Floods

Written midday, Feb 2

Woke up this morning (Feb 2) after my first night of sleep in Indonesia (got almost 6 hours of sleep which is good for the first night. Walked out of the room and the street outside was under water! The house across the street had been flooded too, but Chris's house was fine - it's up on a rise a bit. It was only about 3 inches of water, but that's a real pain if it's in your house. Turns out the neighbors had moved themselves, their motorcycles, even a refrigerator into the bottom floor over the night and I hadn't heard a thing. Going to bed I'd heard all the rain but was so exhausted I just fell asleep. The rain has been constant and sometimes heavy, but often light - the issue is that the water is coming down from the mountains about 30 miles away, swelling the rivers that run through town.

We were hoping the waters were going down, but they were not. I spent almost 5 hours on the road today with Zaenal, Chris's driver and friend - he is a wonderful person I've known from previous trips. We got to the Dept of Police and got my form no problem, but then spent almost an hour getting about 5 miles to the LIPI office - total traffic jams as many of the main roads were partially or totally shut down, making the legendarily horrible Jakarta traffic even worse. Supposedly a couple places had 3-4 feet of standing water, but in most places I saw it was more like 3-6 inches at most, but it's amazing how disruptive even that much water can be.

So we got to the LIPI office to find it totally surrounded by water. I thought there might be a way around the back so walked into one big 10-story building that is next door to the building I needed to go to. It was totally without electricity - just a bunch of office workers and other folks milling about. Got to the back and the pathway was there in front of me, under 2 inches of water. So I rolled up my pants, took off my shoes and socks, holding them in one hand and my precious documents in the other, and waded across to the building with a couple other folks. Inside it was dark - no electricity, no elevators, nothing. I asked for Ruben, the staff person who'd been helping me, and it turned out he was right there beside me - I didn't recognize him in the dark. The floor was try but the water was rising and spilling into the lobby, just an inch but once again no fun, so we walked up some stairs to the second floor. Using my cellphone as a flashlight, I showed him the documents, including the precious one from the Dept of Police ("you need to have that photocopied," he said - I reminded him that the photocopy machine in the building was, like everything, nonfunctional so he said he'd do it himself later). He said that because there was no power, he wouldn't be able to process the paperwork today. My heart sank and I said I was supposed to get on a plane to Surabaya in a few hours (more on that in an upcoming post). Thankfully he said a friend could come on Monday and get the document and mail it to me in Makassar. Whew.

Then it was another drive across the rain back to the Yayasan Spiritia office. Zaenal, I owe you big time - thanks so much for all the help! Yayasan Spiritia (Spiritia Foundation) is where Chris and Zaenal work - it's got about 10 regular staff. It's one of the top organizations in Indonesia for support and treatment for people with AIDS. Suzanna Murni, one of the first Indonesians to admit publicly to having AIDS, was a founder and a dear person to me. I last met her in Melbourne in 2001 with Bill; not long after that she passed away. But the organization continues to grow and they do amazing work. Their website is probably the best anywhere for information about care and treatment for people with AIDS - it's a staggering work of data gathering, translation, and summarizing, and they keep adding to it.