the pieces, children growing up with no grandparents, cousins or siblings, no one was complaining about the small houses they’d received because they had no one to fill them."
http://www.orangutans-sos.org/
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