It rained last night

There was a heavy storm last night. Team Pembantuan had the luxury of snuggling under Hotel Cakradonya blankets, but the villagers of Tibang had to contend with both the wind that whistled through gaps in their wooden shacks and tents as well as the damp cold that rose from the ground.

When we arrived at the wooden shack in land plot #184 in the morning, it was still drizzling. Some of the village boys came over to look for us. They were shivering and kept saying to us "dinggin, dinggin", the Indonesian adjective for 'cold'. We had neither hot drinks to offer them nor any additional clothing to pass to them - except for our yellow ponchos which we had to put on because we were about to start our construction work in the open in spite of the persistent rain.

What a gloomy way to start the day. We continued to cut steel rods and bent them into steel rings, with the children taking shelter in makeshift houses, rubbing their bodies vigorously in an attempt to stay warm.

The landscape looked even more desolate with the murky puddles of rainwater.

Playing games with the children

By lunchtime, the rain had ceased, and we stopped for our meals. The sun was back in full force, so we were glad to retreat under the shade of our wooden shack. The village boys came over to play with us, intrigued by some of the finger games that we were teaching them. I could tell that they enjoyed themselves greatly.

I asked them if they main bola (play ball). They said they would love to play soccer anytime, but ever since the tsunami struck last December, they haven't had any soccer balls, or any other sports balls for that matter, to play with in Tibang. All had been swept away, and Burhan was thankful that at least, he still had his bicycle.

The children were very happy to play with us.

The extent of damage

On our way back to the hotel from Tibang, I could not help but reflect upon the immense extent of damage caused by the tsunami and the earthquakes which followed. Tibang was almost 2 km away from the coast, and already there was such devastation. Our hotel was located about 5 km from the coast - our driver reckoned - and yet still, during the tsunami, the floodwaters rose to almost 2 metres in depth, and around 20 bodies were washed into its ground floor reception lobby.

Every day, we would see this building en route to Tibang from our hotel. It was damaged in one of the strong aftershocks.

Transporting bags of cement

When we returned to Tibang at 9 am in the morning, Adele, Wai Yan, Hock Teck and Lark were instructed to continue with some of yesterday's work, while Hosea, Hiew, Alvin and I were allocated the job of transporting twenty packs of cement from a warehouse to the building sites. It was an awfully back-breaking task, trying to lift the 40-kg bags of cement off the floor, out of the warehouse and onto a pick-up. We weren't allowed to kick or drag the cement bags because the packaging was paper-based, and the last thing we needed was to have the bags split open, pouring their precious contents onto the floor before we even got to the building site.

In the process of transporting the cement, a fair amount of cement powder got into my eyes, nostrils and throat. I felt really miserable at first, but after a while, I got used to it. By the time the four of us returned to land plots #129 and #140 with our bounty, we were absolutely exhausted. But we came back at an excellent timing: it was mid-morning tea-break :)