Last week, the president of Indonesia also visited the affected area, although he didn’t go as far as the affected villages he just met with the villagers who were to afraid to return to their homes. Actually, that is not quite true – the rains had stopped a few days before the president arrived & the villagers were eager to return to there villages but were told not to so the president could see ‘all the homeless people’. A further irony of the president’s visit was that a number of trees had to be cut down so his helicopter could land (remembering a primary cause of the landslides was deforestation!).
The president’s visit must have cost a lot of money, there were many people involved and high levels of security. He donated around a million dollars, but it was felt to be too little too late (or, perhaps more worryingly in this corrupt country too much too late). But was my visit really any better? I went with a local group to distribute money & clothing, but all the same I couldn’t help but feel like a disaster tourist. The group gave me a free combat-style jacket and hat, a free lunch, a free ride & all I really contributed was a white face & a sympathetic smile. I don’t know if this makes my visit any better or any worse than the president’s, but I do know that both leave a bitter taste in my mouth.
me & three other vols wearing our freebies
the scar on the mountain
a temporary grave
1 comment:
First, a 'continuity' question - without one hopes sounding anything like the person who spotted the Star Wars Storm Trooper bang his head on a decending Death Station door (first of the old movies, just after Princess Lea has been rescued and they're in that waste disposal bin with the walls coming in and C3PO and R2D2 are trying to hack the security system to release them)- anyway, you mentioned deforestation as cause of landslides, but in your pics it would seem that landslides happened on slopes with lots of trees...? Comments.....
Second - Disaster Tourist - no, from this and previous blogs that's not what you are - although you may well feel it by default as much as anything - providing visible support to bereaved and or the destitute 'works' for them and that is what is important at that moment - much more so perhaps than any medium/long-term contradictions, hypocrisy and or political shenanigans.
Also, in all self-justifying honesty there to 'experience', to engage, to learn, to observe - you didn’t set up the disaster it happened and it happened, if you can bear to take this view, and it happened at a time and in a place you could benefit from.
Apart from the issues and observations you rightly and impactful raise and comment on - were there any others that you feel you have taken something away with you that is different. For instance, you are among a tiny minority of English people to witness and interact with such an event first hand, and what’s more in such a 'foreign' context? I'm not for one second doing the ‘be more positive' thing - just interested is all!
Politicians do disaster - its a given - the way we might view their contribution is obviously determined by the 'context', the worse they are, the more hypocritical, absurd and unedifying their presence seems – but what has been/was the reaction of locals to the 'visits' of their leaders?
Keep on blogging - really good stuff mate!
dt
Post a Comment