Week 1 Summary and Thoughts
Technically this was Week 2 of the convoy, but for the purposes of our donors, it was week 1.
Donations: $3025, all from the congregation of St. Paul's Episcopal Church of Brunswick, Maine. Words of thanks cannot suffice, and special commendation to my mother, Leslie Brancart-Randolph for well and truly galloping with a ball to make the donations accessible in Indonesia nearly overnight!
Converted to Indonesian Rupiah: $1372 (RI.12,550,000 + $35 bank fees), of which approximately RI. 11,000,000 had been spent as of 11:00 AM today, Saturday.
Towns/Districts visited, surveyed, and aided: Tues: Kepek Kidul, Gunung Pujuh, Nembangan, Bogok, Pentung; Wed: Kepek, Paker, Watus, G. Pujuh, Muntuk, Nembangan, Yahya; Thurs: Delinggo, Patuk, Gunung Kidul, Piyungan; Friday: Mredo, Sewan, Canden, Paker, Jaranan.
Supplies: Yuli's accounting book has detailed figures, but in general most of the aid is in the form of what you see in the pictures below: tents, blankets, hardware tools, baby milk, toiletries, cleaners, lanterns and blankets. A few specialty items stand out: eye drops, frying oil, plastic wrapping.
Yesterday and today, productive ideas have arisen from responses from victims, and from neighbors. Yesterday morning a 20-year olf neighbor of mine on my largely undamaged development died from fever carried by a mosquito. Now I know why I pay Rentokill to bomb my home every three months. Yesterday the convoy began supplying mosquito coils (this morning my sole job while helping Yuli shop was to count out 107 BOXES of mosquito coil.... Yuli was busy counting 137 tubes of toothpaste..as I watched the shopping cart fill up with toothepaste, I kept seeing legions of clean teeth in the countryside). One recipient complained that they should be given the liquid-pumpspray kind rather than the burning coil kind. Yuli was taken aback -- they shold be grateful at least, one assumes. The recipient is asking too much: the cost of outfitting fvillages with the aerosol or pumpspray varieties is beyond the reach of the convoy's funding, and we here ALL know that it is not unfair to say that Javanese NEVER use the stuff responsibly or safely -- overspraying and within the vicinity of children and food.
However, it IS true that the other stuff is effective against cockroaches and actually kills the bugs and remains effective for several days, if not longer. So, Yuli and I decided to equip one convoy rider with the sole responsibility of spraying camp areas that the convoy visits. This way we control the amount used and protect the food and children. And we're doing it with your contributions, thank you very much!
Please know that as an educator and teacher trainer I am thrilled with the opportunities your contributions are giving Yuli and her convoy members. It can't be emphasized enough how many life and professional skills Yuli and the convoy riders have been able to learn in this week alone simply due to the challenges of acting responsibly and quickly with sizable amounts of money that they now have access to. With additional funding arriving from several other sources in the next two weeks, it might be possible for the convoy to survive well into July on donations from our donations.
In particular, riders are learning the convoy's start-time cannot be "elastic" as so much of Indonesian timesense is. Elastic relief time means unnecessarily prolonging the suffering or disease risk of needy victims, and overburdening other convoy vehicles, such that all the day's aid cannot get out to where it needs to go without significant delays. The riders are also learning the value of action, and the power of their own individuality. A sub-team of the convoy will begin it's own mosque-rebuilding task, aiding villagers in the clearing and cleaning up of destroyed mosques, as in many towns they have come across villagers still praying amid the rubble of their religious sites, which is dangerous and unsanitary.
Yuli herself is learning a great deal. I hope she'll write her own comments here eventually for you, but I don't want to push her in that area. She's slowly realizing how much she's being given to spend, and quickly learning to delegate so that it can be spent. She's learned that this needs planning, and the planning comes from information gathered in surveys during previous days, and everyday as they ride out. As she was confronted with the inevitable return to regular jobs of many of the convoy's original early volunteers, she realized she would have to develop a contact list of potential riders, and convince them to ride for nothing more than lunch and gas money... This kind of personal aggression is not a highly respected Javanese trait, but it IS a trait of successful businesspeople here and elsewhere. After reminding Yuli that everytime we go somewhere in town, we spend half our time greeting people she knows -- she may be the most popular common citizen in Jogja, and I had no doubt in her ability to keep the convoy's numbers up on a volunteer basis. I was thrilled to not only see Yuli working the phone successfully over the past couple of nights, but also to hear her delegating the convoy-building job to others: creating a network.
She's also come across some villages that are actively trying to clean, clear, and recover their land, and others (most) that are doing almost nothing on their own. The sight of the former inspires her to chastise the latter and encourage them to empower themselves, as well as to give the convoys' donations conditionally: telling recipients that the convoy will be back around in a few days and expects to see the items used and visible progress.
In short -- I did not expect to see my own personal "critical thinking" agenda addressed so significantly, but I now realize that your donations are permanently expanding the futures of these convoy riders. What they pick up in this month or six weeks is simply priceles when applied to the rest of their lives and their families.
Again, and again, and again... thank you
Tom
The day's silly fact: We also filled a cart with laundry soap... the uses of the soap, as illustrated on the back, are for both laundry and dishes and kitchen counters. That was quite a surprise to me. Is that normal? Is there an entire line of redundant, superfluous cleansing supplies in the US and the West?
Donations: $3025, all from the congregation of St. Paul's Episcopal Church of Brunswick, Maine. Words of thanks cannot suffice, and special commendation to my mother, Leslie Brancart-Randolph for well and truly galloping with a ball to make the donations accessible in Indonesia nearly overnight!
Converted to Indonesian Rupiah: $1372 (RI.12,550,000 + $35 bank fees), of which approximately RI. 11,000,000 had been spent as of 11:00 AM today, Saturday.
Towns/Districts visited, surveyed, and aided: Tues: Kepek Kidul, Gunung Pujuh, Nembangan, Bogok, Pentung; Wed: Kepek, Paker, Watus, G. Pujuh, Muntuk, Nembangan, Yahya; Thurs: Delinggo, Patuk, Gunung Kidul, Piyungan; Friday: Mredo, Sewan, Canden, Paker, Jaranan.
Supplies: Yuli's accounting book has detailed figures, but in general most of the aid is in the form of what you see in the pictures below: tents, blankets, hardware tools, baby milk, toiletries, cleaners, lanterns and blankets. A few specialty items stand out: eye drops, frying oil, plastic wrapping.
Yesterday and today, productive ideas have arisen from responses from victims, and from neighbors. Yesterday morning a 20-year olf neighbor of mine on my largely undamaged development died from fever carried by a mosquito. Now I know why I pay Rentokill to bomb my home every three months. Yesterday the convoy began supplying mosquito coils (this morning my sole job while helping Yuli shop was to count out 107 BOXES of mosquito coil.... Yuli was busy counting 137 tubes of toothpaste..as I watched the shopping cart fill up with toothepaste, I kept seeing legions of clean teeth in the countryside). One recipient complained that they should be given the liquid-pumpspray kind rather than the burning coil kind. Yuli was taken aback -- they shold be grateful at least, one assumes. The recipient is asking too much: the cost of outfitting fvillages with the aerosol or pumpspray varieties is beyond the reach of the convoy's funding, and we here ALL know that it is not unfair to say that Javanese NEVER use the stuff responsibly or safely -- overspraying and within the vicinity of children and food.
However, it IS true that the other stuff is effective against cockroaches and actually kills the bugs and remains effective for several days, if not longer. So, Yuli and I decided to equip one convoy rider with the sole responsibility of spraying camp areas that the convoy visits. This way we control the amount used and protect the food and children. And we're doing it with your contributions, thank you very much!
Please know that as an educator and teacher trainer I am thrilled with the opportunities your contributions are giving Yuli and her convoy members. It can't be emphasized enough how many life and professional skills Yuli and the convoy riders have been able to learn in this week alone simply due to the challenges of acting responsibly and quickly with sizable amounts of money that they now have access to. With additional funding arriving from several other sources in the next two weeks, it might be possible for the convoy to survive well into July on donations from our donations.
In particular, riders are learning the convoy's start-time cannot be "elastic" as so much of Indonesian timesense is. Elastic relief time means unnecessarily prolonging the suffering or disease risk of needy victims, and overburdening other convoy vehicles, such that all the day's aid cannot get out to where it needs to go without significant delays. The riders are also learning the value of action, and the power of their own individuality. A sub-team of the convoy will begin it's own mosque-rebuilding task, aiding villagers in the clearing and cleaning up of destroyed mosques, as in many towns they have come across villagers still praying amid the rubble of their religious sites, which is dangerous and unsanitary.
Yuli herself is learning a great deal. I hope she'll write her own comments here eventually for you, but I don't want to push her in that area. She's slowly realizing how much she's being given to spend, and quickly learning to delegate so that it can be spent. She's learned that this needs planning, and the planning comes from information gathered in surveys during previous days, and everyday as they ride out. As she was confronted with the inevitable return to regular jobs of many of the convoy's original early volunteers, she realized she would have to develop a contact list of potential riders, and convince them to ride for nothing more than lunch and gas money... This kind of personal aggression is not a highly respected Javanese trait, but it IS a trait of successful businesspeople here and elsewhere. After reminding Yuli that everytime we go somewhere in town, we spend half our time greeting people she knows -- she may be the most popular common citizen in Jogja, and I had no doubt in her ability to keep the convoy's numbers up on a volunteer basis. I was thrilled to not only see Yuli working the phone successfully over the past couple of nights, but also to hear her delegating the convoy-building job to others: creating a network.
She's also come across some villages that are actively trying to clean, clear, and recover their land, and others (most) that are doing almost nothing on their own. The sight of the former inspires her to chastise the latter and encourage them to empower themselves, as well as to give the convoys' donations conditionally: telling recipients that the convoy will be back around in a few days and expects to see the items used and visible progress.
In short -- I did not expect to see my own personal "critical thinking" agenda addressed so significantly, but I now realize that your donations are permanently expanding the futures of these convoy riders. What they pick up in this month or six weeks is simply priceles when applied to the rest of their lives and their families.
Again, and again, and again... thank you
Tom
The day's silly fact: We also filled a cart with laundry soap... the uses of the soap, as illustrated on the back, are for both laundry and dishes and kitchen counters. That was quite a surprise to me. Is that normal? Is there an entire line of redundant, superfluous cleansing supplies in the US and the West?
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posted by Unknown at 3:41 PM
1 Comments:
Still waiting for donation info (address in ME, payee for check).
My own donation will unfortunately be very small, but perhaps I can collect some more from neighbors and friends. However, I can't even try this until I get payee info and address!
Nina
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