Happy Lunar New year

It is hard to believe that almost five years has passed since that horrific, fateful day in December 2004, when over 226,000 lives were lost in a few short hours.

I became a Red Cross volunteer as a college student in 1972 after one of the worst hurricanes in the US and have worked on over a hundred disasters in dozens of countries in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe since then.

But none of them quite prepared me for the scale and complexity of the aftermath of the tsunami.

At first I was dispatched as head of the International Federation's tsunami operation in Sri Lanka.

Like countless others my first thoughts on seeing the scale of the devastation were, how are we going to cope with this? Two thirds of the coastline had been hit and the situation was chaotic at best.

The immediate priority was to get tents, food and water to the thousands of people camped by the roadside who had lost everything.

It was the same story in Indonesia but even bigger.

The waves had come in higher, 20 metres in some stretches, driving inland for miles and destroying entire settlements along parts of the coast.

Conditions for tsunami survivors in that first year were tough.

In Sri Lanka almost 120,000 homes had been damaged or destroyed and one of our challenges in those early days was managing public expectations, explaining that the rebuilding process would take at least five years and not six months.

Challenges

Today, the Red Cross/Red Crescent has helped to build over 51,000 homes across Sri Lanka, the Maldives and the Sumatran province of Aceh.

We faced some huge challenges. Logistically we had to bring in hundreds of skilled workers from all corners of the world and employ thousands of local staff.

Destroyed bridges and impassable roads in Aceh meant that we had to important one hundred trucks from Norway that could travel overland.

Barges were brought from Singapore to transport building materials in Maldives and wood was sourced from Finland to build over 20,000 high quality shelters in Aceh.

In the Maldives we had to ship in everything to build houses for 4,000 people plus schools, power, water and sanitation systems on an uninhabited island, Dhuvaafaru. Then there were the political challenges.


Overwhelmed

The resurgence of conflict in northern Sri Lanka meant that access to areas was difficult and projects had to be put on hold. Land titles in Indonesia meant that in many areas it took years to be able to start building permanent homes.

Government offices in tsunami areas were overwhelmed by the task at hand.

Understandably, they did not have the capacity or structures to manage the thousands of organisations who arrived to help.

The result was often frustrating delays and poor coordination. Aid was duplicated in some areas and tsunami survivors were often not involved or consulted about their needs.

The good news is that we all learned from that and things changed quite quickly in the big scheme of things. The tsunami was a catalyst for improving the way that we manage disasters collectively.

In recent years the UN cluster system came into being which means that there are now dedicated teams coordinating the response to disasters in specific sectors such as shelter, water and sanitation and health.

The IFRC leads the shelter cluster.

This approach was recently put to the test after the September 30 earthquake in Sumatra where temporary shelters went up faster than I have ever seen thanks to an improved system and better coordination.

In my experience, we have been most successful in our tsunami recovery work when we really put communities in the driving seat.

'Owner-driven'

In Sri Lanka the Red Cross developed an 'owner-driven' housing programme giving families cash and technical guidance to help them rebuild their homes.

Community development committees were formed to manage the process, get good deals on building supplies, and help people like widows and elderly people build their houses.

Allowing families and communities to take action on their own behalf, without becoming dependent on external support, is one of the most important lessons we learned from the tsunami experience.

But even though reconstruction will end soon, disaster prone communities still need to be made safer and better prepared.

A huge amount has been done to improve the technology around early warning systems, but this approach has to go hand in hand with risk reduction programmes at the community level – which means making sure that people have the right information, skills and knowledge to take early action and prepare for disasters.

This is a long-term job for Red Cross national societies in countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

Our focus on building back better has meant looking beyond just helping someone to build a house.

People need an income and we have helped thousands of people get back on their feet by replacing lost assets such as fishing boats and nets, setting up cooperatives, providing cash grants so people can buy livestock, agricultural tools and seedlings.

Experience gained

The tsunami helped to develop our experience in these areas. We have embarked on a wide range of projects with partners who have the complimentary expertise in fields such as micro-credit and agriculture.

Ten years ago you would not have seen the Red Cross helping Acehnese farmers start prawn farms or cinnamon farmers in Sri Lanka to develop better cultivation methods.

Ten years ago we would not have built massive water supply and treatment plants nor dug kilometres upon kilometres of pipelines that deliver water to new communities.

But that is what building back better means – a holistic approach to recovery.

Over the past five years it has been the stories of many ordinary people that I have encountered that will remain as my most enduring memories of the tsunami.

One of these people is Dina Astita who lost her three boys to the tsunami in the town of Calang in Aceh.

Dina was away at the time and it took her almost 20 days to get back home where she found 90 per cent of the town destroyed.

Dina is now an active member of the Indonesian Red Cross psycho-social support team. She has a one-year-old son and has become a role-model in her community helping others to cope with their stress and emotional difficulties.

For me, people like Dina are the true heroes of the tsunami.

Pakistan Has Chosen

Pepsi Wins over Coke!

Pepsi Wins over Coke!

How do I know this? Well, after unsuccessfully trying to find a Diet Coke for a week while traveling around the North West Frontier Province and in Islamabad – that’s my take on the war. The cola war that is. Sure, there are lots of other, more pressing issues in this country of 170 million people but knowing who drinks what and other points of trivia is important too.

While visiting the Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS) I tool this chance to take a field trip to the earthquake Zone which in the Northwest Frontier Province. While there I toured PRCS earthquake recovery projects and saw first hand the reconstruction efforts following the 2005 earthquake which took over 75,000 lives.

Unfortunately I did not see enough reconstruction to bring the place back up to splendor of what it was prior to the earthquake. And it was a naturally beautiful and historically splendid place. There was little of the “build back better” hype in Pakistan after the Earthquake as compared to “build back better” mantra of the Tsunami affected countries after the 2004 massive tidal wave that tore through a dozen or more Asian countries. Of course the Earthquake didn’t attract anywhere near the level of funding or attention that the day after Christmas Tsunami did either.

The 2005 earthquake destroyed thousands of schools in Pakistan. To help restore a small part of the educational infrastructure the PRCS, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, is constructing scores of secondary schools and turning them over to the Ministry to run them. This is in addition to the regular food, clothing, shelter, and health programs of the Red Cross and Red Crescent. I visited many of the school construction sites and it was rewarding to see the work being done. PRCS is also constructing basic health units, providing water systems for remote communities and assisting communities provide for all types of essential needs. It was a great field visit. We did not run into any Taliban, either – which is always a good thing.

One of the towns we visited in the Earthquake Zone was Balakot, which still looks much like it does in the 3 minute video made three months after the earthquake. (see favorite video list on right column)

Talk about off road driving,while on the field trip, I was on some of the worst roads on which I have ever ridden. At about 1000 feet up the side of a steep mountain road our Land Cruiser (the extra big model) got bogged down in lose gravel - the front left tire was about a half foot in the air and the back end was pointed down a 75 degree angle cliff. Everyone but the driver got out and pushed the vehicle sideways to get it back on the road. On another steep cliff we again had to get out of the vehicle, only this time quicker! The second time the Land Cruiser almost went over the edge as we rounded a very sharp curve. It is all about access and transportation in those mountains.

In one of the communities we stopped at we met with the local organizing committee (all men of course) in a village perched on the side of another steep mountain where the Red Crescent built about a thousand steps up and down narrow trails to allow people to get to and from their homes to markets, school, work and mosque.... the previous trails to the villages had been destroyed in a land slide caused by the Earthquake. Again it is all about access and transportation – only this time people powered...

We walked down about 400 of those steps to meet the residents of one village. It was a memorable meeting and I was humbled to meet such stoic people who were all so very grateful for the steps the Red Crescent/Red Cross had built. The climb back up was a lot tougher that the walk down though.

Women are practically invisible in rural areas and none to visible in towns either, and never without a male escort. Along one mountain road three fully burqa cloaked women were walking (with male escorts); when we drove by, they turned and faced the hillside.

On a Pakistani road there is nothing more colorful than a painted truck. They are everywhere and truckers take enormous pride in their handiwork. These trucks are beautiful and unique and a lot of fun to look at. They make trips happy. I wish every kid in America could see them. Seeing one makes you feel like a kid!

On the ride back to Islamabad, I spent five hours in a car with a really interesting retired Pakistan Army colonel who now works for the Pakistan Red Crescent Society. We had a fantastic conversation about Islam, Judaism and Christianity.... it was enlightening. He was engaging and made a lot of sense. At least he helped me see things in an interesting and different way. Every time the “colonel’s” phone rang it played a bad rendition of Santa Claus is Coming to Town... I wish I had a tape recording of that ring tone..... We stopped at a restaurant for lunch on the way back to Islamabad.... you ain't been nowhere until you have been to a rural Pakistani restaurant... the bread (roti) was good but the mutton did not sit well.... I really don’t like mutton.

I went to Pakistan immediately after a four day trip to Sri Lanka. I travel too much in this job. But like I said this was a great trip, I even had a Sunday off. I did not go out of my room at the guest house that day except to the front desk to let them know when the Internet went down. I did this about 20 times!!! When the Internet goes down the clerk at the front desk rushes back to a closet in the back of the inn and reboots the server... when the internet was working it did so at a pretty good speed but it did go down a lot… The guest

house staff was great though. Really kind and gentle people in Pakistan, except for maybe the Taliban.

When I got back to Islamabad from the Northwest Frontier Province I went to a local market and found a set of four nesting tables. They were done in a plain matte finish and were not ornate, like so many of the crafts in Pakistan. Four tables for 39 bucks, what a deal! I did not have much time to shop and there was not a lot to buy in the market I went to that wasn’t made in India or Afghanistan. If I want crafts from those places I’ll get them in there. That reminds me, I gotta get a few rugs next time I go to Afghanistan. Great rugs there, it’s a must. Nice people in Afghanistan too, again notwithstanding the Taliban.

I wonder what the Taliban prefer, Coke or Pepsi?

Friends enrich and change one's life....

I have had so many friends. How do you define a friend though? I learned a long time that not everyone you come into contact with or even someone with whom you share work and life is an automatic friend. You may respect and genuinely like the people who are around you... but a friend is someone for whom you would drop everything to help and not even know you were doing that.

A true friend is someone you never lose connection with, even if you don't talk to them in years.

Some acquaintances become friends bur a real friend never becomes an acquaintance...

Here are a few pictures of SOME of my friends, there are more....

Stay tuned - I have other pictures that I need to digitize... more to come.