hitting the ground running

Got a little emotional today when I landed in Jakarta because the Balinese wood carvings, the palm trees and the smell of clove cigarettes brought me back to my days as a backpacker. I have to keep reminding myself that the reason I'm here this time isn't to ride motorcycles and swim in coral reefs but to get food and medicine and shelter out to some very needy people.

Jakarta is a sprawling, crowded, polluted eyesore of a city, which is why I never spent time here before. The air is sticky and hot in Indonesia - I had forgotten how much so.

After settling into my fairly nice hotel and showering, I had a lunch meeting with the PCI staff (both American and Indonesian) and they quickly brought me up to speed on all the coordination efforts to date. There is one American staffmember, Chris, in Aceh doing assessment and setting up an office there. Me and Mark, the VP of Project Concern, will join him there on Friday. My heart stopped for just the tiniest fraction of a second when I realized that I was really going to the tsunami site. Up until then, it hadn't been clear whether I would or not be in Aceh. But if I want field experience, then field experience I shall have...

For the next couple of days Mark, Maggie (an Indonesian staffmember), Glenn (the American director of PCI Indonesia), and I will try to work out funding deals with various international donor groups (American, British, Dutch, German, Australian), and put down on paper exactly how we intend to spend the money. Plus we need to move relief supplies to the as-yet-unreached areas of Aceh, by van or by boat, whichever is financially and logistically feasible. Everything moves really fast here because who knows what the situation will be in a week's or a month's time.

It's all a bit intimidating, as I've never done this sort of thing before, but Maggie told me even the Indonesians are just playing it by ear - it's not like they all have experience in this sort of thing. The scale of the disaster is beyond what even the seasoned relief workers have seen before. I just have to remove any lingering self-doubt and just go for it.

I'll try to provide more detailed situation reports in the next few days. Photos are a bit hard to upload at the moment, so they may only be forthcoming later.

Going back to the hotel to relax and read up on the latest news from Aceh. I hope to adjust to the time change shortly.