The group of about 45 volunteers at Hands On consists of altruistic thrill-seekers, disaster junkies, tattooed hippies and general do-gooders. While many wont admit an addiction to chasing Mother Nature's little accidents, some will at least concede to "itchy feet" and the odd volunteer will even proudly confess his fetish for dangerous and uncomfortable situations.
Not surprisingly then, the recent act of God in Haiti has left many volunteers with restless leg syndrome. Although Hands On has a commitment to Indonesia until the end of April, the thought of freshly settled dust and scenes reminiscent of Dresden 1945 spark something deep in their reptilian brains. Freshly squeezed adrenaline into their cerebral machinery oils the cogs of catastrophe and fuels the lust for bedlam.
The group of volunteers is divided into teams which go to different sites and perform different duties. Early on, Dylan and I got on a Decon(struction) team for two days and had the satisfying job of tearing a damaged house apart (safely). First we assessed the structure and decided to work towards a "pull" which involves other groups of volunteers coming to the site from other jobs and pulling the house over with ropes. It took us one and a half days of work to get to the point of the pull, because we had to sledge walls, pull out door and window frames and remove part of the drop ceiling. While bashing out bricks, we had to put several supports in place to ascertain that the structure did not collapse prematurely. In the end, the pull came off perfectly and much easier than expected (we barely had to tug on the ropes and the whole thing fell over).
On the salvage team, our team leader Niel set a grueling pace. The work was hard and fast and sometimes it was a struggle to keep up. One morning, for four hours, I shoveled a mixture of broken bricks, concrete and rubble into wheelbarrows and dumped the detritus into massive piles beside what was once the house. This work left me completely fagged and drenched in sweat and covered in dust. Most houses are build with bricks or cricket-ball sized river rocks which all need to be chipped from the mortar and heaped in separate piles. From our understanding, the project has salvaged around 50 houses and plans to do a hundred more. Once the rubble is cleared, there is a clean foundation for the family to rebuild upon using the salvaged building materials.
Depending on the climate at the time and how much torrential downpour is happening, we get about four water breaks, lasting about 10 minutes each. The temperature can swing like a jazz musician, dropping about 10 degrees from an angry biting 30 degrees Celsius down to cool overcast and breezy conditions. Tam and I were on salvage teams for the majority of the time volunteering and unfortunately we did not get a chance to try pre-fabrication (cutting and chiseling wood) or framing (actually building the skeleton structure).
Repeated encounters with sizable spiders and scorpions whilst clearing piles of rubble in demolished houses has helped Tam to reduce her instinctive reactions from screams to mild squeaks and squeals. Impressive as this habituation is to members of potentially the earth's most dangerous Class (Arachnida), she is yet unable to stifle the fear aroused by coming face-to-face with the gentle tree frog. She can now handle a decent variety of spiders, centipedes, cockroaches, millipedes and grasshoppers but will still jump three feet when I hand her a frog.
Transition shelters are wood frames and concrete and fencing wire walls, built to last the two years, which is the expected time it will take the family to save enough money for a new house. However, we think the occupants will likely be in the house as long as they can, possibly over 10 years.
The short stay at Hands On allowed us to thoroughly enjoy the food without becoming overwhelmed by its lack of variety, like a lot of the long-termers who look forward to weekends away at Pizza Hut*. A standard lunch or dinner (breakfast was cereal or toast) consisted of steamed rice (very occasionally noodles), fried onion and potato balls, tofu (or if we were lucky, tempe), leafy vegetable from the back of the house, a spicy meat or tofu curry and a fried egg for vegetarians. I often avoided the curry as one mouthful of the sauce would cause one's tastebuds to recoil in horror and one to breakout in a fever-like sweat. In 30 degree heat and 80% humidity, I was sweating enough on my own.
* I was baffled by the power of everyone's attraction to Pizza Hut, recalling only sufficiently decent food on previous visits in Australia. Then Tam took me to one in Medan, Sumatra. The Indonesian culinary imagination is a bizarre and outlandish warp of fantasies not stifled by Western expectations. The final product is a surprisingly pleasing one, both aesthetically and gustatorily.
During the hours of boredom that followed a hard days work, some volunteers took a fire poi "monkeyfist" ball of bound rope the size of a cricket ball and started playing catch with it whilst wearing leather gloves. The ball was firstly soaked for several minutes in kerosene and then set alight. This not satisfying some people, the game of catch eventually developed into a sport, simply known as "the game". This undertaking had gameplay akin to Ultimate Frisbee and a lack of contact rules that would make even the National Rugby League cringe in horror. Reminiscent of Neanderthals fighting over the last bone, the scene is one of eight sweaty, muddy, half-naked, beer-soaked brutes grappling in the dark after a flaming ball. The real skill comes from field/player awareness, ie., knowing where every player is at all times. When you are passed this conflagrant ball of Teflon, it is impossible to see anything but a face full of fire. It is therefore essential that one relies on calls from teammates (see below for video footage). To attest to the brutality of the sport, during my last game, I sustained three decent injuries in ten minutes. I am still nursing swollen wounds which feel like a cracked rib and a dislocated finger and toe.
We both enjoyed our volunteering experience very much. It was interesting to be involved in a project at the coal-face and see how things functioned. It also gave me (Tamara) a new appreciation of manual labourers. Our stay did not feel long enough and we would have liked to hang around longer and see the expansion of future projects, such as developing first aid and earthquake awareness programs and building a new school. It also wasnt long enough to get to know everyone well enough and those we did get to know well, were left too soon. The basic conditions and living in close proximity with 45 people was a challenge. However, we recommend that an experience like this one is worthwhile and easy to get into. A good thing about Hands On is that it focuses on the community's needs rather than the volunteer's experience and monetary contributions. We were impressed with the efficiency and dedication of all volunteers at Sungai Geringging. We both enjoyed doing some hard physical work for a change, getting fit and toned. We felt healthy, sweating away in the fresh (albeit humid) air of the jungle.
