INDONESIA Final Report

Before we get to Marc's 120 Day Report I wanted to take a moment to thank Marc personally for his big heart and strong back. He has worked so very hard in the last year in both Mississippi and Yogyakarta. I valued his help, guidance and friendship in Biloxi and I want to personally thank him for all the great things he did in Indonesia. Thank you for helping to create another successful Hands On project Marc!

Micro Financing
Right at the end of our time in Sawit one of our alums from Biloxi, Nick Taranto, arrived. Nick is working as an ETA (English teaching assistant) in Indonesia and brought some people to the village that are establishing micro-financing programs throughout the country. The idea is to have a co-operative type of bank that is self managed and allows the community to draw small loans for livelihood development. Providing start up money and given a relatively small amount of seed money, the project could help many people in the village. It is all very much in the preliminary stages at this point but there is possibility that we will have an ongoing presence in Sawit in the form of this program. We are very excited about the prospect of helping to bring this to the village and will keep you posted with the progress.

Photo Project

We continued to developed photos right up to the last week! The last batch of 368 prints was taped up in banner form at our farewell party. It was amazing to watch the villagers walk around, discuss, and laugh at the photos. They would single out prints that contained friends or family and refer the pictured person to that particular print when they arrived. Once someone took one of the photos and the gates were opened, it took a matter of minutes before all that was left were the bare lines. That last batch of prints brought the total number of photos developed by Hands On to 1,989!!! Thanks to all of the volunteers that gave pictures to our photo bank and also to those who walked with the HODR camera and took photos of the villagers. What fun it was to visit the transitional shelters (homes) and find snapshots or school student photos, that we provided, taped up on the walls to be admired and treasured.

Strong Finish !!
What a blast to have 2 new volunteers arrive for a day of work, on the last day in the field! Through Nick Taranto (see below) that made 3 volunteers arriving in the last week! They are all part of an English teaching program working in different cities throughout Indonesia and were actually on a holiday (of sorts) in Jogja. I was invited to a dinner with the group and had a chance to speak about what HODR was doing in the Sawit and some of the group felt they would like to give some of their time. The last week we had 8 volunteers staying at the "posh house" while repairs were being conducted on Pak Ponos house. We had the added benefit of finishing with 3 fluent Bahasa Indonesia speakers.

The House of Pono
Headquarters, house #1, Pono's house - whatever you want to refer to it as, it was being rebuilt as we left. The plan was to have everything done before we left, but things in Indonesia take time, and then some. The work was well under way with all of the cracked walls repaired and the 3 man crew carrying out the works was scheduled to begin work on the ceiling. The ceiling was estimated to take 2 more days and then the painting would begin. Pak Pono was happy to oversee the finish of the work and he and his family were looking forward to having a newly repaired (and painted) dwelling for the fast approaching rainy season. The location of this house gave us great access to the village and we were fortunate to have been allowed to stay there. Thank you Mr. Sumpono!

Harmi's Cooking Continues!!
Everyone who was there knows how crazy good our food was, everyone who wasn't missed out on sharing food prepared by Harmi and Miaseh. What some of you may or may not know is that Harmi used to have a food stall in the village prior to the earthquake. When everything was knocked down her livelihood was destroyed by falling walls. When TC and I arrived we were lucky to find her and she was happy to have us help her financially. The Thursday before we left Harmi came to us to thank us. She was able to use the money we paid her to purchase the items she had lost and was planning to re-open her stand!! She was beaming. Thank you Harmi and good luck as you continue to please people palates!

Farewell Lottery!

It was suggested way back in early August by David Campbell, as he was sweating over a wheel barrel of rubble, that we have a grand give-away at the end of our stay. Sounded like a really easy way to avoid any sort of social jealousy with a random chance for everyone to win, right? Well, our party coordinator, Stefanie Chang may beg to differ. After a great deal of agonizing it was decided to have 2 lotteries; 1 for the neediest 17 families and 1 for the community as a whole. Then we had complications with choosing a date as well, owing to the start of Ramadan. Then there was the question of who gets an invitation? In the end Stefanie and all of the volunteers did a remarkable job of putting the event together and we gave away the whole lot!! From dust pans, to spring mattresses, to the (in)famous sexy motorbike!! There must have been 200 people at the party where we had the traditional speeches, box catered meals, and loud music followed by a chaotic drawing. It was difficult to decide who was more excited, the person who won the motorbike, the bicycle, or the gas cook top.

Prize Claim Day
Saturday, 30 September, too bad it was just Kevin Digget and I there to see it, but the villagers walking off with their respective prizes was a hoot!! So much fun to have them arrive nervously at the door and speak to Wiwin. She would analyze the documents and tell us what they had won then we would scurry around and gather the items to hand over. Smiling faces all around. They had all manner of transport to haul away their take. We had the chance to carry some of the larger prize loot through the village to the homes of the winners. We used to walk through the village with tools in hand setting of for another day of hard work, but this day we had mattresses on our heads, bamboo benches in our hands, or stand fans across our shoulders. Just about everyone had a laugh as we traipsed along carrying the booty of our prize winning escorts.

There are a few people that I would like to give special recognition to. We would not have been as successful in Sawit as we were without the help and kindness of the following people:
Pak Suparman
Wiwin
Mbak Harme
Mbak Miaseh
Pak Sumpono
Ibu
Ayu

Finally, I want to extend a thank you to all of the volunteers who came to Indonesia and gave their time to help the victims of this horrible natural disaster. The opportunity we had as volunteers to be loved and nurtured by those in need was truly inspiring. It was an experience that will not be forgotten, by the volunteers or by the residents of the village of Sawit. Thank you for helping, thank you for caring, thank you for sharing.

I hope to see you all again, just under different circumstances!

Marc Young, Operations Director