Global Mobility Finland Volunteering in Indonesia, Earthquake Tragedy part 3
ATTENTION!!!! NEW HUGE 6.9 EARTHQUAKE HIT LOMBOK LAST EVENING 19th of AUGUST, NOT JUST AN AFTERSHOCK!!! PLEASE HELP!!!
13/08/2018 Monday, Bali, Kuta, Day 4
We succeeded to get the same driver as the day before. We packed our stuff and left the accommodation and we hoped we would be able to fit our bags and all the tarpaulins we already have plus all the new ones we were going to buy that day. The volume was so high that all the 37 tarpaulins, in total over 3000 m2 didn’t fit in our minivan, so we needed to book another car to be able to deliver all the tarpaulins from Kuta to Sanur, where the little port where the shipment to Lombok was predicted to be. We had now spent over 1600€ of our own money to buy the tarpaulins, hoping to get at least some of that money back at some point.
The shop owner and the staff thanked us for helping Lombok, as they all had family in there and were so grateful for our actions and wanted to have pictures with us. Our driver, who helped us the day before and today, was very helpful, friendly and trustworthy driver. We felt very safe with him. I had a chance to interview him a little bit while we were driving from Kuta to Canggu, where we met other divers from Gili Air. The driver, Made, 50-year old local family man from Bali, his family is in Bali and he has a wife and two sons aged 18 and 11. It was nice to chat with him about life in Bali and studying opportunities for his sons.
I arrived first in the destination in Canggu and met all the devastated people who had evacuated from Gili Air. Aleksi came bit later with the second car and got the instructions to leave straight away to take the tarpaulins to the port with the drivers. The port office closing time was soon, so if we wanted to get the stuff shipped to Lombok early morning next day we needed to act quickly. I stayed with the others in Canggu and Aleksi went to assure the delivery to the port in Sanur.
The divers in Canggu were well organized for collecting supplies all over and the good team spirit was present even all of them had experienced the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Gili Air. Most of them evacuated already the day after the earthquake. They were lucky as their employer Oceans Five had organized them accommodation, food and all they needed. There I also met friends, an entrepreneur couple from Air that had evacuated just the day before. They had spent all this time in Gili Air and were so shaken, that I couldn’t even imagine their feelings. There were also Tati, our close friend and Aleksi’s ex-colleague from Dream Divers. I was so happy to see her. It was really hard to approach the traumatized people, I had no idea what to say, how to react, nor what to talk about. The best way was, just listen. Personally, I would have liked to have the same horrible experience together with them to be able to understand. It’s hard to imagine what they have been through, as nothing similar has ever happened to me.
There are few stories I want to share later on, where people were and what they were doing when it all happened and how they managed right after the earthquake.
Now that we had spent quite a lot of money to buy tarpaulins, we needed to figure out, what to do to be able to buy more supplies and what money. We need, and we want to help, but first we need to get money.
It was already dark, and the night was falling before Aleksi got back to Canggu and Tati, Aleksi and me decided to find an accommodation in another place, as there was no space for us to stay the night indoors. Tati had slept already one week outside, so she really needed to have a bed and a good night sleep. We were lucky to still find a place at that time and we decided to figure out next steps the day after.
Please help us to collect money by donating to the link attached. Even a small amount of donation will bring a great help. The money goes directly to Endri Foundation and there are no intermediates nor extra costs, all the money goes directly to buy supplies to the people in need in the refugee camps.
https://www.gofundme.com/ztkntc-lombok-earthquake
https://www.facebook.com/ENDRIs-Foundation-offisial-328797874301186/