Quake survivors get bamboo houses
Harmoko, a student of Yogyakarta State University, looks sad. He stays in a tent erected in front of the rubble that was once his home in Kebon Dalem village, Prambanan district, Klaten regency, Central Java.
A damaged sewing machine is left under a tree next to the tent. A yellow clock, which is also broken, is placed on the tree. It shows the time when the quake hit the area: 6:53 a.m. Western Indonesia Time.
In this village, along with thousands of others in Yogyakarta, Bantul, Kulonprogo and Sleman, hundreds of houses collapsed in the May 27 quake.
“My elder sister was killed when the wall collapsed on her. She was actually already outside the house waiting for my dad to get out of the house. Suddenly, the wall collapsed on her,” Harmoko said.
Luckily, Suharjono, their father, and Andang, their younger brother, were unharmed. Nearly all their furniture and belongings were damaged.
Still, Suharjono’s family considers itself quite lucky because their distant relatives have agreed to build Suharjono and his family a simple bamboo house — with the help of volunteers from surrounding villages.
This, to some extent, has helped ease the despair clearly reflected in Harmoko’s eyes.
Kendal hamlet chief, Dwi Agus together with Sridoyo, Mujiono and some 50 other villagers carry bamboo poles to Prambanan for the house they plan to build for Suharjono’s family.
“We’re building this house for Pak Suharjono. His house collapsed and his daughter was killed in the earthquake,” said Tamsir, 70, who supervised the house construction.
The volunteers are not affiliated to any group, but are just extending a helping hand to quake victims in Bantul and Klaten.
Other families too, have enjoyed similar benefits from this bamboo house concept.
“Some people in our village have donated building materials. We prepared the bamboo materials in our village in Sleman. When the preparation is ready, we go to the site where we will put up a bamboo house.
“Our young volunteers carry out a survey of these sites. When the owners of the house that has collapsed give their approval, we will put up a bamboo house. The construction is free of charge and will take about half a day,” said Sridoyo, 50, another village elder.
One Wednesday morning, two truckloads of volunteers and building materials arrived at the site.
Soon afterwards, bamboo poles measuring 2.5 meters high were put up, assembled and tied to form the framework of a simple house. The walls, made of plaited bamboo, were fixed and the thin asbestos roof put in place with nails.
Some of these volunteers were elementary school children. They carried light materials such as bamboo frames to support the asbestos roof. Everyone had their share of work.
At midday, they took a lunch break. They had brought a packed lunch of rice with vegetables and chicken. The volunteers ate heartily, but their lunch break did not even last 10 minutes before they were back at work.
“That’s how we work. We hope we can also help quake victims in Klaten and Bantul,” Sridoyo said.
On the tenth day after the quake, the village volunteers had completed the construction of three houses for quake victims.
The volunteers have so far extended help only to the people they know, but would certainly not refuse a request from other villagers.
“A day after the quake, we went to Bantul to see how our relatives were coping with the quake. We had to mobilize quite a lot of villagers to be able to really help them. We returned to our village in Sleman and then came back to Bantul with more people.”
They then teamed up with donors in Bangunkerto village, who readily responded to their plan and agreed to supply them with basic materials. Those staying in the village would prepare the bamboo materials while mobile volunteers would go to disaster-affected sites to put up the houses.
A simple bamboo house, Tamsir said, costs Rp 2.5 million. It could cost up to Rp 5 million if the volunteers were paid.
“We have built these houses free of charge for the quake victims. We are ready to spend both our energy and money,” he added.
These volunteers have come not only from Girikerto but also from Magelang, Muntilan, Temanggung, Boyolali and some other places. Every day dozens of trucks arrive, carrying volunteers and bamboo materials.
Open trucks carrying volunteers are for the time being exempted from traffic regulations. They pass Yogyakarta city to go to Klaten and speed to remote quake-stricken villages.
They have come to remove the debris and help put up simple houses made of bamboo.
In the late afternoon, trucks carry these volunteers back to their villages. There is only one sign on the windshield, and deservedly so: Volunteers.
© The Jakarta Post