Tuesday October 19th 2004 in Kuta Bali

I just wasted 30 minutes here in Internet Outpost trying to get into my Yahoo mail.

The reason I couldn’t get in was the machine I was using has a virus, the result of the nightstaff watching porn and getting the system screwed up. How do I know this? I just take a look at the ‘favourites list’.

Anyway another machine and I’m good to go.

Barrie returned to Bali yesterday and we met up at his favouirte spot the Hotel Prawita. His wife Candika is with him again and looks lovely. They will both be out here for 6 weeks.

Today Barrie was feeling a bit weary after his change of climate and I met him and Candika at Kori Restaurant for a drink. I have a photo of both of them and will get it online soon. We hope to do some cool trips highlighting interesting points in Bali. Stay tuned.

Some people might remember an old frind of mine Chimene Hickey from California who visited a while ago. Chimene used to teach English in Korea and had a sweet gig with her sister, they would swap 6 months on 6 months off. In the meantine Chimene lived in Bukit Luwang N. Sumatra for a total of 5 years.

As many people know Bukit Luwang was destroyed by a flood over a year ago and has had a massive impact on the people she used to know. There is a charity to which BootsnAll.com contributed. Here’s an update on Bukit Luwang.

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Dear friends,

I recently returned from a trip over to Indonesia. Due to unforeseen
circumstances, I have had to relocate homes, so it has taken me a while to
send out another update of what has happened in Bukit Lawang since the flood. Still, I want to get back to you and let you know how their story has continued. The situation has improved over the past few months. They are no longer in a state of emergency. Life moves on. It was a relief for me to see this. I was so grateful to be back, to reunite with friends and hear their stories of what they experienced on that fateful night, and to see that despite it all, they are ok. At the same time, it was also really difficult to see what has happened with the flood and its aftermath, and how it has affected people. The village of Bukit Lawang is gone. Only a few scattered bungalows and houses remain. Many people have no work and no money. Life will never be the same again. But they are incredibly resilient and innovative. They survived, and somehow they are continuing to get through these hard times.

Fortunately, they have been receiving a lot of help. The government has built temporary makeshift housing in the marketplace of the neighboring village for people to live until the new Bukit Lawang is built. Each family now lives in a 10′x10′ wooden room. There are around 250 families currently living there. They have been receiving donations of clothes, cooking stoves and utensils, rice, noodle soup… Any excesses they receive, they trade for what they need. So they have the barest basics covered. Fortunately they know how to live the simple life. Conditions are livable for the short term, but not sustainable long term.

According to the Government’s promise, Bukit Lawang will be rebuilt. Each
family who lost their house will receive a new one. The new village will be
built 100 meters from the river to prevent a reoccurrence of the tragedy.
A place has been cleared for the village, but building has only just begun.
People anticipate that it will take another year or two before they will be able to move on. Meanwhile they will take it day by day.

The money that we were able to raise for them has helped many people to make it through these difficult times. They asked me to thank you from the
bottom of their hearts. In total, 54 people have contributed to the relief
fund. Together we were able to accomplish our goal and have raised $10,200
for the people of Bukit Lawang. $5,200 has already been distributed, and
another $5,000 is on its way. The initial contribution went directly to 40
families to help them to meet their immediate survival needs. One family used their money to buy wood that they’ll use to build a new home. Others hired bulldozers to clear their land of all the fallen trees from the flood and debris from the ruined village in order to plant a vegetable garden that will provide sustenance for their diet. Many people used some of the money to pay their children’s school fees. Everyone who survived the flood did so by running with only the clothes on their back. With the money they received from us, they were able to purchase some basic necessities to start over with.

As music is very important in their culture, we purchased 2 guitars to give to people in the temporary housing to help bring joy back into their lives. One of the people who received a guitar is named Bambang. He lost his wife and his daughter in the flood. He has really been struggling ever since. When I gave him his guitar, he burst into tears. He said “Before the flood, I had 2 loves: One was my wife and the other my guitar. The flood took them both away from me. With this guitar, I have love back in my life. I will never forget this until the day I die.” Bambang has dreams of opening an acoustic music café in the new Bukit Lawang. Now he is one big step closer.

The situation in Bukit Lawang has improved since the disaster. It’s amazing
how people can adapt and time heals. While far from complete, the new Bukit
Lawang is in the process of being rebuilt. In fact, the area is now officially reopened to tourism. While they are not yet able to stay in Bukit Lawang, new businesses have popped up in the neighboring village to accommodate people. Travelers are beginning to trickle back in. As much of the village economy revolves around the tourist trade, this will help their situation. But the people are not yet out of the woods. Life is still fragile for them.

With the second installment of $5,000, we will continue helping individual
families to make it through this transition time. We will also assist them in building an infrastructure for their community in the future. With that, I’d like to invest in the work of Communication Forum of Bukit Lawang. This organization was formed by a group of local leaders after the flood to represent the people of Bukit Lawang. They are organizing many positive community development projects, including an Art & Knowledge workshop, an Education Fund, and an Eco Village. The workshop will offer business classes as well as training and a place where people can hone their skills making handicrafts that they will later be able to sell to generate income. In terms of education: In Indonesia, all kids must pay for their schooling. The Forum has developed an Educational Fund that is raising money to pay for one year of school fees for all of the kids in the village from elementary up to high school. A number of kids will also have the opportunity to attend university.

On the political front, the Government has promised the people that they will rebuild Bukit Lawang and replace the homes that were lost. However, Indonesia recently held elections. The fate of Bukit Lawang is not the most
important issue on their agenda. So the people in the Forum are actively lobbying government officials to make sure they follow through on their promises, and that the local people have a voice in how their village is developed. Left to the government, Bukit Lawang would most likely be built haphazardly without regard to the local environment. The people would like Bukit Lawang to be an Eco Village, built sustainably with respect for the environment. With proper forethought and attention, the new Bukit Lawang will be built in harmony with it’s natural environment and therefore inherently safer from any future twists of fate.

Nobody could have imagined when they awoke the morning of the flood how
drastically their lives were about to change. What a difference a day makes. Or 20 minutes, as was the case of the flood that hit Bukit Lawang. How did this happen? There are many theories on why the flood occurred. Initially, many people thought it was a result of deforestation. Others claimed that it was caused by a natural disaster. Village lore says that the culprit was a dragon who woke up from deep within the earth and came down the river that night. So an investigation took place to root out the reason behind the flood. Helicopters were hired to fly up river in order to get a bird’s eye view of the disaster area and a group of people from Bukit Lawang set out on a scouting mission. They trekked far upriver, deep into the jungle, in order to see for themselves what caused the flood. What they discovered was that there were many landslides further upstream. While deforestation often leaves landslides in its aftermath and is definitely a problem in Sumatra, that didn’t seem to be the case here. They didn’t find evidence of deforestation at the epicenter of the flood. Landslides also occur naturally because the topsoil in the jungle is very thin. Small earthquakes or mountain streams can take down a hillside of trees, leaving its remnants on the riverbanks. You will see what that looks like in the
linked pictures that follow.

The place where the flood originated was about 15 miles upstream from Bukit
Lawang. In a narrow gorge area of the river, there were landslides coming
down from both sides of the river. The fallen trees met in the middle of the
river to create a dam. Meanwhile, behind the dam is a wide expanse of beach
area in the river valley. The water gathered there to create a lake. It
was really only a matter of time before the dam would break, unleashing the
pent up fury of the river. When that happened, it caused the river to rise
to 5 times its normal size. But it was not only high water that hit Bukit Lawang with the flood. The river was also filled with mud, debris from other landslides and trees lining the riverbank that were ripped out of the earth and carried along with it. This all hit Bukit Lawang in a matter of minutes.

People said that the flood hit in 15 minutes. Initially they thought that it was just a normal flood that happens yearly, so they weren’t too concerned Normally, the river rises to knee level and then recedes as quickly as it came. But the night of the massive flood, the river kept rising. In minutes, water was up to their waist. And then buildings were crashing down around them, people taken down the river in front of them. Those who survived ran to high ground to escape.

Many stories came out of the night of the flood, stories of miracles as well
as tragedy. There was a grandpa who loved his grandson so much. When the
flood hit, the grandson was still sleeping at home. His grandpa ran to save
him, but when he got inside their home, the river hit and took their house
and them with it. Their bodies were later found, still together, the grandfather’s arms wrapped protectively around his grandsons. Another body of a mother was found dead and inside her arms was her son whose life she had somehow been able to save. A two-year-old baby was found alive very high up in a tree by herself. Nobody knows how she could have gotten up there. It must have been an angel who saved her, they say.

There have been massive floods like this in the region before. The old people remember. The last one was around 50 years ago. But back then, people didn’t live out in the jungle, by the river where Bukit Lawang was located. So the flood didn’t wipe out the village like it did this time. The riverbanks got hit hard, but most of the jungle was untouched. The same was the case with this flood. While Bukit Lawang was destroyed, the surrounding jungle is as beautiful as ever. With the relocation of the village away from the river, the people should be safe should the river decide to flood again.

While Bukit Lawang will never return to what it once was, it will be rebuilt and people will move on in their lives. We can all feel good about helping them to get back on their feet again. Thank you so much for getting involved. Thank you as well to Shannon and Tom for all of their help in organizing this relief fund. This has been quite a team effort, truly a global village at work. If some day you travel over to Indonesia, you have an open ended invitation from people of Bukit Lawang to visit them in their future village.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any further comments or
questions. I’d appreciate hearing from you.

Sincerely,
Chimene Hickey

I have included a link of some recent pictures of the people and
surroundings of Bukit Lawang.

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Indonesia is a huge country with so many great areas. Sumatra is defintely a place to see, I was there in 1993 and visited the Mentawai islands.

• Talking to Chimene Hickey in Seminyak Bali
• Meeting Chimene in Seminyak Bali
• Exploring other islands in Indonesia
• Flash floods cause havoc in East Java
• Becoming an expat in Bali

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