The Mercy Corps Blog

Blog Post Posted October 8, 2009, 12:46 pm by Elpido Soplantila

Your help means a lot

Today Mercy Corps has done a lot.

Starting very early in the morning, a number of staff made a run to our warehouse to pack the hygiene kits that we'd be distributing later in the day, while the procurement and logistics team procured more supplies for the next distribution. Another team did an assessment in Agam district, where hundreds of people have died and tons are still missing.

The distribution for today is quite special because two donors — USAID and ECHO — visited the affected areas in Pesisir Selatan with our emergency response team and joined us in the distribution process. I was responsible for accompanying one of the staff members from USAID Indonesia, who flew from Jakarta to Padang to see the great work that Mercy Corps is doing on the ground.

Basril's five-year-old daughter stands in the wreckage of what once once her bedroom in the village of Balai Sinayan, West Sumatra, Indonesia. Photo: Elpido Soplantila/Mercy Corps

We departed from Padang around 11 A.M. and, once again, we enjoyed views of the beautiful white sandy beaches and the green hills of the province as we drove toward our destination. But the amazing scenery was soon tempered by reality when we arrived at one of the distribution points in Balai Sinayan sub village, Pesisir Selatan district. Although this area was not as devastated compared to some places in Padang Pariaman, more than 50 families lost their houses and belongings here.

In Balai Sinayan I met Basril, a father of three children, in front of his damaged house. He told me how he was so worried when the earthquake happened. On that day, Basril and the whole family — including his 71-year-old mother —were attending a communal volleyball game in the village. From far away, he saw some houses fall down. The whole family ran back in fear to see their houses. The children were crying while he tried to enter the house, where he found that all the bedroom walls were cracked and the kitchen broken into pieces.

Now, they have to stay at his brother’s house because not a single room in their old house can be occupied anymore.

“Honestly, I don’t know how to start," Basril explained as tears fell down his face. "In the 2007 earthquake, we lost our small kiosk where we sold a few items to make family income. We hadn’t even been able to start that small business again, and now, our house is destroyed.”

I patted his shoulder for a while as we stood there quietly. When I thanked him for sharing his story, he suddenly said terima kasih which means "thank you."

Here in Balai Sinayan today, we distributed hygiene kits — soap, detergent, toothbrushes and toothpaste, women's sanitary napkins, buckets, blankets, and other household items — to Basril and 385 other families throughout the earthquake-damaged Pesisir Selatan district.

Just a few minutes before I left his house, Basril shook my hand and, again, he said terima kasih.

The hygiene kit means a lot to him.

Terima kasih means a lot to me and the team here.

And your help and support mean a lot to Basril and thousands of affected families in West Sumatra, Indonesia.