January 23, 2005

Today was a "vacation" for Susi, Christian, Mike, Dan and I. After 2 hours of sleep last night, we took off from Medan for the flight half way across Indonesia to Pagenderan, home of Susi Air. We needed to get here to pick up a lot of equipment for Susi Air, now that their plans for Aceh relief have started switching from the "now" plan to the 6 month or one year plan. We were four pilots on board so the overnight flight actually allowed us all to get a few hours asleep onboard. We landed at Jakarta at daybreak, refueled and made our way across Java to the south coast. What an incredibly beautiful place! Absolutely something out of the dreamiest movie one could imagine.

It is a day of emotional replenishment. Also nutritional replensihment as we dined on the finest seafood imaginable, straight from Susi's factory next door. What a treat to have a real meal! It was not a day without down periods though as we followed a dump truck down the road from the airport to the house here. Mike was wondering why it didn't have a siren. I was smelling for the bodies I assumed were inside. Both just horrible daydreams. There was nothing inside but dirt, but our minds told us otherwise. Tears come at times for all, other times they can be suppressed and only the heart hears the tears fall. This experience will live with us all for the rest of our lives.

Susi and Christian are hosting us at their beautiful house nestled in the palm trees. They also have one of the most modern fish processing plants I have seen anywhere in the world, including Japan. Susi started this business as a poor fish trader. She now has tea with the top leaders in the country, including presidents and ex-presidents. But that didn't stop her from pulling up her skirt and jumping into one of the fish tanks today to examine the product. She has spent time in prison in the past due to printing poilitical t-shirts, but that was before this country went through a peaceful transition from dictatorship to working functional democracy, in the world's largest Muslim nation, which is also mixed up with almost 10% Christians and smaller numbers of Buddhists and Hindus. The country is a great example of tolerance and cooperation between people of different faiths.

If there is one thing good that could come of this disaster it is the possibility of the seed of Muslim - Christian tolerance and understanding. The thousands of smiles we have given and received are long lasting diplomatic ties between our people and our countries. When you save someone's life, will it be forgotten? How can radicals such as Al Qaeda recruit children who, when asked, what is the best thing in the world, draw a US military helicopter with Americans?Organizations of every faith are helping everyone they can here. There is no concept of separation of people by faith. This opportunity to dissolve tensions between people must not be squandered. I am not a big believer in fate, but even I cannot look at the disaster from this tsunami hitting the two most war torn areas of South Asia - Aceh Province and the Tamil area of Sri Lanka. Was it a way to bring peoples together before something worse happens. When the next, manmade nuclear bomb leaves radioactive residue behind instead of just destroying everything as this nuclear bomb did, but at least leaving a rebuildable countryside. Let us learn, let us use this wonderful opportunity to prevent man made disaster by learning from the worst natural disaster that has happened to this planet.

Joe

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