2006-05-20
4:40 p.m.

Update 1 from Magelang

Salutations from lavaland!

The team arrived safely in Yogyakarta (Yogya for short) yesterday afternoon, and went about visiting. Went to the PMI base, and then on to one of the IDP Camps.

How to describe this land? It�s much the same as any other flourishing Indonesian town I guess, paved roads punctuated by potholes and all. At night the streets are dark, the only light coming from the dim fluorescents of roadside stalls and houses, the occasional tungsten house lamp and sporadic street lamp. Plenty of construction seems to be going on.

Along the roads are many carts selling anything from fruits to petrol (bensin) to kites. Kites. You see loads of them being put up for sale � one stall every few hundred metres or so. I wondered where the people found the time or place to fly them! This place is also famous for statues. There�re plenty shops selling those. There�s quite abit of thai-taoist-buddhist influence in the statues � many pagodas, buddhas, etc.

Once in awhile we�d also see horse-drawn carriages being driven around. Quite quaint, really. Like the scenes I read about in some books describing England in the old days.

Lunch and dinners are usually at roadside restaurants or stalls. Reminisce of Singapore in the 50s and 60s perhaps?

This mission we�re lucky enough to be able to stay in a hotel. Not the most luxurious (no aircon!) by Singapore standards but hey, this is a MISSION ya? I think it�s pretty fabulous as it is � we were expecting to stay in tents and sleep on safari beds or even just sleeping bags?

This morning we went to SD (Sekolah Desa) Serumbung (Magelang) where they�re running a clinic. 71 patients in total. Types of ailments vary widely. There�s a baby with edema and an old man (teacher at the school) who complained of pain in his left chest, just to cite a couple of examples. They were the first 2 patients of the day.

The space here is pretty constrained. The first room that the patient enters serves as a registration point as well as a mini-triage where they take temperature, blood pressure, ask for history of complaint, etc. After that they�re ushered to the inner room to see the doctor. The medication is collected in the same room (just right next to where the doctor examines the patient).

The medications here are largely similar to those used in Meulaboh when I was there. I guess what I�m trying to say is that it�s all pretty generic. Our nurses are learning to identify the medications by their Indon names.

There�s one of our nurses at registration / triage, one at pharmacy, one assisting the doctor, and one setting up and all. I�m just moving around shooting and typing. Amran serves as liaison with PMI.

In the afternoon we went to SMP Srumbung, which is a secondary school near to where we went in the morning. 85 patients in total. Much the same thing as usual.

According to PMI, they�re well prepared for the eruption should it happen. Their evacuation plans are ready to be activated at any time. No one is certain when it�ll explode. There�s a local 70-odd year old man whom the villagers believe more than the volcanologists, and he said it�s not likely to happen anytime soon. 4 days ago he went up the mountain and didn�t turn up until yesterday. Everyone thought he was dead (a couple days ago there were some little explosions), but he was seen by a local (journalist?) yesterday morning walking back to his house, escorted by a beautiful lady! According to the locals, he�s visiting the villages around the mountain slopes.

We went to an IDP Camp yesterday afternoon. It�s not far from the mountain slope � about 5km. According to the PMI volunteer who went with us, the residents at this IDPC (which, incidentally, is called Girikerto) are pretty� transitional? For want of a better word. What I mean is that they come down to the IDPC in the morning, in the afternoon they go back to their villages on the slopes, and if they feel that it�s still safe they�ll stay in the villages. Else they�ll come back down to the IDPC. The population at this IDPC (and I suspect for many others as well) isn�t constant. This sort of throws the volunteers into a difficult situation � how many do you cook for, for eg? Anyway, the locals say that on a clear day one can see the mountain from the IDPC site. Unfortunately yesterday wasn�t a clear day.

Speaking of IDPCs, there are a total of about 25 to 27 (seem to be increasing by the day?) of them scattered around the 4 regions. Regarding IDPC Girikerto, I asked someone there (think was a PMI chap) what happens when the volcano erupts since the IDPC is only 5km from the mountain. They said that they have the system ready. When the lava reaches halfway between the mountain and the IDPC, they�ll move the IDPs out. Ah well, can�t fault their optimism, can we? =p

This should be about it for now � internet caf� not exactly on the way home. Haha. Will try to update soon. Oh yes. If anyone wants to call me, please feel free to do so at +62 813 9212 9505. Incoming calls free! Muahaha.. don�t blame me for your phone bills though!

Take care, all!


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