Reality check…..

February 6, 2007

How can one country with such strong religious beliefs be subject to so much punishment?? earthquakes, tsumani’s, landslides, train derailments, plane crashes, ferries sinking...... are their prayers getting lost along with the majority of emails that go in and out of the Indo ISP Radnet??

Jakarta still seems to be 75% under water - the news doesn’t bring solace with talk of more rain to come and then the onset of disease due to lack of drinking water and the fact that Jakarta was already a filthy city to begin with - fill it full of water and all kinds of things come out in the wash.

The city is usually in a state of gridlock but now this is final and not much is getting about the place - more rain came last night apparently.

The estimate is that Jakarta has 9 million people - but who ever did the last head-count is probably forgetting that each time Ramadamadingdong comes around in Sep/Oct everyone goes back to their village and returns with a brother or two - I’d say it’s more like 12-14 Million - a lot of people to look after in times such as these - and as the eye-witness accounts say, the government is beyond useless.

I spoke to Yuni and found that her house was under 2 metres of water and all her belongings are pretty much done for - insurance doesn’t exist in these places so bank transfers are the order of the day as I type - there are electricity cables in the water - people have had no help for up to 4 days - a mother lost her baby two doors down and an old woman died of exposure near her mothers house - sign of organised government intervention is non-existent.

Straight away she got stocks of mineral water and kept her daughter from going swimming in the streets with the other kids - then she got her family together and headed 5km out of town - found a place up on a hill and rented it for a month even though she expects to be there for a week - her cousin has dysentery, her mother cut her foot and got infected, her father has a fever - she got them all to the doctors and everyone is Ok - seriously this girl should be running the rescue operation.

I said that in any circumstance were she is worried about her safety she should just take her daughter to the nearest hotel and I’ll foot the bill via credit card - but she jumped one better in renting the place out of the disaster zone - Hopefully the waters don’t keep rising and end of the week things settle allowing the clean up and rebuilding to take place - but with the Government currently in power I expect that to be a longwinded and drawn out process - never the less, with the money I’m sending she should be able to replace what was lost from her house - TV computer Bed cabinets clothes..... more or less everything that was in there was floating around the place.

Damn - I hope she hasn’t lost that little Rolling Stones T-shirt with the ripped knot slashes across the back......

But yeah - I am thinking - get on a plane - pluck her out of chaos - fly back to Malawi - get married - invest in Pauls bar by the lake - give up the tea trade - lakeside resort living for the rest of our days, running bars and boat trips with an Indonesian princess......

There’s plans such as these afoot - whiskey inspires a speed up in proceedings sometimes - but the reality is that while it’s something I’m really considering - I can’t jump into it for a few more years to come just yet.

Just hope that in that time Jakarta manages to stay in one piece.

Although even if it did come apart at the seams, I’d bet on that girl to find her way out of it.