Indonesia 2

Well, after 34 hours travel, meeting  with some headquarters staff in Jakarta and then moving on to Sulawesi... I now find myself coming to the end of day 1 as the new Team Leader for our international  support team working out of Palu.

For those that are still working out what happened here:

Earthquake in late September, followed by Tsunami, followed by second earthquake (a week later), "liquification" (water everywhere), a landslide...

The Salvation Army is well placed to help, too. In the affected area we have four divisions, comprising between 200-300 Corps, over 60 schools and a hospital. Our Emergency Services response, which I'm still getting my head around is helping thousands of families through (current count) 18 distinct projects that range from replacing Ambulances to providing WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) equipment, to looking a disaster risk reduction for the future and regenerating livelihoods.

Today has been all meetings, so there aren't any big stories to tell, except for that of Major Ety Fariani. She is the director of Woodward Hospital in Palu. On the day of the first earthquake, she managed (with her team) to evacuate the hospital completely without further injuries to anyone (!), set up mobile clinics and provide medical services to neighbouring towns. All of this while looking after her own team and taking in patients from all the other hospitals that couldn't cope. She is an absolute legend.

Otherwise, some new experiences for the first few days of travel:

Eating Snake Fruit and Mung Bean Juice
Finding that the urinals in the new Jakarta aiport are numbered - short men to number 1 (Dominic short, not me short), men needing to hold a frame to number 5 and so on.
Having my first bucket shower in a few years (our shower is on the left, our toilet on the right!)