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Exclusive article: Indo after the flooding
Certain tragic events of the past couple of weeks have been overlooked by many people worldwide. With the Middle East slowly blowing itself into oblivion, oil prices sky-rocketing and, of course, Brad and Angelina’s baby being immortalised in wax, what time and energy did we have left to give to a small village in Indonesia?
For 23 year-old Will Shea, that village is the only thing that has been on his mind since a six-metre tsunami tore the guts out of it last Monday.
Will, a surf instructor and uni student from Phillip Island, has only visited Indo a handful of times, but the lasting effect that the community of Pangandaran has had upon him has caused him to take it upon himself to raise awareness and aid for the small fishing village.
With the death toll now as high as 700, Will gives ASL an exclusive account of the township and the devastating effect that last week's tragedy has had upon it.
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It was a little editorial on a news site that alerted me to new feelings. It was a cold Victorian evening, with me only a few days back in the icy weather after a month or so in sunny Indonesia. The editorial stated "Tsunami in Java", and as I scrolled through it I read the words "south-west Java", all I could think was "don't say the name". Then, sure enough, there it was, "the fishing village of Pangandaran felt the full brunt of the huge waves". I instantly felt sick. The tsunami had apparently only claimed eight lives, yet any one of these could have been my newfound friends. By the morning the dead had grown to 100, and by the evening well over three hundred and rising.
Let's get this into perspective: Pangandaran and its people hold a special place in my heart. In previous trips to Indonesia I had done all the things surfers are supposed to do, like surfing G-Land, doing boat trips, and of course getting blind drunk on Arak and throwing up in one of Kuta's many nightclubs. This year I decided to tag along with a couple of friends who are very well traveled in Indonesia. We arrived in Yogyakarta just after the earthquake to a city where most of the foreigners were Aid workers, with the rest fleeing in the days that followed the disaster. Although over 6000 people had perished just around the corner, spirits were surprisingly high and the people were extremely accommodating.
From here we decided to head to the village of Pangandaran, where one of my friends had visited on two previous occasions, and had only good things to report. I'm not quite |
sure what I was expecting, but the place far exceeded anything I imagined. We didn't get all-time waves, but the potential was there. Points, reefs and beachbreaks all revealed themselves at different times in different conditions, and with just three mates and a handful of local surfers to share with, limitless quantity was always mixed with some surprising quality. Then there was the aptly named Paradise Island, home to a bundle of different waves offshore in the trades, and with no inhabitants. Of course, when the waves were lacking, the locals always had something planned for us to do.
Pangandaran is an interesting place. For a local economy it relies on two main sources. The first is tourism. Pangandaran is a hotspot for Indonesian tourists from the cities of Bandung and Jakarta. Every day as we walked with our boards along the beach past the town and towards the National Park (home to a barreling left), a twenty minute walk would turn into over an hour as we were constantly stopped for photographs with holiday makers and school groups, not just on one person's camera, but on those of every person in the group. Although it was a little weird at first, in the end we would take our own camera and, to their surprise, demand a photo on ours as well.
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The area has also become a haven to international tourists looking for a quiet getaway, with many Europeans and backpackers visiting the area, as well as the odd Australian surfer. The second prime industry is fishing. Those rickety but beautiful fishing trawlers lined the shore, there were always groups of people pulling in nets from land and, if you had eaten as much barbequed fish as we had, you would agree that fishing was their industry for a reason.
Now, both those sources are gone, smashed in the matter of a few minutes. Pangandaran was already suffering its worst tourist season in many years. People had stayed away for many reasons; the fear of a tsunami following the big earthquake, the Merapi volcanic eruptions, petrol prices, and some even said the soccer World Cup kept Europeans at home. Now, tourism is destined to be completely non-existent. This is understandable in the coming weeks and months, but in the future hopefully it can |
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be changed. As for the fishing industry, well, it was quite literally destroyed by the surging ocean. The town's fleet of over 600 boats was, today, through hotel windows, hanging from trees or just smashed to smithereens by natures force according to the locals I have been fortunate enough to talk to.
The fact is that these people don't deserve this. The people of Pangandaran were the most welcoming and accommodating people I have ever come across on any of my travels. Within hours of arriving, we were already getting visitors to our losmen who knew one of my mates, or who had heard a bus with surfboards and white crackers had arrived in town. By that evening we were sharing a campfire at Gimin's Warung on the beach with ten or twenty local guys, who spoke English a hell of a lot better than my Indonesian will ever be, and who were already promising days of surf to come. The days to follow would involve surfing, exploring and laughter to outweigh both of those ten-fold, as Jaja and his local boys took us under their wing and showed us everything the area had to offer. And that was an absolute shitload. We surfed almost every day. Heaps of the local boys surfed, some of them ripped in a funny way, and they all charged. The Gimin's boys, as I like to call them, made sure they were with us at all times, absolutely amping on the fact they were surfing with outsiders. The local lifesavers all surfed, and they were the coolest clubbies the world has seen (although even they wore dick togs). We definitely got waves. It is not only the surf in the area that has variety, but also the surrounding nature and culture. The rainforests, canyons, villages and people were unlike any I had seen or met before. Our friends wanted to take us everywhere, to show us how great Pangandaran really is.
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The mix of the Muslim culture with those that had no religion, and all groups' acceptance of us, was a little unexpected. Although I never listen to those warning me about certain people in certain areas, I definitely would have understood a little hostility towards us as Australians, especially with our foreign policy directions around Indonesia. Yet the whole time there was hardly an intimidating look. The devout Muslim's we met, including the local puppetmaster, promoted the need for us all to come together. "To help each other by saving each other, not destroying each other" were the words he spoke as he talked of religion to one of the most anti-religious people around, but I didn't miss a word, as nothing had ever been explained so clearly. The locals were full of questions about our opinions and about the Australian government, yet no one judged us at all, based on where I was from. The locals were in fact a lot more politically informed and in tune than I expected and would have put most |
Australians to shame. There was Ato, who ran the losmen with his young pregnant wife. We stayed up into the mornings watching soccer and talking about the world. Some of the experiences and conversations I had definitely altered a number of the views I once felt were rock solid within me. Experience is everything.
Now Gimin's Warung is gone. I pray to a God I don't even believe in that Gimin got away. I hope like hell that his sidekick, whose name escapes me, will be there to practice more English with me next time I arrive. The losmen we felt so at home in has gone. I spoke to Ato today and he tells me it is destroyed, but his wife and newborn child are alive. He doesn't know about anyone else. They have no house or money for food. I tell him not to worry about money I will fix that. His phone cuts out. I constantly worry about Jaja and the boys. I hear from my friend still in Indonesia that he has spoken to Jaja. He has lost every possession he owned, but our close friends all appear to have escaped. They are worried about Didi, a young man who recently finished his sociology degree and loved to talk philosophy whenever he could, but the news is he may be alright. I constantly think about Didi now. To that God again I ask for him to be alright. The boys and some of their families are in the hills near Ato. No food no money no shelter. And there is bound to be loss. Maybe not those I got to know closely, but definitely their families and friends. I can't forget the people of the surrounding restaurants and warungs who fed and re-hydrated us every day. Some of them will be gone. Every person who did as little as say 'pagi' as we walked by, some of them will be gone. |
As the days turn in to weeks and then months, more news will arrive of the devastation. This is an account written within only a few days of the tragedy. This is written now without reflection because I know what is to come. I see it already as I scour web forums and opinion pages searching for the limited news on the area. It is the noise from those calling for Australia to provide no assistance to the area. One line I heard was "why should we aid our enemies?" I could write a whole piece on the political situation between Australia and Indonesia and put everyone to sleep. On this issue I will say just one thing: I was never judged because of where I was from while I was in Pangandaran. The people there, whether they were Muslim, Hindu, Atheist or whatever the hell else they can class themselves as, treated us with a respect and a kindness I could never deserve. It is for this reason I will return, as soon as I possibly can. Until then I will find other ways to help. I feel indebted to the locals because of |
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| the way they looked after us, gave us the world when they had nothing. I urge all surfers to help where they can, not only now, but whenever the need arises. We take so much from this country in return for so little, it is now our turn to give. Not just now but in the future as well. As much as it pains to say it, there will be more of these events happening to this unlucky country. The people of Pangandaran became my good friends. I can guarantee that if you had visited there, they would have also become your friends. It is the Australian way to help a friend in need. |
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Will Shea is planning to return to Pangandaran later this year to aid in the rebuilding of the village. He is currently donating as much money as he possibly can to his Indonesian friends and their families and urges all Australians to put their cultural differences aside and do likewise.
When asked how the general public can assist, Will had this to say:
"Apart from contributing money (the International Red Cross seems to be the best bet at the moment, although I'm still waiting to see which other organizations get on board), the best thing the surfing community can do is head back there. The more people that go back to the area, the better it will be for their tourism industry. It's an amazing area to visit."
Donate to the International Committee of the Red Cross now
Källa: www.surfinglife.com.au
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Written By: adisgladis
Date Posted: 7/28/2006
Number of Views: 210
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