Hurricane Dorian - Update 8

I missed last week's blog opportunity due mostly to the chaos of getting between islands and preparing for a distribution activity. One of the dilemmas of a response in an archipelago is simply getting around, communicating and shipping items. Those of you that are Facebook friends of mine would have seen me on the "ferry" between Great Abaco Island and Moore's Island.

For those that know their Disney resorts, this trip took us straight past Castaway Cay. CC is an island (originally Gorda Cay) that was bought by Disney as an exclusive island for their cruise ships to stop at.

Back to the hurricane efforts though:

The point of going to Moore's was to distribute non-food items to the community. As their school has been re-established already, there are a number of evacuees from Abaco here. However, they only have food come in by ferry twice a week and their "shopping" is limited to the post office and a small grocer - both of which have not been able to restock since the Hurricane.

Of a population of 900 on the island (not including undocumented migrants or evacuees from Abaco), only around 30 are currently still employed, all by the government. There is only one nurse on the island and no doctors.

We were able to ship over a range of goods: clothes, toiletries, person hygiene items, baby goods etc and support 85 households (around 350 individuals). We concurrently had a team with us comprising personnel from The Salvation Army, the World Food Program and Samaritan's Purse, who registered people for inclusion in our vulnerabilities assessment and therefore future distributions. \

We are really grateful to the church at the International Grace Ministry that allowed us to use their church for the day.

Hurricane Dorian - Update 7

There has been a lot of frustration of late with the slow response progress. By now, even in some of the most difficult environments, we would be moving from the response phase to the recovery phase. This is not the case on Great Abaco Island.

Even today I sat in a meeting with the Ministry of Public Works where we raised the lack of debris removal. Some residents have returned to clean up their properties and are resorting to burning debris as it cannot be removed/ isn't being removed. Working through their database we found that 75% of the contractors tasked with debris removal have not yet mobilised (their term).

It was really discouraging.

On the other hand, there are some clear signs of hope. People will often take control of their own recovery and there are those that are cleaning up and rebuilding. There are others that are using their skills and talents to try and work for the benefit of the rest of the community.

One couple have been painting murals around the town of Marsh Harbour to encourage hope and life. It's small, but it's... well, not small. It's colour, it's positive and it's hopeful.

Hurricane Dorian - Update 6

This week we were initially able to ensure that people with particular illnesses, disabilities or young children that required electricity had generators. These will keep medicines, formula and other necessities refrigerated and ensure that those that aren't well are more comfortable than they would be otherwise.

The distribution was done in partnership with the Bahamas Red Cross who did the hard work of identifying beneficiaries while we sourced the generators and shipped them to Abaco.

Joan from the Bahamas Red Cross & Brad with a generator beneficiary.

Later in the week we gathered together all of the enumerators that are helping the agencies involved in the vulnerabilities and needs assessment (see last update). The team leaders from each agency were able to provide training in confidentiality, protection principles, data recording, the use of technology for data recording (we are using online forms on the Kobo Collect platform) and safety.

Training for enumerators

This assessment is being undertaken with the resources of all the agencies involved and is attempting to cover the whole of mainland Abaco in a week so that we can evaluate the assistance provided so far and then ensure we are working well together on future assistance plans.

Finally, for those that have read other updates, all the health concerns have taken care of themselves (or been taken care of through medication and intervention!). Thank you for your prayers and support. 

Hurricane Dorian - Update 5

This week has been a bit up and down.

The ups relate mostly to when aid/ response and the relevant NGO, inter-government agencies and other actors are all at their best.

When we assist people, we need to determine the best beneficiaries of that assistance, which is usually done through an assessment process. This is done across communities and either performed by one NGO in a geographic area, or with a particular speciality, who then works through data sharing agreements with other actors to ensure that there is neither duplication or gaps in services.

Alternatively a group of NGO and inter-government actors can get together and do the assessments as a team.

In the Abaco Islands, the Bahamian Government's Department of Social Services decided to conduct the population assessment, but we are now 8 weeks past the disaster and they still are not completed. This is hindering direct assistance to many individuals.

As a result, those of us that want to get assistance out more efficiently have grouped together to do a more comprehensive, but also more expedient assessment that should cover the whole of the island region in the next two weeks. This consortium includes WFP, IOM, IFRC, ADRA, Samaritan's Purse, Heart to Heart and The Salvation Army. In one really productive workshop yesterday, between us we had come up with the assessment tool, logistical means, communications pieces, budget and funding and enumerators necessary to complete the task. Collaboration at its best.

The downs this week are more personal. I had experienced an insect bite a few weeks ago that developed into a significant cellulitis. Just as the treatment for that was underway, a new pharyngitis behind my adenoids stuck and meant I was having shocking fevers and couldn't swallow. Thankfully I believe that is also on the mend now, but for those of you that are pray-ers, our whole team could do with prayers for health and wellbeing while we are here!

Hurricane Dorian - Update 4

Strictly speaking, I suppose that this isn't a Dorian update. However, on days when you feel like your wheels are spinning and you're not making progress it's nice to get some encouragement from previous work.

This week, in Indonesia, some toilets were opened:

Lt.Cols Lyn&Ced Hills, leaders of the #SalvationArmy in #Indonesia open new toilet blocks built for schools damaged by the earthquakes in #Sulawesi. All toilets have a ramp for children with mobility issues&are constructed according to #SPHEREstandards. @Legerdesheils @SpherePro pic.twitter.com/bFs2KAPSDU

— IHQ-ReliefDev (@TSA_Projects) October 29, 2019

I was the lead on the project discovery, research and development around 10-11 months ago. A lot of work went into these toilets that are going to support 16 schools. They are a big deal because not only do they have water (!), but they are accessible, they have change and cleaning facilities for girls and they have separate teacher's facilities for best child safe practice and teacher's morale. 

The toilets mean girls will go to school even if they are menstruating. They mean that kids will stay healthy because they can wash. They mean that kids are safe and teachers are supported. They mean that disabled kids can go to school. 

You may have guessed - I'm really proud of these toilets and so glad that our hard work last year has paid off. 

On a day like today, which I spent at a coordination meeting followed by training in a hot tent on how to use the new IOM and NEMA* reporting tools, stories like this are so good and uplifting. 

(*IOM are the International Office of Migration and NEMA are the Bahamian National Emergency Management Authority). 

Hurricane Dorian - Update 3

Tonight just a brief update to give some good news following Monday's post:

We received our food box the next day and have been able to supplement our MRE with coffee, tuna and a few other non-perishables! Very grateful. Our car also arrived on the ferry. I use the term 'car' lightly - it's more like a truck; a Dodge Ram utility. While I'm grateful for having the wheels, driving in the left hand seat AND on the left hand side of the road is taking some time to get used to.

We have had intermittent power the last few days, and we've been blessed by the disaster tech team from the US who have donated to us a wifi hotspot for our accommodation. It's dependent on the phone towers working, though... which is proving to be another thing altogether.

Most importantly our work has been going on. We've organised distribution of 10 pallets of water and 8 pallets of bleach so far. This will enable people who are actually able to repair their homes to start the work of mould remediation and clean up.

We connected with a baptist pastor who has had 6 families from his church return to the island. They are staying in tents outside his church and he was so grateful that we had water for them, as well as the potential to get them some cooking stoves.

Back in Australia, the Salvation Army refers to transformation 'one life at a time'. We saw that very much on the weekend. When we were going through the warehouse I found a wheelchair; Doug, a colleague, had met someone in a borrowed (and broken) one, so we set this new one aside for him.

When we put it in the corridor at our headquarters ready to be delivered it disappeared. Those of you down under will know that we are still skeptical about whether or not the Thrift Shop manager sold it... even though she denies this.

So we went back to the warehouse where we found another. On Sunday evening, Doug took it to the address of the intended recipient, a double amputee, only to find that he wasn't home.

A man came running over to Doug and said, "God has told me to send you to the church down the road". Doug... being skeptical again.... almost turned around but thought "why not". He drove down to the church where the pastor's wife flagged him down. She asked Doug why he was in the neighbourhood and he told her the story. As it happens, the pastor of the church was on his way to pick up the amputee and bring him home... while the church was praying for both his recovery and the supply of a new wheelchair.

You can only imagine their surprise when Doug pulled one out of the back of the ute!

Finally, another nice note. We were sitting in our first coordination meeting the other day. I always like to sit at the back and observe and listen at first. The emergency administrator for the island saw me there and (in a slightly embarrassing move) pointed out that The Salvation Army were in the room and asked me to come up to the front working table. The shield does open doors!

If this link works (!) it's some photos from our work here that are on the IHQ Relief & Development twitter feed at the moment:

Brad from @salvos Australia has now taken on the responsibility of the relief distributions on #Abaco island, #Bahamas. He is also making sure that relief & recovery plans and activities there are coordinated with the government & other stakeholders. @TSACARTHQ @saworldservice pic.twitter.com/MnfZQ7oCr9

— IHQ-ReliefDev (@TSA_Projects) October 24, 2019

Hurricane Dorian - Update 2

I'm taking time to do an update this morning, using my phone hotspot, as there's not much else we can do at the moment. We have no power, no water and no vehicle.

I am in Abaco, but fuel is rationed and we are waiting for the availability of our taxi just to go back to the aiport and hopefully pick up our food box (it didn't arrive on our flight). Last night we were very grateful to Team Rubicon, another NGO, who shared some of their MRE ("Meals Ready-To-Eat", similar to Australian Army Ration Packs) with us.

Once we've got food (!) for ourselves, the plan is to start the networking so that we can complete a more thorough community assessment and progress our work here. We're really late to the party in Abaco, but that said, the need is so great that I'm sure there will be plenty for us still to do. 

This picture, taken from weather.com is a few weeks old, however there has still been no debris removal on much of the island, so it's pretty representative:



It's hoped that debris removal will be done by hand, or at least with some care, in case there are bodies underneath still, but you would appreciate that the government are far more keen to use heavy machinery for the sake of efficiency.

The drama around deportations continues also. UNHCR delivered a stinging attack on the Bahamian government the other day, claiming that people are fleeing shelters and not seeking critical food or medical support because they fear deportation. The government have had this reported to them by many, including in meetings I have been attending, but they blatantly lied in their response to UNHCR saying they've heard no such reports.

Sadly, it's becoming such an issue it's also impacting aid delivery. A pastor of the Haitian Baptist Church in Nassau that was providing over 250 meals a day to displaced people was arrested during a government meeting and has not been seen since. As a result, the meals program is suspended.

Hurricane Dorian - Update 1

Hurricane Dorian struck the Bahamas as a category five hurricane in early September, killing scores of people and displacing many more. The Salvation Army has been operating in the Bahamas since the 1930's and have been working on response activities since day one.

Having arrived in Nassau, Bahamas, on Monday - after 36 hours in transit - I've spent the last two days being orientated to the overall programme we are offering. We are operating range of response projects over three key locations: Nassau (New Providence), Freeport (Grand Bahama) and the Abaco Islands. At the moment they are still concentrating on support for those that have been displaced to New Providence and distribution of necessary shelter and non-food items to those in Freeport.

We have three teams being established. Carolynn Barkhouse (Canada) is leading the team in Nassau, Zach Hodgeson (USA) is leading the team in Freeport and I will be responsible for the team in Marsh Harbour, Abaco Islands.

A key challenge that we are facing is identifying and locating people that need assistance. The worst affected communities were on Abaco, but consisted primarily of undocumented immigrants from Haiti. The government figures (61 dead and 860 missing) ONLY include Bahamian citizens. No undocumented people are included in any official figures or supports and this is despite 5-10,000 Haitians being in the worst affected area. It is possible that there are many bodies still under uncleared debris in this neighbourhood, but they are not government priority.

Also, the government are using the displacement of undocumented people as an excuse to conduct deportations. Some of these families have lived in the Bahamas for three or four generations but are now being placed on planes and sent to Haiti where they know no-one and have no means of support. It is also costing places like Abaco significant amounts of willing labour.

The rest of my week will be assisting the team in Nassau with community assessments in areas that were flooded, to see if we can utilise some of the many in-kind donations we've received to assist them. Then I will head to Abaco for the first time on Saturday and start to establish our next projects there.

The in-kind materials have been donated by Norwegian Cruise Lines and the Government of Puerto Rico, along with some United States organisations. We have somewhere between 800 and 1200 pallets of mixed donations that arrived with no inventory that we have had to store, sort and prepare for distribution. While the donation appears generous, it is costing a lot of time, storage and money just to sort through it and find out whether we can use it. Currently we have some of it stored at the local Coca Cola bottling plant (thanks to an advisory board member who works for CC) and some of it in a warehouse at the local Bacardi distributors.

We are staying at the Divisional Headquarters in Nassau, and it's pretty comfortable on our fold up cots. The warmth is welcome after a cold Tasmanian winter and the team we have of local and international staff is working well together.

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

Indonesia 7 - Mawlid

This week we have been mostly doing the mundane things associated with project management - looking after finances, planning log frames, checking in with stakeholders etc.

The exception was Tuesday, Mawlid, the observation of the Prophet Muhammad's Birthday. It was the 12th of Rabi al-Anwal, in the Islamic calendar, the day that Sunni Muslims (the majority here and in many parts of the world) believe that he came into the world around 1400 years ago. Shi'a Muslims will observe the day on the 17th of Rabi al-Anwal - this Sunday.

Going back 13 years ago I was privileged to observe, and celebrate somewhat, Diwali while I was living and working in India, so I was excited to be in the world's largest Islamic country for Mawlid. Wikipedia, the font of all knowledge these days, says, "in many parts of Indonesia, the celebration of the Mawlid al-nabi seems to surpass in importance, liveliness and splendour the two official Islamic holidays of Eid ul-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. The local Christians explained the day as "Christmas for Muslims".

So on this basis, I thought we were in for a big day.

At first there was nothing different. The call to prayer went out from the local mosque at 4 am, and the faithful went up the street to gather. We usually hear them - or the roosters reacting to them. But then there was nothing else unique. As we drove to have a day out (as a public holiday, everything including our Divisional office was closed for the day), we did see a lot of mosques were full but there wasn't anything outstanding happening.

Then in the evening the party started. Our neighbours had eight loudspeakers going non stop with music, partying and quite the crowd. At one stage I asked my friend for a translation and he said, "They are just announcing to everyone to make sure they pick up their litter and pointing out where the toilets are". It could have been any Australian music festival at this stage, except that the whole family was involved.

I have to admit it wasn't quite what it was built up to be, but I'm glad that our neighbours had a great time - and glad of the down time we got too!

Indonesia 6

For something a bit different, one of my team mates has made a short(ish) video about our work and experience. I don't actually feature in the video - and I'll have to talk to Ian about that - but it's a great piece of work explaining our role and where we've been.

Thanks Ian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbFaaSASgoI&feature=youtu.be

Indonesia 5

We are currently closing out our "Rapid Response" projects. In The Salvation Army, when a disaster strikes, we usually respond (from an international perspective) with "rapid response" projects that are funded from reserves held at IHQ, allowing immediate action and time to develop longer-term projects in partnership with our donors and supporting territories.

The first project was focussed on the days following the disaster. It had a four week time frame, but within that time the statistics of what was achieved are astounding. Keep in mind that this work was being primarily undertaken by Salvation Army personnel that were themselves grieving and hurting, and utilising infrastructure that was, in some cases, also damaged.

· Cooked meals: 13,547 meals in 5 locations

· Food parcels: 4953 parcels in 24 locations

· Rice (500 kg), 30 boxes eggs and 30 litres oil in 1 location (community kitchen)

· Total of 5250 bags of rice distributed across 30 locations.

· Tarpaulins: 201 in 30 locations

· Water: Small amounts of drinking water in 6 locations

· Other small amounts of food and non-food items

· Trauma healing sessions: took place in 15 locations (1207 people)

· Medical services provided by the hospital: 111 people admitted, 789 clinically treated, 27 surgeries

· Medical service provided by mobile clinics: 12 locations served a total of 950 people.

As we now push on to more substantial and longer term projects, we remain incredibly indebted to The Salvation Army volunteers that mobilised and continue to serve. We see the corps and divisional leadership continuing to respond beyond their own day-to-day responsibilities as the disaster response now projects into weeks and months of work.

Indonesia 4

Over the last few days I've had the privileged, but confronting experience to visit some of the most affected areas from the disasters that hit Sulawesi. I use the plural 'disasters' because, as many of you know, there were multiple earthquakes, a tsunami and a liquefaction event. For those unfamiliar with liquefaction, it is when saturated or partially saturated soil substantially loses strength and stiffness in response to an applied stress - such as shaking during an earthquake - and in which material that is ordinarily a solid behaves like a liquid.

In other words, solid ground becomes liquid and swallows up things, moves things etc. This clip from BBC Indonesia does a good job of showing this as it happened in Palu despite the language barrier - I stood yesterday at the break in the road shown at 0:50

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e32Fz1Tg3ng

There was a place where we saw a house that was moved 100m from where it originally stood and was left resting on top of another house, on top of a third house that had sunk in the mud.

In another place where we stood there was still a three story high landslide of mud waiting to be cleared. It had gone through an area where there was a hospital. We also drove to the beach front to see the once bustling seashore abandoned - along with everything within about 200m of the new coastline (the water is much higher now than it was pre-tsunami).

My colleague Nyoman and I spoke at length about how scary it must have been. Where do you run, if you are actually lucky enough to see it coming. We compared it to Deep Impact, the movie. You watch the comet hit the earth, all of the tsunami action start and people run... they look almost silly running away from the oncoming wave.... but in the end: Where do you run to? Left, right? Away from the mud or wave, out of the path - if you can define the path?

It must have been petrifying.

Here are some shots. They are not mine. I don't take many photos these days when I'm in these sort of places - it seems irreverent.

To contrast this experience, last night four of us attended a "Volunteer Appreciation Night" that was put on by the local disaster coordination group. It included a testimonial from a worker at UNICEF thanking the local volunteers and those that had come into Palu to assist, and also a testimonial from a lady who had lost six members of her family through the liquefaction event. I couldn't believe the strength she showed as she spoke to us.

I also stood in awe and amazement of the whole group that were there as they actually celebrated the recovery so far with great music and free coffee (highly Islamic area so no alcohol) (and by free coffee I mean sugar syrup and milk that someone waved the coffee beans towards).

Indonesia 3

Today marks day 5 in some respects, having left Hobart Sunday, but it feels like I've been here for ages.

Sadly, apart from ducking out to find a coffee late yesterday afternoon (at "See You Latte", our new local favourite) and a run to the airport to farewell a colleague today, I haven't been outside the compound.

The "Compound" is massive and spreads over almost two blocks. It includes the Woodward Hospital, a nursing training school, a girls home, the Salvation Army Radio Station, East Palu Divisional Headquarters, the Woodward Corps, the Education and Learning Centre (a large training facility) and four houses - one of which is our quarters and office. The compound isn't contiguous, making it a little funny to get around, but it's large nonetheless.

The days have been filled with meetings. Meeting with THQ staff, DHQ staff, local emergency staff, Tear Fund and other potential partners, my own team and other visitors.

This means there aren't any great stories to tell; well, none of my own.

I have been amazed, as always, by the local Salvos in these cities and towns. One, Immanuel, is the Divisional Youth Secretary in East Palu and has been seconded to our team as a translator and assistant. He lost his brother-in-law in the Tsunami, whose body has never been recovered, and his sister is pregnant with the child of the lost husband. Immanuel is obviously traumatised - but SOOO resilient. He is among the many heroes that continue to serve while dealing with their own grief and loss. He is also a great singer and a bit of a joker, which I think is helping both him, and us.

We ended last night with a BBQ at DHQ to thank one of our departing team and to also allow one of The Salvation Army's national leaders to thank the local officers. Below are some photos, including the obligatory end-of-event dance.

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!)

Indonesia 1

Hi.

This is really a test post!

On November 5 I will join the Salvo's International Emergency Services crew gain as a Team Leader in Indonesia.

Currently we are responding by supporting the West Palu and East Palu divisions of The Salvation Army as they grapple with the disasters that hit northern Sulawesi over the last few weeks.

Keep posted for more news as I am able.

Brad

Vanuatu 25

Tonight we are on the way to the airport to pick up Major Paul Westlake from the United Kingdom. This is a significant moment in the Vanuatu response, as I now move from Team Leader into handover mode. I have until Monday lunch time to bring Paul up to speed on 10 projects across five islands and try and help him into the role as best as possible.

This afternoon was also significant. It's not often that there is a ceremonial handover of items and demonstration of appreciation. But today it happened in a nice way.

The principal of Vila North School, Elina, had invited us to a small ceremony to hand over the items that have procured - sports equipment, tarpaulins for the teacher's homes, building materials to fix their toilets and roofs and curriculum materials for the teachers.

We arrived to find that there was a stage with appreciation certificates, the local TV crew and newspaper, and front row seats for Craig and I, along with Samaritan's Purse and UNICEF who were also thanked for their support. There were speeches from the principal and school council president, speeches from the NGOs (I think we each spoke for 30 seconds max), prayers from the school teachers and parents and then some food. Quite a memorable occasion to share in.

Elina felt that she needed to hold this appreciation ceremony before they could start to use the materials. The actual reconstruction works that we are supporting now start in earnest and it is hoped that by the end of next week we (well, Paul and the new team) will be able to handover both of the repaired toilet blocks to the students and staff of the school.

Vanuatu 24

A few little victories this week...

The 50,000L Bladder donated to the people of Vanuatu through The Salvation Army by Snowy Hydro was finally installed yesterday and filled with water today. It is situated behind a major marketplace on Tanna assisting people who come to the market and also the students and staff of the Presbyterian School next door.

The materials we need to fix the kindergarten in Erakor have been identified and a builder found.

The first 45 people to receive the brand new houses on Tanna have been identified and the team have been conducted 'build back safer' training with others.

Our warehouse in Vila now has a frame on the slab and should be finished within a week or so.

We have seen the freezers and fishing boats that we have provided in use.

We had a corps in Sydney volunteer to support the construction of a new Salvation Army shelter on Tanna  - soon to be the third Salvation Army congregation in the country. This is not something that IES can normally do, as church structures (unless they are community halls or used as evacuation centres) fall outside the humanitarian role we play, so it's good to have another supporter.

And a few set backs....

In my last post I mentioned our vehicle. Turns out it can't be registered because it's unroadworthy. In the meantime we've rented a car from "Hertz" to get by. (Mind you, I'm enjoying the suspension, air conditioning, working mirrors and windows and padding on the front seat!).

Also, some of the projects that we are proposing for the next team are being held up by technical issues, e.g. how much wattage and how many devices are drawing down on our solar panels at the health centre in Green Hill, and how will this affect size, cost and shipping of the solar system.

And, because there hasn't been clarity around some of our funding, (and because the focus has shifted to other places), we've had to put a hold on new works. This is really frustrating. There's an island called Maewo that is small and remote to the north. It is out of the normal operating area of a lot of the NGOs. They need a range of assistance, but only in small quantities - e.g. four homes need help to repair, 30 families need some seeds to replant, there's one outreach health centre that needs new water tanks and guttering. Because it is a small but diverse project, it's perfectly suited to our team. We can't volunteer for the job, however, because of a lack of clarity around how much money we've got left! Please pray that IHQ and our team can work this out in coming days.

All that said, it's been an interesting week, as usual, and one where I continue to learn and reflect even on my own attitudes to things. Today, for example, I had a few hours spare and I figured it was my last chance to go and find some gifts for the family. When I got downtown, I noticed that the place was overrun with people from the cruise ship in the bay. All at once I felt elated for the local shop keepers that get income, and really annoyed that because the ship was in the prices of everything would double (or triple) for the day (a bit selfish really).

Time is winding down. I'll be back in Perth in just over a week, and while I'm looking forward to a rest, I know that's not going to happen in week two of the Red Shield Appeal. We'll see how we go.