BEBEKAN 15

Christmas Day : whereas everywhere in Indonesia yesterday evening, the security staff of the two major Islamic organizations were protecting all the Christian churches to make sure there would be no acts of terrorism, and whereas the province of Aceh was again invaded by water but this time by the floods of the monsoon, here is a piece of good news : Carrefour Indonesia will finance the construction of the “sanggar” (arts centre) of Bebekan as well as pay the operating expenses for two years.

I had met the local director of Carrefour, Jean-Paul Denoix, a few days after the earthquake, to ask to him whether Carrefour would give us schoolbags and other school stationery for Bebekan. He had answered no, but on the other hand he was interested in rebuilding a school. The next morning, I had brought him to the most destroyed primary school near Bebekan, a school attended by all the children of the surrounding villages. After which I did not deal with the matter any more.

Carrefour obtained the funds for rebuilding the school from the Carrefour Foundation in France. Irawan, the person in charge of communication at Carrefour Indonesia, had met the mayor of the area, and afterwards we all went to the school where the headmaster assured us that no provincial civil servant had come to inquire about the situation of the school. Work was about to start when suddenly, a dramatic turn of event : one Monday morning, the headmaster called Carrefour to tell them that a contractor sent by the provincial government has just arrived with a team of workmen and had begun rebuilding the school ! Was it a lack of coordination ? We will never know. Irawan phoned me, a bit at a loss and asks me if I know of another school that needs to be rebuilt. I answer that I don't dare suggest another public school to him, since another bureaucratic muddle is not to be excluded. I tell him then about our dream of an arts centre in Bebekan. He is immediately enthusiastic about the project. Asep and I draw up a budget, without inflating any number, with figures corresponding to what a poor village would do, as we ourselves would have done for example if we had built the “sanggar” with the assistance of the friends of Bebekan. The Carrefour Foundation in Paris refuses, but the local Indonesian head-office decides to finance the project itself.

Carrefour has 27 stores in Indonesia, 17 of whom in Jakarta, the capital. The first store in Yogyakarta had just opened in April 2006 when one month later the earthquake broke the outer structure of the new shopping centre where it is located. As is the case with hypermarts everywhere, Carrefour has been accused in Indonesia of destroying the local markets and the rural economy. Their corporate advertising is therefore focused on the small local producers from whom they directly buy the goods distributed in their stores. It is clear that Carrefour has an incentive in sponsoring this project of small local arts centre, which is non only located in the middle of the most populated countryside in the world but was also devastated by an earthquake. But this collaboration is foremost a question of people and rests on the respect and trust with which Jean-Paul Denoix and Irawan have discreetly treated us for seven months, and conversely.

Two days ago Asep and I spent all day with two “land-surveyors” of Carrefour in the hills of Kulon Progo, an hour and a half west of Yogyakarta, so that they could measure very precisely the two old houses we had found (including doors and teak-wood beams and structures) and which we will transport like ready-made houses to the future location of the Bebekan sanggar. The two houses are respectively a “joglo”, a house opened on all sides, and a “limasan”, a traditional Javanese village house. An architect will come to Bebekan and spend several days trying to adapt our ideas to the ground and to the constraints of an earthquake-resistant construction. The owner of the land next to hour lot has been digging the hill in order to manufacture earthen bricks, so the ground of the sanggar is starting to break down on that side. It is the roots of some old trees which still hold it in place. So the whole affair is not so simple and the help of an expert is more than welcome.

In the coming days, we will organize a meeting with the people of Bebekan to record their wishes concerning the “sanggar”. Asep and I have already made a list of prerogatives. With a small part of the remaining money that we have, we will, as of the beginning of January, finance intensive computer classes for two quite brilliant teenagers of the village who will then be employed by the sanggar to teach the use of computers to the children and adults of the village. Our principle is to employ as many people of Bebekan as possible for the operation of the sanggar by giving them a preliminary training. It so happens also that the senior high-school attended by the two teenagers chose French as a second foreign language. This is very rare in Indonesia. We will see whether we can organize complementary French classes in the sanggar in collaboration with the French Cultural Centre of Yogyakarta whose new director, Marie Lesourd, is a remarkable person. Marie has already scheduled in the sanggar, at the end of May 2007, a French puppet group for children called “C'koi ce cirk” [What's all this raucus-circus about ?] which, within the framework of a larger tour in Indonesia, will come to spend two days in the artists residences and organize a workshop and a show.

A friend of ours, Slamet Gundono who is a “dalang” (shadow theatre puppeteer), advised me to call the sanggar : “Sanggar Gino Guno”. Sanggar Gino, is too short for a Javanese name. One needs a redoubling slightly shifted, one of these typical alliterations so dear to the Javanese language. It is not only the sound which is redoubled, but also the meaning, with a slight nuance. Thus “gino guno” means “twice useful”.

We also will spend two million rupiah (180 euros) to rescue a miserable family with seven children installed on a sports ground on the main road leading to Bebekan. These people had rented a hut which collapsed at the time of the earthquake. Since then, they have been living under a tent with their seven children. The father is handicapped, and the mother begs for money on the roadside. The mayor of the area has ordered the Pak Camat, the district chief who helped us legalize the ground of the sanggar, to “clean up” this tent which gives a very bad impression and can be seen by everybody. But the Pak Camat did not have the heart to use his police force to chase this family away. Usually, such poor people, without land, without a house, are sent on other less populated islands of Indonesia (within the framework of the “transmigration” program) where they are given a small holding. But since the man has a leg handicap, he refuses to leave because he knows that he will not be able to survive by cultivating this small holding. He will not have the strength. Apart from this transmigration program, there is no social net for homeless people in the Yogyakarta area. The Pak Camat thus went to the village of his parents to see whether they would agree to take back their son with his wife and the seven children. He had been rejected by his family for “very bad conduct”, several years ago. One must be guilty of extreme bad behavior to be rejected by one's family in Java. But as the Pak Camat says, they are human beings after all, however bad the father was, and one cannot throw them out on the road just like that. The family finally accepted, but it will be necessary to build an MTR house for them in their village. It will be the 53rd, and I hope that you won't object if it is not built in Bebekan.

The government assistance for rebuilding has finally arrived in Bebekan as in all the destroyed villages. There will be three payments spread out over four months. A total of 15 million Rupiah per house measuring 6 x 6 m (1460 euros). Some villages have decided to divide the first payment by the total number of houses to be rebuilt, so that each family received a first payment of 5 million rupiah. But with 5 million one has just enough to build the foundations, and as a consequence no one has a roof over their head. In Bebekan, people decided to immediately give the full amount of 15 million to a a few families, chosen by the whole community. Ten permanent brick houses have already been built. As they are very small, the MTR houses are used as an appendix. Or in some cases, for example, the grandmother lives in the MTR house and the young couple with children in the brick house, whereas before the earthquake, they all lived under the same roof. There are still many houses to be built, and it now rains practically every day.

The MTR houses have made it possible for the people of Bebekan to avoid nasty arguments such as who will be the first to have a brick house, since everyone has a roof under which to wait patiently their turn. I had been surprised in the first days after the earthquake, when the sultan of Yogyakarta (also governor of the province) had announced that he would refuse the assistance of foreign NGOs for the rebuilding of permanent houses. I had then thought it was out of a foolish pride. However, I now realize that the sultan was right. 15 million per family is a small amount but it is enough to build a small and simple house. Furthermore this 15 million comes, without any diversion nor corruption, directly in the pocket of the families via the local bank office. A team of roaming monitors make sure that the materials purchased are in conformity with earthquake-resistant standards. And it works really well ! I think that in May 2007, one year after the earthquake which has made 1.500.000 homeless people, there will be no more family living under a tent. While in Aceh, two years after the tsunami, with 500.000 homeless people and billions and billions of dollars in foreign aid, there are still thousands of people living in makeshift shelters. A great part of the colossal sum sent to Aceh went in the pockets of small and big local chiefs, and the victims of the tsunami were seldom asked to contribute to the rebuilding of their own houses.

Merry Christmas and until next year.
Elizabeth