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News Correspondents

The past three days have rolled by smoothly, and somewhat quickly. I'm getting near the end of my time here. The closer I get to leaving, the more I look forward to it. Fortunately I've enjoyed every minute of my time here, and have never felt the desire to count the days until I leave. We've become a friendly little community in the camp here, with fourteen of us living here permanently. I say it that way because the past several nights there have been a handful of guests in addition to those of us who are regulars in the camp. But nothing here is permanent, and there will be a couple of us moving on by the end of this week. And, I also have heard the French military will be leaving the UN base camp on the 18th, but since we've heard reports like that before, we'll have to wait and see if it really does happen.

I was in the 'kitchen' getting some hot water for noodles this afternoon, and had a minute to talk to two Polish news correspondents. They have been talking with local people getting their points of view on what is going on since the tsunami. Obviously, the people of Aceh province are very grateful for all the help they've been receiving from the world community. One thing they've heard from a few people is that the NGOs, those who are helping with the relief effort, need to make sure they are teaching the people how to do things for themselves. The NGOs can provide all the help they want, but when they leave in a couple months, how will the people fare then? For example, they need to be taught to raise new crops, since many of the rice paddies have been destroyed with salt water. I was talking with a Samaritan's Purse person today, and they will be flying a doctor from Johns Hopkins around this week, and the goal is to teach people how to spray for mosquitos indoors. With that knowledge they will be able to continue spraying for mosquitos even when the NGOs are gone. Malaria is a real concern right now, and SP is also distributing mosquito nets.

I don't remembered if I mentioned it earlier, but I was interviewed for a story about the UN base camp and our Pactec Internet Café by a MetroTV reporter late last week. That story was aired today in Indonesian, and will air again tomorrow morning in English. I suppose I could get up early and walk down to Hajar's house. Hajar, our driver, has a TV, and that's the only way I can think of to go watch it.

The reporter for MetroTV was in the 'net café to check e-mail today and I had a chance to talk with him a little more. He was out at one of the destroyed fishing villages today. The fishing boats are either totally destroyed, or they are out of the water, washed up onto the shore. Some boats are maybe a hundred meters from the ocean, while other boats are a quarter mile inland. The roads to these villages are gone, destroyed by the waves. I've read that there are over forty bridges between Melaboh and Banda Aceh that have been destroyed. So what that means for the people of these fishing villages is that they can't get their fishing boats back to the ocean. They need some heavy equipment to move the large boats, and they don't have the roads to get that equipment to them. The reporter was telling me that in the fishing village he was in today, there are still bodies being recovered. The same is true in Banda Aceh--seven weeks after the tsunami.