Earthquakes – Our trip to Lombok – Thank you for your Donation!

Collage (Large)

Dear Clients, Candidates, Vendors, Friends, Family, Resorts and others,

The response we have had on our request for help, has been amazing, even overwhelming.

Till today 38 different people and companies have donated in cash a total of close to 100 million IDR (99,692,856 IDR to be exact). Apart from that, 51 different people and companies have been bringing all sorts of donations to our office.

Our small office was literally overloaded with boxes and bags and we soon realized that 1 truck wouldn’t be sufficient, so we added a second smaller pick-up.

Since we weren’t able to finish on time the packing, shopping at Lotte, additional purchases and logistics; we delayed our departure with 1 day.

Wednesday 29th at 9pm we departed from our office with 1 fully loaded truck, 1 fully loaded pick-up and a car. 4 Global Expat team members, 2 truck drivers and 2 volunteers joined us.

Once arrived in Lombok at 6.00am on Thursday 30th, after a 4 hour ferry ride, we were greeted by 8 Selong Selo team members including an escort of 2 police-men. Here our convoy became 1 truck, 1 pick-up, 3 cars and 1 police-man on motorbike, with a total of 16 people.

The trip from Bali to Lombok went very smooth. The return trip however was bit of a hick-up. We left from Lombok around midnight on the same Thursday, however upon arrival at the Bali harbor (Padang Bai), the ferry got stuck at anchor for 7 hours before being able to dock. We heard 2 versions here; there were too many other ships waiting in line ahead of us and that the waves were too big.

During the entire day we visited a total of 8 camps, ranging in different sizes, with a minimum of 17 up to a maximum of 800 people. The camps we visited were also different in nature, a few camps were erected in the actual hit villages right in front of their flattened houses, a few camps were set up in larger open spaces (for example a football field) where the villagers had been evacuated to, and 1 huge camp was constructed by the government and from there a part of the donations received was being distributed by volunteers, sometimes partially by motorbike or even on foot, to small remote villages not accessible by larger vehicles.

The devastation we have seen is really shocking and beyond belief, houses flattened, buildings on the brink of collapse, complete villages wiped of the map. Homeless people of all ages, desperation was clearly present, and where we were overall received with a warm welcome, the atmosphere at times was tense, which made us realize the need for the police escort.

Enclosed pictures are self-explanatory, here a few anecdotes:

In one camp, we met a mother with her new born baby in her arms, the baby was born on the day of the first 6.9 earthquake, the family had named her “Gempita”, gempa is the Indonesian word for earthquake.

In another camp, there was a 110-year old lady sitting on a mattress in a makeshift tent from tarpaulins. She is the oldest person of the village and one of her family members was asking if we had a wheelchair with us. Unfortunately we didn’t, but we are now making arrangements for a wheelchair to be purchased and delivered to her.

Whereas usually in every camp, there is a person in charge who coordinates the distribution of the donations, in one camp a lady came to us begging for a mattress as her husband wasn’t able to sleep at night on the mat they had only gotten so far.

While we were offloading items in one of the camps, a lady from a different camp came to us, complaining why her camp wasn’t getting anything.

So we did find ourselves in a few awkward situations, and while we tried our best to get the donations to those who needed it the most, we obviously couldn’t please everybody. To this purpose the Selong Selo team had driven around and done surveys the day before to locate camps (mostly in North East Lombok) which were in desperate need still.

Together with all donations received in our office and the additional shopping we did, practically all items from our suggested list were distributed, in varying quantities, here a few examples of the larger quantity items:

200 blankets

480 towels

53 pieces or 2,967 m2 of tarpaulin

600 meter of rope

A mountain of clothes, one full pick-up!

80 toothbrushes and 128 tubes of toothpaste

104 sacks or 2,520 kg of rice

660 packs of noodles

120 liter of cooking oil

With the help of YNCI Lombok, 8 toilets have been installed so far in 4 different camps.

During the last few days, we still have been receiving cash donations and since we still keep on getting requests from people who want to donate, we have decided to continue our relief efforts.

At this stage, the balance left of cash donations is 35,162,356 IDR.

A part of this budget is being allocated to sanitary facilities, works are currently on progress to install an additional 10 toilets in 5 different camps. The cabins for these toilets are being assembled in Mataram and then from there transported to the various camps where the rest of the installation is being completed, including the construction of a septic tank.

With goods we will purchase from the remainder of the funds and any other donations still being delivered to our office, we will send one more truck to Lombok over the course of the next 2 to 3 weeks.

So anybody still wanting to help, any donations are still welcome, Lombok still needs our help!

No matter how small the donation, it is about the gesture, every little helps, and together we can make a big difference.

We hereby would like to thank all of the people and companies who have contributed. Thank you so much for your kind generosity, this does mean a lot for the affected people in Lombok.

We also would like to extend a warm thank you to the team of Selong Selo Resort for their superb support and their ongoing efforts on the ground as well as to YNCI Lombok for their great assistance with the installation of the 18 toilets and their ongoing works of building sanitary facilities and shelters in the affected villages and camps.

Thank you very much also to everybody for the trust in our company, we truly have been astonished by the positive response to this initiative.

Here a large selection of pictures (with corresponding comments) which can give you a feel of the impact of this disaster as well as of the extent of donations that were collected:

Earthquakes – Trip to Lombok – Pictures

And here a few videos:

Earthquakes – Trip to Lombok – Videos 1

Earthquakes – Trip to Lombok – Videos 2

Earthquakes – Trip to Lombok – Videos 3

Earthquakes – Trip to Lombok – Videos 4

Here the list of all different people and companies that have donated so far:

11

Here the balance sheet of donations versus expenses till today:

Capture 2

Click here to find a copy of every receipt.

Earthquakes – Trip to Lombok – Donations

Click here for our initial message of August 17th asking for donations:

Lombok Earthquakes – Collecting Donations

 

May God bless you all!

 

Your Global Expat Team