YEP Medan - Power Up Serdang!

I accompanied a group of NUS Nursing undergrads to a village slightly off Medan for a community involvement project - my first with Healthserve. The main objective (for me at least) of this project would be to research the actual needs of the place/people to see if more work could be done at that place. The rest went there to conduct Health Camps for the village children and paint murals depicting basic education.

I'll just try to write out some of the highlights here.

16th July 09
We arrived at Medan by Silkair, then continued on a 3 hour bus ride to Serdang where we were housed by a lovely couple - Pst Anton and his wife who ran an orphanage, at the office of the Orphanage. It was cleaner and more comfortable than I expected. The first few days were quite relaxing, we got orientated, went to the market for groceries, etc. It was also relaxing because we were prevented from doing the work that was initially planned, by the 'authorities' and 'legal issues' but we managed to carry out the work anyway in other forms in the days to come.

The wet market was quite an experience (a good one) for me. When we got there the sight that greeted us was a lady selling live chickens weighing them out for her patrons using an old school weighing device that requires you to balance weights with the item (here being a live chicken) on a metal rod. The girls got quite excited about seeing it and forgetting themselves assaulted the chicken seller lady with their cameras, she (the chicken lady) of course was not pleased and scolded them. I was giggling at the sight, which I thought was quite funny... cos for a moment the chicken lady was like a celebrity surrounded by paparazzi. The rest of the market was equally interesting and new to us, plenty of sights, sounds and colours. We got quite a buzz from that experience.

17th July 09
We visited the 2 schools we were supposed to give health camps and paint murals at. Looked at the size of the walls, see the classrooms and toilet conditions (haha). There beside one of the school compounds, we got to meet 2 families that escaped the Aceh tsunami and relocated to the village. It was good to hear the stories behind the faces and understand the workings of the place we were trying to do work in. We hear that that these people seem to have fallen through the cracks, the aid they were promised never reached them and they were still waiting for the new beginning that till now seems so elusive. I wonder what happened to the millions that were donated to help?

We got news today that we will not be able to paint or conduct health camps in the schools as planned. The camat (head of several villages), said we needed some legal document to be able to do work in the 'government sectors', this paper will take a week to process, but of course the process could speed up if we were willing to pay a fee. It was quite a bummer, but after several phone calls by Pst Anton he said that we would be able to paint the community hall instead of the school. What we also heard from the Pst was, he has a friend in the government who told him that the document wasn't really an issue and we didn't really need it. We were really mad initially, but then again, I thought about it and decided that it is all part of our learning in working with the people there.

We could make our lives easier by just giving in and paying up, but I think the team knows that they were there to make a positive long-term change. If we gave in this time, the future teams will also have to pay and it would become a habit and reinforce the existing system. So we/they decided to go ahead with painting the community hall and come to worst hold the health camp in the church.

18th July 09 - Village: Serdang - Barus Jahe
Finally we begin actual work! Got up bright and early, loaded paints, brushes and ourselves onto the buses, got to the village all excited only to be greeted with the news that the camat heard about our painting the community hall plans and said that we're not allowed to do that too. The disappointment in the air was palpable. I think the pastor sensed our disappointment, so he said that we should paint the church. So off we trekked with our paints and stuff to the church about 5 mins away. The moment we got to the church, pst received a call, the village head said to go on with the work.. so we turned around and trekked back to the community hall.. and finally started work. Despite the many false starts, the painting itself was fun. The village kids came round and started helping us paint using their fingers! We felt the interaction was good, perhaps with the involvement the people in the village will feel a sense of ownership of the place?

19th July 2009 - Church Service, Health Camp & On Air!

20th July 2009 - Ajibata: Tomok
Went to Tomok as a form of R&R after a week of "hard" work (though the hardness of the work was not dependant on whether we wanted to work or not). It was a long ride 4hr bus-ride from Barus Jahe to Ajibata. The ride was a good way to have our fill of the landscape and the country, looking into homes along the way gave us a glimpse into the lives of the people in the land. Then it was a 45min ferry ride on the magnificent Lake Toba to Tomok. It was hard to imagine that the beautiful lake was once a fiery couldron of volcanic lava. The size of it and the destruction that happened when it erupted was, to me, unimaginable. Before the fun, we visited the hospital there to 'present' them with a first-aid kit which they were not impressed with. For they were expecting us Singaporeans to provide them with equipment & such, we felt sorry we couldn't do more but they had to find out some way or other the project was a student initiative.

Tomok itself was quite unimpressive as a cultural heritage site/sight (in my humble opinion). True, it's earliest natives were cannibals before Christian missionaries went and won them over, so the only evidence left behind were a few stone statues, tombs and 'altars' where they sacrificed their victims - all bereft of any trace of blood. Apart from lack of physical cultural heritage monuments, there were plenty of tourist shops we could browse & be touted. We spent an hour walking around and made our long way back again. It was all in all a rather relaxing day.

21st July 2009 - Village: Serdang - Barus Jahe