Indonesia 10

Sorry - it's been a while since I've updated this blog.

We have been flat out. Not just with our project activities, but also having trouble getting around as the rains bring floods and mud (we were bogged again today at Jono Jindi), and having trouble keeping up with Christmas activities.

The churches in Sulawesi have a Christmas event for everything. Every church group, every Corps, every youth program will have a Christmas event. This means that each day we are expected to go to one, somewhere, especially in areas where we have been working. One night it was the hospital, one night the schools, one night a Corps one...

Typically these events take the form of a church service complete with sermon, a bit like a Corps carols night in Australia. Except that after the service (at about the 2 hour mark) the 'fun' performances start, followed by door prizes, followed by speeches by politicians and committees and the followed by dinner. We attended one Corps youth Christmas that went for 4 1/2 hours last week, in Tanabopunti.

On the project front, things keep happening. Today I was able to visit a village where some of our temporary shelters are already built. Unfortunately, they haven't been built to a great standard and much of the conversation today was around how we fix this. We also delivered materials to another town where they will start building in the near future.

This is the last week that I'll be in Indonesia for the foreseeable future. I certainly would have liked to have moved things along a bit more than we have, but I know that the team that are replacing us are going to be in for a great time of implementation and transformation in the New Year.

Indonesia 9

Particularly in the early days of a disaster response, you can spend so much time planning, assessment, contacting donors, and working on what can eventually be done, that you can miss out on the implementation phase of many projects.

That's not to say that we aren't already responding, it's just that some things take a lot of time to do right.

Today was a bit of a relief from that process as we were able to deliver one of the tangible replacement assets to Woodward Hospital, a brand new ambulance.

This new ambulance is not only a replacement vehicle, but in keeping with our principle to always "build back better", it is better equipped and has higher specifications than the one it replaces.

It was a real pleasure to hand it over to the hospital today.

Indonesia 8

I haven't had a chance to update this for a few days as it has, in part, been flat out. However, in part, I've also simply been out of range of wifi/ phone etc.

During the week there have been a range of random activities. Some days were taken up seeing if toilets that we had commissioned for a camp of displaced people were actually finished. The answer, sadly, was no, and we're not sure where the contractor is at the moment. We restarted them the next day with a plan 'b' contractor.

Another morning was taken up with all of the other agencies that are funded through the Dutch government. We each had to meet to ensure that there is no duplication in services (ironically this in itself is duplication as we already check this off through UN OCHA) and also to learn about some funding requirements that weren't explained to us at the time of receiving the funding. (We think this is a problem with our partners back in the Netherlands.

It also highlights some of the less attractive, but necessary, parts of managing some of these projects. Wednesday morning, for example, was a full meeting looking at budgets for our mobile clinics, truama healing service and hospital repairs.

To contrast this, yesterday our team travelled out of town to the area of Dongi-Dongi, in the central Sualwesi mountains. We stopped at Ampera where we were able to check out the finished repairs to The Salvation Army health clinic and take some photos for the donors. We then proceeded further up the road to the "District 8" Christmas celebration. District 8 (in Australia, The Salvation Army would call them 'areas') is the smallest District in East Palu Division with 9 corps and a couple of outposts. But they are all within 5km of each other. Some are so close that they have made up names like "Nottingham" Corps, "William Booth" Corps and "Bramwell Booth" Outpost - because there are already a number of corps in the same town.

The Christmas celebration was great. Around 600 people from this one area gathering. Following that we stayed (17 people in total) at the Corps Officers house (around 4 in most rooms) before a liesurely drive back today. The hospitality of the Indonesian people is astounding; they graciously host us in their home, feed us and greet us gladly wherever we go.

Our newly repaired medical clinic at Ampera