Aceh Journal 3

Happy 2 months to me! :) (09 July 2005)
Sorry it took so long to write another journal.
The thing is that I've been living my life a month without any real access to computer.
I mean like working in front of a computer, and it's kinda frustrating me.
I got access to internet, but never got any real chance to stay still and write down my journal.
and now ... sitting in front of a computer, don't know what to write since I have to many things to tell.

this past month was great!
met some new wonderful people, learnt a lot from these people.
Learnt about trauma counselling in June, experiencing public speaking translation, and now I'm learning about water and sanitation.
Busy doing well surveys, been in a PHAST (Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation) training,
learning how to clean and disinfecting well, etc.

One good thing is that now we are beginning to have lots of BBQ parties.
NGOs have BBQ parties every week. Unfortunately we don't have the parties every night. Otherwise it would have been great, party every night!
Hey!!! I could be a party boy here! hehe ... :p
I think the reason is that we will be pretty bored if we don't have any parties. Maybe ...
I mean we don't have any entertainment here (not a decent one, at least!), and banda aceh is like a dead city after 10 p.m.
dvd??? hmm ... not much of a help (since I don't have any computer/ laptop! hehe ... :p)
books? hmm ... I'm not much of a reader, so I have to get myself used to reading
found a pork center though! hehehe ... So I finally ate pork here in Banda Aceh, and it wasn't brought from anywhere outside Banda Aceh!!!
so there's actually pork in aceh! hahaha ... :p
found Country Steak House too! :) A nice small place

So here's a brief of what happened the past month ...
for 3 weeks in June my days was filled with translating for a trauma counselor.
A new thing for me since I was so used to working outdoor.
Lots of interesting things happened.
Public speaking translation, heard some interesting stories, went to some interesting places.
So my days in JUne were filled with sitting in clinics, listening to people's stories, etc.
Kinda shocked at the first time, when a man told me a long story and then I had to translate it.
I had some difficulties at first, but began to cope with it later in the second week.
Kinda nice actually, being able to help other people in a different way.
Mentally, not physically.
In the last session of counselling, when the trauma counselor was going to go home,
people cried and they were so grateful that we were there to help them.
That was something new.
Sometimes people come to the counseling session without knowing that it was actually a counseling session.
Funny, because they were expecting to get a physical treatment, not a mental treatment.
But I think people still need this kind of counseling, at least until the end of this year.

Cristiano Ronaldo came to town, but failed to actually entertain people.
He didn't get out of the bus due to the lack of security.

At the last week of June, I was transferred to water and sanitation team. I'm still learning, since I'm not a wat-san expert.
In the UNICEF wat-san coordination meeting I first came to, I understood that I don't understand enough about wat-san
to be able to continue the work next August.
I'm talking about things like well cleaning, disinfecting wells, drilling a borehole, PHAST, etc.
Those are the things I know but I don't know. Meaning that I know only the basic part of them, and that's not enough.
I'm learning ... taking all the trainings that are needed to understand more about wat-san,
been in meetings that are sometimes completely useless.
Did some surveys, assessments, etc.
Sometimes this can be very frustrating, considering that I know nothing about wat-san engineering.

well, the reconstruction and rehabilitation of aceh is going on, now that the emergency phase is over.
things have got better and better. We did have the lack of BBM (fuel) for a few days
people had to stay in queue to get fuel, but that was last week.
Schools have begun again, and they have rehabilitated the building.
Methodist school even give free education.

Now I've been in meetings, lots of meetings!
What I see from the meetings and all the things that are happening in Aceh is that NGOs need more coordination to be able
to rehabilitate and reconstruct Aceh better. So far I see that NGOs to put forward their egos, their personal interests, funds, etc. into Aceh,
and not think about how to reconstruct and rehabilitate Aceh together.
I mean I know that every NGO has their own mission and vision, but don't you think that it would be best if we all sit together
to talk about our problems, the difficulties that occured in the field and try to solve them together?
We do have some NGO meetings, but in reality I know that there are NGOs that don't want to cooperate with other NGOS, even if
they are doing the same thing in the same village.
Or the lack of coordination in the NGO, lack of communication, etc.
Sometimes even in big NGOs they don't communicate well.
how good is that? or bad ...

Anyway, need some days off
been here for almost 3 months now
dunno when I can get some days off

pray for aceh ...

hye
20 July 2005