Feature article written while Information Officer for Action by Churches Together (ACT) International
The ground still shakes, but the recovery is steady
By Stephen H. Padre, ACT International
Nias island, Indonesia, October 7, 2005—Following a powerful earthquake that struck Nias six months ago, small aftershocks occur daily in villages across the island. But the still-unsettled ground beneath one woman has not stopped her from trying to find stability in her life again.
Safuati (her only name), a resident of Boliha, a village in the Lahewa district on the northern tip of Nias, has returned to her livelihood of making baked goods in her home and selling them to her neighbors. Her life and business was seriously disrupted on March 28 when an earthquake measuring 8.7 on the Richter scale struck this small tropical isle off the southern coast of Sumatera. The quake hit the main city of Gunung Sitoli the hardest, but it caused major damage to houses in Safuati’s village, a two and a half hour drive away. The quake caused the roof and the back of her house to collapse, destroying all of the equipment she used in her baking business.
As she sat in the front room of her rebuilt house late on a Saturday afternoon in September, speaking about re-establishing the business she ran with her three sisters, the wooden structure creaked and swayed noticeably for a few seconds. She laughed nervously and noted it was one of the two of three small earthquakes that occur daily.
While the ground continued to settle down, the dough for the baked goods to be sold the next morning was rising in the kitchen in the back of the house.
Safuati and her sisters were able to resume their business after they were approached by YAKKUM Emergency Unit (YEU), one of three members of the global alliance of churches and related agencies Action by Churches Together (ACT) International in Indonesia, which offered them a loan to buy new baking equipment.
Before the earthquake, which struck Nias three months after the tsunami devastated other parts of Indonesia, the income from the women’s baking business covered all of their daily needs and paid for their children’s school fees. The loan from YEU allowed them to purchase a small, gas-fired oven, baking pans and other basic equipment to get their business started again.
Safuati said that the economic situation in the village has worsened after the earthquake. People have less money to spend now – less to spend on their baked goods. Yet they are thankful they have been able to resume their way of making a living. “We were very happy and grateful YEU gave us motivation to be alive,” she said. “We didn’t know what was going to happen to us. We had lost our spirit.”
As the day’s light waned, one of the men in the house lit a lantern in the kitchen so Nurwati, one of Safuati’s sisters, could get to work preparing the next day’s goods. In the lantern’s warm glow, her hands busily shaped the dough into “chicken legs” – basically a donut on a stick – and pastries with a sugary filling. In addition to a morning batch of goods to sell, prepared the previous night, the women prepare an afternoon batch of goods, which their children carry in plastic containers on their heads and sell around the village after school. They use the proceeds from the day’s sales to buy the ingredients for the next day’s products.
The women are repaying the no-interest loan in weekly installments, and they have an unlimited time for repayment. They are eager to build up their business again quickly, however. They need more kitchen utensils and want to buy better baking equipment, they say.
Besides assisting women like Safuati and her family in re-establishing their livelihoods, YEU has helped men in the village who fished for a living return to their work. Suardin Gulo, in addition to being a fisherman himself, is the leader of a group of fishermen YEU has helped form. One month after the earthquake, the group received a loan from YEU to buy fishing kits and repair their damaged boats. A week later, many of the members of the group had returned to the sea. Suardin’s role as leader of the group is to coordinate the installments for repaying the group’s loan.
“Life is rather normal now, but the development of our business is slow,” Suardin said, noting that the fishermen still use traditional rather than modern fishing equipment.
Both the women bakers and fishermen spoke of being traumatized after the earthquake and of being worried about how they would return to work. Although their spirits were low, through their resilience and work skills, they were able to resume their way of life and restore their livelihoods. They have hope for the future and plans for their businesses. The earth beneath them may still be shaking, but these residents of Boliha have firmly positioned themselves for a return to normal life.
