In January I made the
decision to purchase (with the help from
dear ____ from Fairfield) the land beside
and behind the Bumi Sehat Clinic site in
Aceh. This was a difficult decision. Here’s
why:
When people such as us
(and I mean the whole team, field workers in
Aceh, support team in Bali, and donors who
are “in” Aceh in their hearts) go into a
disaster area, where extreme trauma has
occurred, there are obvious phases which
unfold.
At first we feel
“heroic”. This lasts a few weeks. Then the
“honeymoon” phase sets in…we are in love
with our work and know that we are in
service to humanity.
Currently we are in the
“disillusionment” phase. This is when
everyone, the survivors, the helpers, the
donors are tired. Recovery seems to be
taking so very long. We take two steps
forward and slide back one.
Many of the big NGO’s
like OXFAM, are pulling out. UN has cut
their own services, making it harder for us
to exist out there.
The patients are not
getting better. yes, we have cured illnesses
and patched up injuries and life has been
preserved, but the quality of these
lives is not getting noticeably better. This
is when it seems the best thing to do is
rest on our laurels and quit. Who would
criticize us? The clinic in Bali is already
a beautiful service, and keeps us all very
busy.
Yet, we made the
decision to stay in Aceh, to keep the
clinic, which is the primary health facility
in our area, open.
Mercy Relief Foundation
(of Singapore) and the Rotary Club of
Southeast Asia have promised us that they
can only help with operational costs if we
build more buildings. One plan is to move
the birthing facility away from the general
medicine clinic. With so many communicable
diseases on the rise out there, this felt
most wise.
We hope to make a
beautiful community center as well, with a
library and classroom space for capacity
building in health and safety, as well as
livelihood programs.
On the final day, the
day I just had to make the decision, I got a
text message that a dear friend in Bali,
only 37 years old, had died of cancer. I had
spent so much time with her…I would not be
in Bali to attend her cremation and comfort
her family. I had to stay in Aceh and be
responsible for patient care.
I climbed the water
tower, where from two directions I could see
the Indian Ocean, glistening peacefully.
I cried. I asked for a
sign, a symbol, anything…I could not decide
in my grief to buy the land or not.
Now, this land backs up
to an amazing spring-fed wetlands. As I
begged for guidance, a great blue heron took
wing and circled the clinic three times.
Then she glided back down to the land in
question. A pair of bright blue kingfishers
rose up and played above me. Then, a tine
lemon-colored water bird came and landed
near me, nearly saying “Yes!, Yes!”
So, I made the leap,
the commitment and the decision.
Bumi Sehat and the
citizens of Samatiga Aceh will now have more
community space to grow, as we enter the
last phase of trauma, in which the survivors
work hand-in-hand with the volunteers to
achieve…”RECOVERY”.
