This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land

From California, to the New York Island...

Right now, almost all of the villagers are living in temporary housing made out of wood scraps or still living in tents. As the villagers are looking to build permanent housing, a lot of land-related issues are coming up. A major roadblock to rebuilding of permanent homes has been the government's lack of direction regarding land reclamation and planning. Many of the NGOs are out in the villages trying to facilitate the rebuilding process like making village sketch maps. But the NGOs are afraid to go ahead with the actual building because the government planning agency may come out with policies on all these issues I'll mention below, and what if the policies counter what the NGOs are doing? Then, that's a total waste of labor and resources. So glad that my project doesn't directly deal with private land issues.

Definition of a Village
Under Indonesian law a village must constitute a certain number of villagers for it to be considered a village. If there are fewer people than the government set number, then the government will not bring in electricity, water, or give funding to build a school or a clinic. After the tsunami, many of the old villages no longer meet the government minimum requirement. There's talk that some villages that are situated in a cluster will combine into 1 village, or that they will negotiate amongst themselves to decide where a school or a clinic will be located in order to benefit multiple villages. But what if an ex-village doesn't want to move?

Planning within a Village
Some big questions that are being asked out there include:

If an entire family perished in the tsunami, what will happen to their land? If a child is the only survivor of a family, will he/she be able to reclaim the family land when the child turns 19? If the village lost most of its population, how will they rebuild? Will the surviving families rebuild on top of their old land and be isolated from other families? Will survivors re-plan the village and build their new homes next to each other? <- This is the preferred option by a lot of the NGOs & donors because it's facilitate community building but also be easier and cheaper to distribute water and electricity to a cluster of homes versus to many isolated house.

The Banda Aceh <-> Meulaboh Road
I think I've mentioned this road in a previous posting.

The US government is rebuilding the 245km road along the western coast of Sumatra. Much of the old road was washed away by the tsunami and the remnants of the road runs pretty darn close to the new coast line and is only 2 or 3 feet above sea level. With a big storm, the road is easily flooded over. But this road runs through the heart of many coastal villages. The US Army Corps of Engineers came out last week to survey. The word on the street is that they are planning to move the main drag to the otherside of the coastal mountain range - about 5km inland from coast. This will be a big problem as in the budget has only enough money to build the main road but not to build access roads to the coast where these villages are located.

Putting Things into Context

There were a bunch of satellite images of the Acehnese coastline before and after the tsunami that were available on many websites after the tsunami. I always thought they were really cool and very telling of the extend of the damage done by the water. Tonight I came across these 2 images of the village of Lampuuk. I thought I'd include them because only a few days ago I was in this village. I walked around the village extensively and climbed atop the mosque. The mosque can be seen in both images - the white square in the middle. The landscape now is greener than 3 days after the tsunami, but as you can see from the photos in my previous post, the obliterated landscape is still quite barren.

Shake Shake Shake!

Earthquake #2

Magnitude? 5.4
Date? June 25, Saturday, 4:45:12 AM local time
Epicenter? 55 miles SSW of Banda Aceh or 4.831°N, 95.082°E
What was I doing? Sleeping
Song Playing on my iPod? No song, but the calling for morning prayers could be heard from a nearby mosque

Semangka & Udang Karang

As we pulled up to the village of Lamteungoh (mentioned in previous entry for its' creative use of old water bottles) we saw the village head coming out of the community garden with a big semangka (watermelon). He insisted we come into his home (1 room shack) and have some melon. He's known for his wonderful cooking skills, especially for his crabs and udang karang (lobsters). He's also known for saying, "if you don't stay for dinner, don't come back."

Village geucik with the freshly picked melon 

Watermelon time! 

No moose heads on the walls here, only lobsters. 

Lampuuk

Lampuuk is located on the western coast of Aceh, only a few miles outside of Banda Aceh. Before the tsunami, this community of about 1,000 was known for it's beautiful beaches, waterfront bungalows and the numerous restaurants on the beach. After the tsunami, there were only about 300 survivors and the only building that was left standing was the Grand Mosque. It's pretty interesting as you travel up and down the coast, you see a lot of mosques that are still in place. My only guess is that the construction workers didn't want to go to hell.

This village is pretty famous around Aceh because Bush and Clinton visited here on their recent visit. The main drag here is named Jalan George Bush dan Bill Clinton.

The project has helped with clearing of land and fencing of a community garden. After the rain season, they will be replanting watermelons and chili peppers. The guy in charge of the community garden had studied agriculture in Japan in the early 80s.

The Dutch government is helping to build a community housing with a communal kitchen outside. This house will be a place where the 35 orphans can live and the communal kitchen will serve meals to those who do not have a family to eat with.

The village geucik (leader) who took us around proudly announced that he had re-married this past weekend. He had lost his entire family except his 8 year old daughter. Remarriage is becoming pretty common in the villages. It's a good sign because it signifies that people are ready to move on with their lives.

The Grand Mosque was the only thing left standing after the Tsunami 

There used to be beach bungalows and restaurants that sold freshly grilled fish. 

If the Tsunami didn't wipe these stairs out, then I'll use them! 

I can't go into the Mosque unless my head is covered, but I can go on the roof! 

Barb and I on the Mosque's roof with 2 of Lampuuk's villagers who are in charge of rebuilding 

Temporary Housing in Lampuuk 

View of the village. Can- notice the Turkish flag? 

Country Steak House!

We had a team lunch today at the Banda Aceh Country Steak House. The restaurant is owned and operated by our Procurement Officer's brother and sister-in-law. They had the restaurant before the tsunami/earthquake, but it was pretty much destroyed by the earthquake. They have rebuilt and less than 6 months later, they have re-opened! 6-month anniversary for the tsunami is this Sunday.

On the menu they have a New Zealand T-Bone, Sirloin with Pepper sauce, Lamb Chops, Beef Hamburger, Chicken Hamburger, Hot Tuna Sandwiche, and my favorite --> Spaghetti with Sauce Allah Bolongese (beef not pork).

I told the owners that I'll be happy to help them expand their menu - maybe some beer battered onion rings (without the beer)? Chicken parmigiana? Mashed potatoes? And chocolate fondue for dessert?

The husband-wife team will be opening a Japanese restaurant next week. Yay Tempura!

cultural anachronism or just globalization? 

L to R, Budiman - New Procurement Guy, Barb - Visitor from DAI Bethesda, Dwi - Grants Accountant, Alfian - IT guy, Adi - Field Coordinator, Fachrul - Grants Accountant 

L to R, Very - IT girl from Jakarta Office, Fachrul - Grant Accountant/Office Comedian, Haykall - Procurement Officer, Hadi - Accountant, Dwi - Office Manager 

Who needs T-mobile hotspot when you have free wi-fi at the Country Steak House? 

Barb found Diet Coke in Aceh! 

Shake Shake Shake!

Earthquake #1

Magnitude? 5.4
Date? June 17, Friday, 9:37:36 AM local time
Epicenter? 45 miles West of Banda Aceh or 5.577°N, 94.705°E
What was I doing? At the office, in front of my computer
Song Playing on my iPod? The Roots - Break You Off

Pizza, Anyone?

It's no Blondie's or Greg's or Zachary's or Mama Lucia's or even Domino, but hey, it's pizza!

The dough was a little too sweet, soft, and limp. The sauce was a little too salty. Mushrooms were canned (apparently it's REALLY hard to find fresh mushrooms in Indonesia) but hey, it's pizza! A welcome change to all the rice I eat!

Pizza Party! Dwi on the left, she's the Office Manager. Hadi on the right, he's the Project Accountant. Fachrul in the backgrond with his head poking over his laptop, he's a Grants Account.  

think I can find a pepperoni pizza in Aceh? 

Home Improvement

It's been kind of a slow day in the office (evident by all the new pictures on the blog). I decided to walk around the 2 houses and share with you some of the home improvement going around here.

We rent 2 houses next to each other on, one serves as office, the other as the guest house. Before, my daily commute consisted of walking out the door, out of the metal gate, walking 10 feet on the street, entering the other metal gate, walking into the office. My boss decided that the commute was taking us way too long and decided it was better to knock down the wall in between the 2 houses to cut down on our commute. Actually, the walkway is more for safety than convenience.

Over lunch, we went down to the satellite TV store to ask for more English channels-we only get Bloomberg News now. Across the street was a rug store, so I picked up my first big purchase here in Aceh-a red rug!

before 

and after 

A big bag of semen! ...I mean cement. 

Check out my new $13 rug! 

A Weekend with Barney

That's Mr. Barney, Environmental Protection Specialist from USAID. Barney was here to conduct field inspection so he can write his environmental impact inspection report on USAID projects in Aceh. His main objective? To study the rehabilitation and building of new drainage, sewage, and irrigation systems, and cleaning of wells. In other words, he wanted to look at toilets.

We saw 7 toilets, 2 really bad ones, a few deemed so-so, and 2 really good ones. Barney even personally tested a few.

USAID is also helping the Indonesian government to rebuild the main highway between Banda Aceh and Meulaboh. The road is about 245 km (155 mi) long and will cost $245 million. So about $1 million for every kilometer. It's going to be quite an undertaking, a lot of debris have to be removed (see picture below) and much of the old road was washed away by the tsunami. The engineers will have to carve into the mountains because the temporary road now is not even 3 feet above sea level. A big storm could easily wash out the current road.

That's Barney in the blue hat. 

on the road with Barney... 

Villagers from Lamteungoh getting creative with trash - spelling out their village name with empty water bottles.

Meeting house on stilts at Lamteungoh village. The question is, does Barney like the toilet next to it?