| 18 February 2005 - Eddie Family & Friends... What a strange, strange trip its been! Tomorrow we go on site where the lone surviving local Krueng Raya boat making craftsman with a team of 10, will make ten, 9-meter boats over the next 2.5 months. Local wood vendors in the jungle village of Lambueta are already commissioned for the specific cuts of wood. Lambueta is rebel/seperatist controled and we were told not to go there, in spit of the fact that we are spending thousands there - ya gotta just believe sometimes! Their rep met us in our Banda Aceh office, along with the boat maker, and we made our first down payment to each... the materials vendor will deliver the initial cuts within 4 days, the tools are ordered and due in from Medan on Tuesday and two, 6,000 watt generators will from same on Monday. We got the LDS Mormon missionary here to fund 10 motors for the boats and the two power generators! Yea!!! The project continues to pick up speed as much has come together within just the last handful of days. We hope there will be continued boat making at our new facility as we will have it fully wired with all new tools, tents, power generators and a cracker jack team of boat builders. We learned yesterday that the land we have staked out is not really owned by anyone... In thirty days local squator rights kick in and the land is the boat building team's for the keeping! See web site for pictures... It has been really challenging for me... especially the first couple of weeks, getting here alone, days were emotionally draining and nights were depressing. Burning garbage everywhere left me with images of being on a "Mad Max" movie set. I've attached a news article out of the Austin Statesman that captures the current status of Banda Aceh pretty well... it is titled "Despair Lingers in Tsunami-Battered City" - which pretty much says it all! Still, now, three weeks into our "let's go to Indonesia and see what we can help with" wide open mission, in spite of a Jakarta surgery, massive depression, body bags and bad bowel movements, we are focused and fully wrapped around a perfect project that employes all locals in both the fishing village and the jungle village that is supplying the lumber for ten, 10-meter boats... we will fully set up, equip, power and staff a fishing boat production facility and Eric will remain for on-site project management for the next 2-3 months, through it's completion. Aaron and I are already planning return trips - he, likely every 4 weeks - I might be limited to returning for the project completion ceremonies party that AIRO will host on the facility once we have the commissioned 10 boats completed and ready for delivery to the Sea Commander "Panglima Luat". Yes, getting here has been strange at best, and very rough often - but now being here, seeing what we have put together feels so good, right, strong, empowering and just perfect! We even took an overnight break from it all two nights ago and hopped a ferry to the island of We and hung out in the city of Sebang. Check out the news article attached... it notes that Sr. Bush and Clinton will be here tomorrow... our Sunday, your Saturday morning. Local scoop is that they will helicopter right down to a refugee camp somewhere (there are lots of them), take a few photos and leave with few on the ground knowing their detailed itinerary... if we have any chance of seeing them, we will be there! Building Hope in Aceh! Eddie |
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