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“Have you
wondered why all the windows in heaven were
broken?
Have you seen
the homeless in the open grave of God’s
Hand?”
~~Kenneth Patchen
The henna painted on my fingernails by old women
and children during my first trip to Aceh, in Feb.
and March 2005 was faded, nearly gone. The people
of Aceh said I would return before the red henna
on my hands disappeared, they were right.
By the beginning of April 2005, I was packing to
return. One cannot really ‘look forward’ to
returning to Sama Tiga Aceh, so near the epicenter
of the December 26th 2004 earthquake
and hard hit by the tsunami. It is like returning
to purgatory. The Bumi Sehat volunteers who keep
going back by choice are more than a little
touched in the head as they say. And, touched in
the heart by love.
An orphaned boy
Aceh, and all of Sumatra are
geologically about the most unstable place on
Earth. Ask team III who survived an 8.7
earthquake that shook the clinic for nearly 7
minutes. Add to that the fact that this is a
conflict zone, where rebel forces have fought to
the death for their independence for nearly 30
years. It is not uncommon to hear gunshots in the
night. With so many trees felled by the tsunami,
Aceh is hot, hotter than ever it was before.
Potable water is precious, and even non-drinkable
wash water is in short supply, except when it
rains and floods. Sanitation is still dicey at
best. Malaria is rife in our part of Aceh, where
approximately 10,000 internally displaced people
are within walking distance of our little clinic.
Walking is necessary as the tsunami took most of
the cars and motorbikes. It wiped out the main
road North to Banda Aceh and South to Meulaboh,
stranding survivors who must travel on a swamp
road that is all too often impassible.
Why would we do it? Why would we continue to keep
this rag-tag clinic open? Because it is the most
heart opening work any of us has ever
experienced. Because, the need is so apparent.
Even seasoned relief workers are moved by the
plight of people who have lost everything and most
everyone they love. If we close the clinic,
malaria victims will die, because they cannot get
to the hospital in Meulaboh. Every day and into
the night patients, between 40 and 80, come for
help. All are living with trauma, struggling with
grief. Most all are open and loving, damaged
souls. For Tsunami survivors, housing is a
crowded barracks room which smells of urine, or a
corner of a host family’s place – the welcome
wearing thin, or a tent, rotting in the rain.
They face each day missing wives, husbands,
children, parents, friends and neighbors, who are
never returning. Their nights are full of fear
that the next (inevitable) earthquake will bring
another tsunami.
The diet of tsunami survivors consists mostly of
white rice and Sari Mie noodles provided by relief
organizations. Vegetables and fruit must be
brought by pushbike to the coastal regions from
upcountry, and are terribly expensive. Most of
the people can’t hope to buy these. Since most all
of the fishing boats were destroyed, ocean fish is
nearly unavailable in our area, except for the few
caught by throwing nets, also prohibitively
priced. The ditch water fishes and crabs are
survival foods, but of questionable quality as
corpses were still being found in the muddy
ditches. In fact, in our area, approx. eighty
corpses were recently (May 20th)
unearthed by the torrential rain. Bumi Sehat
provided masks, gloves and burial cloth.
Sandals washed up on the beach after the tsunami
For the Bumi Sehat team our fear is that foreign
aid will dry up, leaving these people with no
source of potable water, no food, and no hope.
Recent reports in the Jakarta Post admit that the
reconstruction of Aceh amounts to zero. Bridges
are still out, roads still submerged or sliding
into the quicksand. Water and food are precious
and hard to get, impossible in some areas.
While still busy treating infected tsunami wounds
and strange tsunami skin ailments, the Bumi Sehat
clinic staff does a lot of hand holding, a lot of
listening. We administer malaria rapid tests and
treat for malaria. We suture new wounds; we do
prenatal care and deliver babies.
The Bumi Sehat
location is the one place people can seek modern
medical (doctor managed) attention, midwifery
care, counseling for trauma, even hands on healing
from local dukun (Acehnese healers who also
pray). Our cures include pharmaceuticals, local
herbs, trauma cards, homeopathic medicine, aroma
therapy, massage, acupuncture, chiropractic care,
counseling, what ever works, depending upon who is
volunteering at the time.
The clinic also functions as a community resource
center. For many displaced residents of our
district, it is a place to come, have a cup of
coffee, a cookie. It serves as a clean, well-lit
place. Orphans come to play. Elderly people sit
around and talk story. It is a place of sharing
and of healing. The Bumi Sehat Clinic is an oasis
where one will find a drink of clean water, a dart
or badminton game, and a kind hand.
Robin with one of the new babies
Team IV consisted of myself, the midwife/project
grandma, Margo Berdeshevsky, Photographer and
hands on healer in the Hawaiian Kahuna tradition,
Ade, our Balinese legal support, Anya our
volunteer nurse, Thor and Lakota Hemmerle,
Language support, go-fors and liaison between
survivors and NGO services, Plus Lakota did media
support. Ida Tanjung, offered language support
and general help. We were welcomed by the
permanent Acehnese staff; Husmaidar, midwife,
Aysha, hands-on healer/miracle worker and kitchen
staff, Rohani, kitchen and kindness, Hendra,
driving and team support, Bang Hanafi, clinic
maintenance and snake control, Cut Rachman,
community liaison and support, Tia and HasLinda
reception and joy supply (they are both 13 years
old and work part time after school). Isnyadi,
(our wonderful 16 year old orphan, who helped in
every conceivable way) has left the team to
continue higher schooling in the city of Banda
Aceh. We all miss him and have cried a lot over
him.
Highlights of patient care include: Yusmi the
woman with the Tsunami leg wound that had just not
stopped festering, after many courses of
antibiotics (including IV in Meulaboh hospital),
is doing better. She and her husband lost their
baby to the tsunami. At my last meeting with them
they told me they were planning to achieve
pregnancy as soon as possible. We were given
Flufloxacillan from Jon Fawcette Foundation, and
we seem to have gotten rid of the infection,
though we are watching her carefully. Alfandi,
who had suffered a foot laceration in the tsunami,
finally healed thanks to Dr. Carolyn and Harvest’s
idea to dress it with honey. Zuboldah, the
grandmother who had third degree burns on both
feet, had great pain relief and fast healing using
honey and Yinan Baiyao powder. Eric (and later
me, after Eric left) redressed the wounds daily,
with the honey and cotton gauze. Though the burns
were deep, there was no infection or scarring.
Other skin wounds were resolved using a dilution
of oil of oregano and purified water. Stubborn
fungal infections responded to “nilam” (patchouli)
oil and “Minyak Kayu Putih” (Indonesian tree oil),
provided free by Utama Spice (thank you).
Nearly daily we had new cases of falciparum
malaria. Most of the cases we found to be people
living in the barracks. Often they were from the
inland swamp area called “Sungai Mas.” We found
that even patients who were not vomiting should be
treated with a course of Arscam by injection.
This is because if we give them the oral
medication, they only took half and gave the
remaining half away to a sick friend. In these
cases both patients would improve until the
medication had run out, then plunge dangerously
into further malaria fever. We did find that
malaria is the Queen mother of evil tropical
diseases. Living conditions at the barracks,
which are crowded, and surrounded by filthy
standing water, breed malaria and dengue fever
mosquitoes. We found that nearly none of the
mosquito nets provided by UNICEF, were actually in
use. After speaking several times with the people
in Barracks, we began to see them in use. Dr.
David of mentor foundation was fantastic in that
he visited us and was available for consultations
regarding the malaria patients.
We had no luck getting the tuberculosis experts to
come out to Sama Tiga to see patients. The Red
Cross helped us evacuate a heart patient and her
husband to Medan for treatment. Our high blood
pressure patients responded miraculously to a
local cure made by kneading the leaves of the star
fruit tree (daun blim bing) with drinking water,
strain and drink. Taken twice or three times a
day we saw dramatic drops in BP, probably
preventing many strokes. This kind of sustainable
health care really gets us excited.
I was called to a birth along with the traditional
birth attendant, Ibu Sakdiah. The young first
time mother, delivered a beautiful boy of about
2.700 kg. She had only a tiny tear, which she did
not want sutured. There was no hemorrhage. I
taught Ibu Sakdiah how to burn the cord, which she
very much loved. I pray she uses the candles and
burn box I gave her over the blunt school scissors
of questionable hygiene which she normally uses.
The baby went right to the breast. Postpartum
visits were fun, both baby and mother in perfect
health, nursing well at the breast.
“Alhumdulillah” as they say in the Islamic faith.
Margo found herself surrounded by elderly patients
seeking her Hawaiian style of healing massage.
She worked hour after hour beside Ibu Aysha,
relieving pain and suffering. Though she knew
barely a word of Bahasa Indonesia or Aceh, her
hands did the speaking in the language of caring.
I do think her teacher, the dear departed “Kahlua”
of West Maui, was smiling down on his student’s
service in Aceh. We are working on putting some
of Margo’s black and white photos on our website.
The photos included with this report are Margo’s
labor of love.
Lakota had the thankless job of keeping the
receipts and balancing the budget. She did
language support/translation work during clinic
hours, while documenting our work in still
photos. She and Thor would go into Meulaboh, a
hot rough ride through the swamps, to obtain
medicines, bottled water, what ever we needed.
Lakota was working on helping Mercy Corps develop
a curriculum for Safe Motherhood and Infant
Survival. Thor worked with Catholic Relief
Services to build ongoing support for the
communities in our area. He and Ade negotiated
for a clinic well with Swiss Rescue. There is
news that David Mendoza of Rotary in Bali has
found funding for us to build a clinic that will
actually stand up to time and weather, which is
were the well will be dug, yahoo!
I remember my son Thor at age four asking, “When
can I get married?” Wil and I told him he must
first be able to climb a coconut tree, so he could
get food for his family. One evening at the
clinic Thor reached the top of our tallest coconut
tree. He brought me four nuts, set them down at
my feet and said, “Mom, now I can get married.”
At seventeen he has become a man. Doing tsunami
relief work (Thor was on team I and team II as
well as team IV) has given him a beautiful
maturity, a deep compassion. One evening, rushing
home to beat curfew, he spotted a barracks where
the residents all looked sick. He stopped and
talked to the people, finding that they had no
potable water. Within two and a half hours Thor
had Oxfam delivering a 10,000-liter potable water
bladder to this community. Five of my children
have now worked doing tsunami relief, they have
proven that youth is no barrier to service. They
have made me believe there is hope for the
future.
Ade and Cut Rachman had a terrible week as they
awaited the arrival of the ship, “Endless Sun”
carrying 3000 kerosene stoves for distribution to
displaced people in Sama Tiga and a motorbike for
our clinic, plus communication equipment,
medicines and tons of relief supplies. When news
came, by hand phone text message, that the boat
was diverted to Nias, they feared that so heavily
loaded she would not be safe in those treacherous
waters. When she was scuttled on the coral Ade
and Cut Rachman spent a sleepless night awaiting
news of the crew. We all sighed with relief, upon
hearing that all souls aboard were safe and
alive. But, Ade and Rachman faced telling the
people waiting to cook, that their stoves were
lost at sea. IDEP and Christine Foster, our
co-team leader / miracle worker, managed to find
us funding for 1,200 new stoves and a beautiful
motorbike. As it turned out, earthquake victims
of Nias were able to salvage most of the Endless
Sun’s cargo, so the relief goods were delivered,
only to a different address. Thanks to Sam
Schultz the Bali crew of the Endless Sun were able
to get flights home in spite of lost passports, no
shoes, and drenched spirits.
Aceh’s newspaper “Serambi” prints ads run by
family members still looking for tsunami
survivors. I brought home drawings by the
children, of waves, of helicopters dropping the
first food they saw, five days after the tsunami.
I returned with Margo and Lakota’s photos to share
with the beautiful people who keep the clinic open
financially. As co-team leader with Christine
Foster, I am constantly feeling gratitude for our
donors, who make it possible for us to do this
service. They are the quiet saints, working
behind the scenes to restore hope to Aceh.
Speaking of behind the scenes… Logistics
coordinator, Melanie Templer, known for her
devotion and constant, tireless work, has left for
England. Say a prayer for Mel’s ailing mom.
Brenda Ritchmond, though postpartum with a new
baby and still responsible for Bali Buddha, (not
to mention her role keeping the Bali birth clinic
going) has become the logistics magician, with the
help of Wayan Abang. Abang left for team V, so
Brenda is hard at it, making the wheels turn,
juggling the details. Those of us who have lived
in the field know how important a strong logistics
team is, Brenda – thank you so much. Phil of
International Red Cross, Red Crescent, thanks for
getting us from Medan to Meulaboh, and back again
safely.
Team V just lost American midwife Kristine, as
after nearly four weeks she had to return to the
United States. Christine Foster is there,
leading. Abang, provides balance, language
support, field logistics. Roz is onboard as a
trauma counselor. Ade has returned to head up
legal support, project logistics, details of
relocating and building the new clinic, before
this one melts into the jungle. Anya returned to
provide nursing support. Our Acehnese staff
remains constant and hard working. We have
rotating Swiss doctors from PANECO, who are
wonderful. Harvest Alcock of Canada, worked
tirelessly in Bali and without taking a break has
left to join the team in Aceh. Next week we ship
Doctor Bobbi Aqua out.
The Bali support team this new month
includes myself, Brenda, Sandi, visiting midwives
Shirley Tidy from Australia, Helena Dunn of South
Africa, and Sherry Sunshine of Maui, awesome
apprentice Camie Bargerstock.Ibu Putu, Ibu Jero
and Ibu Budi continue to be the cornerstone of
loving maternity care for the Bali clinic. At
IDEP we have a huge team that nourishes us every
step of the journey, Frank Wilson and David
Mendoza at the financial helm, Petra Schnieder,
our “mom” our inspiration, Samantha, growing in
service, Cat, who makes us feel so good about
ourselves, Lisa Newell and Endang – behind the
scenes, and ever essential. The people who stand
behind us, virtually keep us alive and well in the
field.
For those of us who have, ‘seen the homeless in
the open grave of God’s hand,’ life is forever
altered. We cry so easily. At last we understand
the wound that Tolkien spoke of in his character,
Bilbo. That brave Hobbit who, having adventured
too far from the Shire, could never find himself
the same again.
A long time ago Jeannine Parvatti, author and
visionary trailblazer, introduced me to the
concept of, “the Religion of Gratitude.” I would
say that amid the danger and devastation, we, each
of us, has been baptized in the Religion of
Gratitude. While the Tsunami has tested our
faith, having woken to a world utterly unsafe,
broken, and destabilized, we are reborn in love,
every minute in Aceh.
From Ibu Robin Lim and every soul of Bumi Sehat ~
Peace and Thank You
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