Our last morning in Banda Aceh

I got up early as usual, and went with Hosea to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. At 9:45 am, I met the rest of Team Pembantuan at the hotel reception lobby, our luggage all packed and ready to check-out. As we had earlier discussed, we pooled together all the items which we wanted to leave behind for the villagers - clothing, blankets, construction boots, helmets, gloves, foodstuff, etc. These, we passed to Thay who would bring them to the village within the next couple of days.

I returned Thay the Accident Log sheets and the Habitat mobile phone, and he proceeded to give his final debrief to us, Team Pembantuan. He also presented to each one of us a Certificate of Thanks. We thanked him and the rest of the Indonesian Habitat team for their hospitality and coordination. And then, we were off, on our way to the Banda Aceh Airport.

Thay handing out a Certificate of Thanks to Hock Teck

Flying home

We drove off to the airport in two separate vans, one of which got stopped by the police who thought its licence plate number was "fishy". Ah well, in the end, it turned out to be nothing, and the policeman waved us to go on. Despite the slight delay, we managed to arrive at the airport in time to check-in.

We paid our airport taxes (10,000 rupiah per person), boarded the 11:30 am GA 199 flight to Medan, and swiftly arrived at our port-of-transit within an hour. It wasn't long before we were able to check-in for our second flight bound for Singapore. Again, we paid our airport taxes (75,000 rupiah per person) and boarded the 3:00 pm GA 838 flight. It was an uneventful journey, and we touched down at Changi Terminal 1 at around 5:25 pm, Singapore time.

Alvin and Hosea queuing up to pay airport taxes

Journey's end

With that, Team Pembantuan successfully completed its mission in Banda Aceh. We had worked on five different sites in Tibang Village, helping to get their foundations done. Although we were not able to witness the completion of any single house, we still felt pretty good about what we had been able to contribute. Admittedly, we were ineffective and slow at times, clumsy with tools and stumbling over our bahasa indonesia. But the villagers enjoyed our company - we made them laugh - and they appreciated our enthusiasm to help them.

I guess at the end of the day, all of us in the team will hold dear the precious memories of the Acehnese people whom we had met over there, and be inspired by their courage to live on and rebuild their hopes for a better and brighter future. I wish to pray especially for all the beautiful children of Tibang. Continue to smile, and be strong. All of us from Team Pembantuan miss you lots, and we hope to come back some day.