It's the second day in the office, and I'm supposed to be up to the hilt in briefings, but there's a managers' meeting on, so there goes that idea. That’s ok, it’s given me time to get my laptop sorted, get to know some of the other staff and go out to a local place for lunch (Indo food ROCKS, I’m growing a chilli garden when I get home).
Monday I flew to Medan from Singapore. The capital of Sumatra was a lot bigger than I expected, with neon signs, traffic, satellite dishes, markets, smog everywhere. I arrived in Banda Aceh yesterday. When you fly in over the mountains it's breathtaking, endless forests and valleys on the horizon, and it all appears a deep blue from that height. Little white clouds straddle the mountain tops, many of which are volcanic. I saw one that looked like it was recently active, with a path of destruction evident on its cone. Unfortunately the fingers of civilisation are carving their way through the valleys and clearing the low-lying forest, revealing the braided rivers below which now have become conduits of silt due to erosion. Hopefully someone is doing something to halt this destruction and preserve this beautiful wilderness. You can really see where deforestation has occurred, and it’s all the more evident the closer you get to towns and cities, because the trees disappear, little spirals of smoke curl their way up into the atmosphere and the mosaic of rice paddies with their water buffaloes and nearby houses appear.
Banda Aceh is a beautiful place, surrounded by mountains and forest, and the beach is not far away. Palm trees all around, rice paddies, dogs and cows walking down the street alongside the many motorbikes and big NGO cars.
Who would have known a tsunami destroyed this place? It's a hive of activity, a bustling "metropolis" with construction going on everywhere. The roads are paved, people cruise around on motorcycles, the schools are full of kids and fruit stalls exist on every corner.
The grand mosque is absolutely stunning, a regal monstrosity of a building with beautiful black domes and the remainder pure white. Aceh province is the most strictly Muslim in Indonesia, and hence all the women wear headscarves and prayers occur 5 times a day. I must say the call to prayer at dawn is a bit of a bugger when you’re trying to get over a heat-induced sleepless night! I guess I’ll get used to Sharia law … as I will the 'mandi' bath (Simeulue here I come), and covering up my arms and legs even though it’s horrendously hot, including at the beach.
The ARC office is part of the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) compound, which houses all of the other Red Cross societies (and there are plenty here, 10 at last count: Canadian, Japanese, German, Hong Kong, Norwegian, Irish...) except for American RC, which has its own (typical). All the offices are air-conditioned shipping crates! They are more than adequate though, and quite suitable if you're hasty about setting up an office.
It's a bit strange being amongst all Aussies, it's almost like being on a holiday OS. It’s probably not helped by the fact that I can't really "do" anything until Friday when I fly to Simeulue and kick off work.
The two houses that the expats live in here in BA are amazing monstrosities with shiny roof tiles, spiral staircases and big rooms; beautiful to look at, with pay tv, open spaces, tropical gardens, Indonesian woodwork and temple-like architecture, but up close it's dodgy workmanship! We rent them from local families, which makes me feel better that loads of aid money wasn't spent on building our accommodation. The street in which they are built is lined with big houses, mostly for aid agencies. Seems wrong to me. I've been told not to get used to it; Simeulue is basic in comparison!
The humidity is exhausting but you're not in it most of the time. The house gets quite hot in the middle of the night when the electricity cuts out or the backup generator goes off. Nothing like the familiar buzzing of mosquitoes to drum up all sorts of dreams about malaria...
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