WEEKLY SUMMARY

Field Operations:
West Coast Reconnaissance Mission:
Our West Coast reconnaissance mission team of Dada Dinakar and Bro. Wayan left by boat to Leupung on 26th Jan with a small load of drinking water (480 x 1.5 litre bottles) and two boxes of super fortified biscuits. They form part of a 6 member relief team in conjunction with a local NGO called Gemma 9. The plan is to set up a buffer camp in Leupung town to assist survivors walking on foot towards relocation camps in Banda Aceh. To give you an idea of the extent of the disaster even huge NGO's like Care have been unable to access some of the stranded small towns along the West Coast not even 50 kms. outside of Banda Aceh due to the obliteration of key bridges and large portions of road that prevents access by anything larger than a 4WD vehicle! We are anxiously awaiting for more news from our reconnaissance team.

Child Care Activities:
The AMURT/AMURTEL teams are coordinating nicely in providing daily, non-formal education and recreational activities for children ages 3-12 years in two camps (Lambpisang and Neuheun) in Aceh Besar District (Greater Banda Aceh area). AMURTEL is additionally engaged in psycho-social counseling for traumatized teenagers in the Neuheun camp. Total number of beneficiaries is about 200 children and youths.
Application has been made to UNICEF to access their school-in-a-box kits for upgrading the materials available to our teaching volunteers in the camps. The children have been highly inspired with our activities. Didi reported how the girls were able to relieve their traumas by drawing and painting activities. The nutritious meals of sweet rice, vegetables, milk and fruit is a wonderful change from the drab diet of rice, noodles and biscuits provided by the major NGO's.

Jr. High School Repair:
Dada Nirmalkrsnanandaji will finalize today the project proposal for the repair of the most important Jr. High School in Banda Aceh city, having received the sketches and cost estimates from the civil engineer yesterday. The total budget comes to $30,000 and Dada is planning to approach several international organizations within Banda Aceh for support. Meanwhile the military has cleared the school of debris so our work may proceed speedily. Dada met again the Deputy Minister of Education who also wants AMURT to build from scratch three other school buildings in the same compound of the Jr. High School. These buildings are heritage sites in the city as their architecture dates back to the Dutch period 100 years earlier! It is a most prestigious project. Not only the schools but also the school plans have been wiped out by the tsunami. So it will be a pain staking effort to attempt to re-construct the schools as they were originally with no plans!

Village Rehabilitation:
Dada Surya Prakash's contact (Pa Asri) turns out to be a former PA to the Aceh Provincial Governor for past seven years! He has been extremely helpful to us in this early phase of our operations. He accompanied us on a visit to the Village chief of Neuheun Village, Aceh Besar (one of the camps where we have our educational activities). In the 3 hour discussion we made tentative plans for two key areas of rehabilitating the village:
1. House reconstruction of 32 destroyed homes and repair of 10 damaged homes in the village. Villagers will adopt the "gatong rayon" (collective self-initiative) method to reconstruct the damaged houses with AMURT material support. As an initial signal of our good intentions AMURT sent three volunteers with ax, wheelbarrow, shovel and hoes to help clean up the village every morning. Neuheun is the largest village (1731 residents) in the Aceh Besar sub-district.
2. Rehabilitating the numerous cottage industry brick kilns which employ 75% of the villagers. We are working on a support scheme that involves 50% credit and 50% grant to the village. The village promises to set aside 5% of net profits for a social upliftment fund to aid the worst affected members from the tsunami disaster. They also commit to hire local villagers first before acquiring laborers from outside the village. It is envisioned that the 50% credit funds will be further used as a revolving micro-credit scheme both within Neuheun and other outlying villages. The added advantage of rehabilitating this cottage industry first is that tons of bricks will be needed in the months ahead as reconstruction of houses commences in full speed. We will have another meeting with Pa Asri and the village chief next Monday
to take our plans further.

Registration of IDP's:
AMURT is working with the head of the Peuniti neighborhood where our offices are located to register IDP's (Indonesian Displaced Persons) and help them to acquire food aid in the short term. Thus far 50 IDP's have been registered in 5 neighborhoods of our area.

General Situation:
The over-all relief operation shows signs of recovery in Banda Aceh city but the situation on the west coast remains in the emergency relief phase with many areas still inaccessible and people facing severe hardships of food and water. In the daily coordination meetings it is indicative to note that the NGO community makes sincere efforts to understand and cooperate as much as possible with the Indonesian government in tackling the massive relief effort. And visa-versa. It is noteworthy that both sides attempt to set aside their egos and pre-conceived notions about the other and collaborate as best as possible for the welfare of the victims. I am impressed with the organizing ability and methodical approach and mobilization capacity of NGO's in dealing with the crisis. I am also surprised to see that in spite of this "efficient" approach, the crisis remains large in the west coast and smaller, flexible NGO's like AMURT can make a difference! Let us see how this scenario plays out as it is also a fact that every day new events constantly re-shape the strategy on how to meet the challenges.

Dada Shiilabhadrananda, Banda Aceh

Whole family wiped out

I was driving from Lampbisang Village after entertaining the children in
our child care program. I saw some youths walking and asked them, "Where are
you going". They replied, "We are looking for a job". I decided to give them
a lift to their village. One of the boys told me as we were nearing one
destroyed clump of wood, "This was my house. To escape from the waves, I
climbed up that tree and I could see everything. I saw all my family washed
away, my house washed away, and even my cows. I remained in the tree for 5
hour until the waves subsided." I heard from him that all 9 family members
died in the tsunami and he was staying with a few relatives in the camp
settlement of Lampbisang near his village.

Dada Surya, Banda Aceh

Small town big hearts

For the last few days in Priceville, we have been very busy designing and distributing flyers for the upcoming Tsunami Fundraising Dinner. At the same time, we created a nice poster for the local elementary school with many photos of the volunteers working for Amurt in this area. Children were very inspired that their photos appear beside photos of the volunteers from India and Indonesia. Also the school displayed an Amurt Donation Box in the main hall ( underneath of the poster ). Children will be able to continue their collections efforts. One of our local Health Food Stores in Dhuram collected almost $150 in our Amurt Donation Box.The General Store in Priceville donated $ 90. Considering that our Municipality is very small and poor, the number of people participating in this effort is very inspiring. Yesterday we started preparation for the Power Point Presentation, about Amurt activities in the World ( in particular in South East Asia ). This presentation will be a part of our event during Tsunami Fundraising Dinner at Hare Krishna Temple. Also we had an initial meeting with a local activist where we introduce a proposal to open a permanent Local Amurt Office as a rapid response unit in the case of another, natural or human made tragedy. We are planning to create an emergency call list of the potential Amurt volunteers. Each participant will be provided with the Grey County Amurt sticker and telephone number which will be used for networking and organizing a fast reaction in the case of local or global events. During a quiet moments, we will be providing support services to those in needs ( especially the elderly and children ). Also from February 1st, we will have once a week, regular, free of charge yoga classes and seminars. Also once a month we will have a free vegetarian cooking class.

Please join Amurt activities in your area or create your own Amurt chpaters.


Take care,

Nilmini Fernando and Trilokesh ( Tadeusz Majewski )
Local Amurt Coordinators
tel. +1 519-924-3968

No water in the south

I traveled by motorbike today (January 23) with Bro. Wayan from Banda Aceh
town down the West Coast to do a survey of the damage done by the tsunami
and attempt to locate a place from where we could set up a base camp. I was
accompanied by four other members of a local NGO called Gemma 9. We went in
convoy of three motorbikes.
In many places the road was totally wiped out by the tsunami. We had to go
far inland in order to continue our travel southward. It was like driving in
those championship field bike competitions only this was for real.
Two or three major bridges were completely destroyed. In one town the
population reduced from 10,000 people to about 900 inhabitants according to
the stories of the village folk.
We got down as far as Lhoong which is about 100 kms. south of Banda Aceh.
On the way, we saw many people walking towards Banda Aceh town. There were
about fifty people in all, traveling on foot in groups of five or ten
people. They were so thirsty. We offered them our water. They told that the
food supply was controlled by the TNI (Indonesian Army) who would go to the
camps and forcefully take the food from the villagers. The TNI were also
hungry and undernourished after spending so many weeks removing corpses. The
villagers said that the secessionist army GAM were hiding in the mountains
with arms, so the TNI had to be alert and well fed. We ourselves ran out of
water so I climbed the coconut tree to get something to drink. There were
very few coconut trees remaining after the tsunami. Finally I was forced to
drink from the river, as I was so thirsty. Fortunately I did not get sick
from drinking that water.
There is a desperate need to set up an initial base camp at least to supply
water to the people. From that first camp we can slowly move southward down
the coast towards Calang (about 200 kms. further south). I will know in a
few days when is my next travel south.


Dada Dinakar, Banda Aceh

WEEKLY SUMMARY

Field Operations

Since the last update we continued with our visits to camps in Aceh Besar District, just outside of Banda Aceh town. We visited four camps, doing rapid needs assessment in all of them and supplying one ton of rice, salt and sugar in one. There were 1731 beneficiaries. We have chosen the Lambisang Camp to start our child care activities and AMURT and AMURTEL are working together on this activity benefiting 275 children.

We visited the Ministry of Education who earmarked a primary school and a junior high school as urgent buildings to be renovated in time for the re-opening of schools on the 26th of January. There are huge piles of debris that prevent us from accurately verifying the strength of the foundations and estimating the repair costs. We hope to do that next week as we are just coming out of a four day Eid observance in Banda Aceh.

We also are looking at the possibility of providing boats to 15 fishermen of Neuheun Village, Aceh Besar District, who lost theirs in the tsunami. We were visited by Ananda Deva of Bali who took video footage of our work, Tapeshvar of Singapore who made a five minute PowerPoint presentation of our work, Adinath of Medan, Dada Divyalokeshanandaji and SS Manila. Dada Surya Prakash joined increasing the core group of volunteers to seven. He has already made contact with an influential Acehnese professor who is keen to assist us in liaison and PR work.

A five member AMURTEL team paid a one week visit and returned today to Medan. They visited various camps in Aceh Besar District and have promised to support the AMURTEL Didi Manika who is working together with AMURT on the child care centre in Lambisang Camp.

We sent a two man advance party to the ravaged West Coast today and hope to set up base camp there sometime next week.


The scene in all the coastal villages on the west coast of Aceh

We are attempting to source food sources from amongst the large NGO's and "fill in the gaps" wherever we see them. The food sourcing efforts have yet to yield any concrete results.

Needs:
UNICEF in coordination with the Public Works is mounting a solid waste management campaign and attempting to clean up Banda Aceh city. They are seeking volunteers. So overseas volunteers are welcome to assist us in that operation which is envisioned to carry on for three months. Bilingual volunteers are needed for office, communication and child care activities in the camps. Midwives for child deliveries in the camps are urgently needed! We may have a more accurate request for volunteers once our team reports back from the West Coast assessment.

Dada Shiilabhadrananda, Banda Aceh

Amiruddin's Stories

We visited the Neuheun Camp, 13 kms. Northeast of Banda Aceh town three days ago. We found 1731 people in the camp, in makeshift tents. There was only one toilet in the camp which was situated on the side of a mountain spread out over 1 km. of green country side. We walked around the camp and took photos to get a feel of the situation. In spite of their tragedy people seemed reasonably okay, with kids smiling as we took their photos. We dropped off 30 kg. of dried fish which at least would provide them one nice meal apart from the daily saltless meal of noodles and biscuits. But the flow of food has improved since that first visit. We dropped off another 800 kg. of rice and 200 kg. each of salt and sugar yesterday.

We went with Amiruddin a naval student, age 24 to tour his destroyed village of Neuheun which is the largest in the sub-district of Masjid Jaya in Aceh Besar district. Amiruddin had a few stories to tell about the tsunami. He pointed to a lone standing structure about 500 meters ahead before which were flattened houses and ravaged fields. He told us (through a translator) that this was a "sacred" house as saintly people were buried here. Amiruddin believes that was why the house was saved. We stood on a vast expanse of flattened trees and homes where two waves of the tsunami met and wiped out hundreds of people. It was hard to conceive of that nightmare as we gazed on a calm sea 400 meters away. We walked with Amiruddin around the village, surveying the damage. We saw the 200 meter narrow passage that people ran along to escape the oncoming waves of the tsunami. Some made it and some didn't. Amiruddin and his 7 brothers were lucky. On the fateful morning of the tsunami he thought it strange to see a large flock of birds over the village. Suddenly, he was surrounded by 1 meter high water and he started running. The water reached up to his stomach and was slowly rising. He grabbed onto a tree and waited there until the waves subsided. Now he and his family are keeping up in the Neuheun camp. But as there is no kerosene at the moment, so the womenfolk walk the three kms. from the camp to fetch firewood for their meals. Amiruddin was in the last six months of his naval training at the Akademi Maritime Aceh, in Banda Aceh town. After the tsunami when he checked out his school, he came to know that all the instructors had disappeared and he understood that only 200 of the original 2000 students had survived.


Every coastal town in Aceh has bullitin boards crowded with pictures of missing people.

The Lamnga village on the other side of the Abadun river that separates the two villages was worst hit. When villagers managed to cross the river to escape to the mountains they found that the waves had inundated that side too and many of them drowned. Amiruddin explained that most of his fellow villagers were either subsistence fishermen or farmers. Fifty were either dead or missing. Fifteen of them lost their boats in the disaster. His eyes lit up when we told him that whatever honey he could gather from the nearby hills we would buy from him. He promised us that the honey would be pure. Just like him, I thought. Under gentle prodding, Amiruddin told us about his friend who was swimming with the tsunami after it had washed away his home. He grabbed a tree. That too got washed away... finally he was saved by a lone piece of strong wood bobbing in the water.

A third friend Wadi, 24 yrs. who was fishing at the time of the earthquake, was surprised by the huge numbers of fish literally hopping out of the sea that day. But when the tsunami hit good fortune swiftly transformed into bad. By some miracle Wadi too took shelter of a nearby tree and waited out the monstrous waves. Then he understood what his dream two days earlier foretold. He saw a giant bird flying from the sea towards the mountains of his village and back again to the sea.

Dada Shiilabhadrananda

Small is Beautiful

The Aceh relief operation is considered the biggest and most expensive operation in history. Thousands of metric tons of food and supplies are arriving and have already arrived to provide succor to the thousands who have suffered in the catastrophe. In the midst of this massive operation, we had a nice experience three days ago at the camp we are servicing in Aceh Besar district, about 4.5 kms. from Banda Aceh town. On the advice of an officer of UNICEF we decided to buy a few balls and volleyballs to offer to the kids who sit in the camp all day and have nothing to take their minds off the recent traumas they have passed through. When we showed the balls to the camp coordinator and the parents their eyes opened with delight-finally an opportunity for the kids to play and the parents to relax! If the adults were pleased you should have seen the kids!! All balls gone in three seconds and loud screams and laughter made it appear as if 15 meter waves crashing on unsuspecting villages and towns never happened! Normalcy returned. At least for a while. An Oxfam water engineer who was working on sanitation for the same camp, when he saw our simple gesture exclaimed, "What a great idea! Why didn't anyone think of that before?"

As Mother Theresa said: "It is not how much service is done but it is how much love that is put into the service that is important".

Shiilabhadrananda, Banda Aceh



Child receiving food parcel from AMURT

Survivor tales

Here are some of the unbelievable tales as told by victims of the recent Tsunami disaster in Aceh Province:

1. Mrs. Linda Winarmi, 35 years, a tsunami survivor from Teunom in Aceh Jaya District on the west coast traveled from her destroyed village to Banda Aceh to attend the Relief Coordinators' meeting convened by the Indonesian government. She survived 5 days on mineral water. In that meeting on Jan. 1st, she told that nobody from her area had received any relief supplies, so she came to inform the relief officials who thought that her village had already been covered. She was crying in the meeting as she explained that 4-5000 of the townspeople out of 6000 had perished. After her account the Relief coordinator promised her that an Army Officer would personally visit the destroyed village with her the next morning with relief supplies. The Indonesian Army has done extensive emergency relief all over Aceh Province trying to reach the most inaccessible places.


Scene from Banda Aceh5 days after the disaster

2. When Margii brother Nityananda arrived on Jan. 8th he got a chance to speak to some survivors at the Banda Aceh airport while waiting for us to pick him up. One man who lost 20 out of 25 of his family members told him that the waves were about 15 meters high and lasted about 15 minutes in duration, one after the other!

3. Another man told Nityananda his story. He had stayed the previous night of the tsunami in the mountains. In the early morning he felt a tremendous shaking of the entire earth that made him very uncomfortable. After a short while when light came, he decided to return from the mountain to town. Seeing the panorama from a high distance he noticed that there was a reflection of the sun on a huge expanse of water where the town should have been! Then he realized that a huge disaster had occurred.

4. Johnny a Chinese survivor of the tsunami came up from Medan to look for his family who had settled in Banda Aceh some years ago. He approached Nityananda and pulled out photocopies of his mother and sister who had perished in the waves. Tearfully he asked Nityananda: "Please keep these. If you find my family please let me know".

5. On January 14th, while returning from marketing Nityananda and Dada Ratnesh noticed a large turtle stuck in the middle of a pond. With the help of some local people, they managed to rescue the 80 kg. turtle who had suffered lacerations to its arms and legs. They lifted the turtle into our vehicle and then Dada drove the short distance to the sea and released the turtle. So pleased was the turtle that they had saved his life, that he dipped his head 3 times from the sea towards the cheering villagers watching him return to his familiar habitat!

Shiilabhadrananda, Banda Aceh, Indonesia

WEEKLY SUMMARY

Field Operations:
In the past few days we have been visiting some of the IDP (Indonesian Displaced Persons) Camps dotted around Banda Aceh city, site of the worst brunt of the tsunami. We have been distributing some balls, badminton sets, fresh vegetables, fruits and supplementary foods to three camps benefiting 4100 people as well as doing an assessment of their needs for follow-up support.

We plan to link up with UNICEF to provide non-food items (jerry cans, plastic sheeting, and shelter repair kit) for three camps about 5 km. from Banda Aceh town. We are trying to place a second team in the second town in Aceh Province, Meulaboh on the west coast, which was also badly damaged by the tsunami. Once there one possibility we are looking is doing a psycho-social program (trauma counseling, animation for children, etc.) in conjunction with the CRS (Catholic Relief Services).



Our team visited another camp for displaced Indonesians of Chinese origin. There were about 19 victims staying with a host family and their needs are being well looked after. Many ethnic Chinese have gone to Medan to stay with relatives there. We have been attending the daily briefings from the major UN agencies and NGO's to keep ourselves abreast of the ongoing developments in the relief operation as well as to make contacts with other organizations doing a myriad of short term relief work. We are trying to make linkages so that our service activities are meeting the needs of the survivors and are not duplicated by other agencies.

We are trying to make contact with a Foundation which is offering supplementary food to the Camps in the form of Vitamins and Zinc.

Day to Day Situation:
Normal operations are far from restored in Banda Aceh town. About 60% of the city has been destroyed. We are staying in the south-east portion of the city which escaped the tsunami path. However there is erratic water supply, our local telephone is out of order and basic drinking water is not available. No stationary is available-even the UN offices are not providing us with paper or photocopies! Needless to say, internet and email communication is also sporadic from here as we have to depend on one of two overcrowded servers provided by the UN and the Indonesian government. It is already two weeks since we tried for connection through the cell phone and that too is not ready! Even to call from cell phone to cell phone is a daunting task within Aceh and beyond as signals are erratic and in some places non-existent.

The disruption of basic infrastructure coupled with the daily monsoon rains considerably slows our relief and coordination efforts. All data on the numbers affected and who is giving what service where, is still unclear and unsystematic though that situation is expected to improve within one week. It is quite shocking to visit the city centre of Banda Aceh. There is still a 10 ton boat "parked" on a main road of the city, apart from all of the huge amounts of debris left from the tsunami and earthquake. Though government rescue crews are working to restore normal conditions, it will require both massive machinery (bulldozers, etc.) as well as muscle power over a few months to bring the city back to normal.

Long-Term Projects:
We are looking at several possibilities in the Banda Aceh area:
1. Repair of damaged houses.
2. Rehabilitating water logged village wells and salted farm lands.
3. Repair of damaged schools.

Nothing is yet finalized and this list may change by the next report! The entire relief operation is highly fluid due to the enormity of the damage and the inability to accurately access the extent of the need due to the above-mentioned impediments.

Staff:
At the moment there are 9 AMURT and 2 AMURTEL staff in Banda Aceh, with 3 AMURTEL members and another AMURT member on the way. In the Medan
coordinating office two Dadas are handling logistics and regularly supply all of our relief, office and domestic needs. In the coming week several more volunteers from Bali will join us as our
operations promise to grow.

Needs:
If one does not know the local language (called Bahasa Indonesia) it will be difficult for him/her to do much service other than the non-skilled variety. And for that we feel it is better to take the help of local tsunami survivors who at the same time can earn some money for their families. Nevertheless there is still a need for medical personnel who can be used directly in the many ad-hoc medical posts set up to serve the survivors (doctors, nurse, and paramedic).

If one has fluency of language we still need:
Cook, Driver, Animators for children, Artists, Psychologist, Architect/Builder,.

Funny as it may seem we do not require food donations as there are huge stocks of food already in the province. Whatever we need we would rather purchase locally so as to strengthen the economy. Cash donations are needless to say always welcome.

How To Contact Us:
Banda Aceh:
Dada Nirmalkrsnananda, Field Director: Tel.: 62-81370081482
Dada Shiilabhadrananda, PR. shiilabhadrananda@anandamarga.net
Dada Dinakar, Indonesian Relief Coordinator, T.: 62-81360191598
Dada Ratnesh, Banda Aceh Relief Coordinator, Tel.: 62-81362305559
Didi Vanii, AMURTEL Aceh Coordinator, Tel.: 62-81320104219

Medan:
Dada Caetanyananda, Over-All Coordinator, Tel.: 62-8126052600.
caetanyananda@anandamarga.net
Dada Devashuddhananda, Logistics. devashuddhananda@anandamarga.net

Dada Liilananda, Jakarta R.O.: liilananda@anandamarga.net; Tel.: 62-8151825490.
Dada Sumitananda, SS Manila: sumitananda@anandamarga.net
Dada Unmantrananda, SOS Manila and AMURT Web Master: 63-9208198471.
support@amurt.net

Website: www.amurt.net/tsunami.
Please sign up for our newsletter at the website for more details and photos.

Shiilabhadrananda, Banda Aceh

The last dead bodies

Even until now, 17 days after the calamity there are still many dead bodies. Yesterday five of us from AMURT went to collect the corpses as thiswas declared to be the top-most priority of the relief operation. Since theage of the corpses were already more than two weeks old, their condition nowis completely rotten. It makes it more difficult for us to evacuate themsince their limbs are easily falling apart and many of them are under atree, rock, mud or building. With this kind of work the government hasprovided us with very minimum equipment-- they gave us very thin gloveswhich easily break while evacuating the corpse. The same case also with the mask-it's just like a thin layer of tissue which is useless since the smellis so strong and penetrating it is as if we are not using anything. It made one of our volunteers vomit when he started this work. Anyway after much pressure from many volunteer groups including AMURT, the government has provided us with better equipment which we received yesterday. I felt that the government is overwhelmed by the extent of the crisis.



Dada Dinakara, Banda Aceh, Indonesia

internet money

I am providing internet support to the team in Aceh. In the course of fighting the barrage of emails from people who are donating, want to volunteer and coordinating the P.R. work of the operation, one particular exchange was particularly memorable.

On the website we are only asking for cash as the relief materials like food and water was easily available in Medan, our regional headquarters, which is about a 12 hours truck drive from Banda Aceh. Medan was barely affected by the disaster.

One person wrote to me and asked why we only asked for cash and whether we did this so we could line our pockets! It was late and I was exhausted having gone on few hours of sleep for several days due to the massive workload the relief operation entailed. So I wrote a rather harsh reply stating our strategy but also asking the personto help out or buzz off and let us do our work in peace :-O

When I woke up next morning the person had written again and was OK with my flaming response and had donated $1,100!

Note to self: stick to your guns if you are doing the right thing and don't cry over lost sleep ;-)

Unmantrananda, Manila, Philippines

P.S. spread these URLS as much as possible :-)

Website: www.amurt.net
Newsletter: www.amurt.net/newsletters
Blog: www.amurt.net/blog/aceh.html

This banner you can just copy and paste into your emails:

Still much work to do

A second AMURT team has left Medan for Banda-Aceh last night. They have safely arrived and have immediately started looking for the Acehnese authorities.

They addressed a minister of the government and asked whether medical assistance was required at a military hospital located in Banda-Aceh (the only hospital housed in tents).


Dada Ratnesh distributing relief goods in Banda Aceh

The question was asked because a group of 10 volunteer doctors and nurses have offered to join AMURT.

The minister told them that there was still a great need for medical personal and that they could even get a portion of the hospital for their operation.

There are still dead bodies to remove (perhaps in Melabuh). Help is still required to distribute food, clean some hospital, and other inportant facilities, etc.

Dada Caetanyananda, Medan, Indonesia

Milk

The third day after I arrived in the city I decided to move around to seethe damage caused by nature. That is the time I met one mother with hertired face carrying her 5 years old daughter. I came close to her and westarted to talk. I found out that her daughter since five days was alwayscrying and asking for milk. After knowing that immediately I opened my bagand took out the fresh milk which I had carried and handed it over to herchild. It made her eyes shining with happiness and she started to smile.Just this small thing, a packet of fresh milk can bring happiness to others!I felt Ananda Marga can do more than that, we just need to coordinate more. Here there is a huge chance for us to do service.


Dada Dinakar, Aceh, Indonesia

A different New Year

In Banda Aceh AMURT is not only involved in collecting the corpses but is also distributing the basic necessities. Our first distribution we did inthe middle of the city of Banda Aceh on January 1, 2005. Since when I joined Ananda Marga, I always celebrated the new year with Akhanda Kiirtan and the reading of the Ananda Vanii but this time it is so different. Here in the middle of the dead city we were distributing 4,000 relief boxes containing noodles, mineral water, biscuits and milk. In that desperate situation for food, hungry people can do anything. We were so lucky that the military gave their assistance in the distribution otherwise it was just going wild.

Dada Dinakara, Banda Aceh, Indonesia


That's me (on the left)
distributing food parcels on New Year's day 2005