We visited another area, which was also badly hit called Imogiri. The first village we went to had about 65 families and the earthquake took 25 lives. Not a single house was left standing in this village and practically everyone was living in make shift tents. While going around visiting and comforting people, we met a group of student volunteers who had been working there for several days tearing down the remains of houses. We worked with them then for awhile and then went to do our puppet show on the local badminton court not far from their camp. The village chief announced our program to the whole village so we had quite a big audience. By a miracle we had electricity that someone had rigged up for us. Everyone was just so happy to have us that they kept asking us to come back, and so we did. We played games with the children and sang songs which included some of their traditional songs. Mothers joined in the fun and helped us sing as we were not familiar with some of their songs. It was very inspiring for all.
In the mornings we worked with the volunteers, tearing down houses and cleaning up the debris & rubble. Many of the villagers were traumatized and afraid to go inside their houses to even get personal belongings. They were also effected emotionally having to see their houses torn down because of safety factors. We would usually initiate the effort and then they would join us, just like the principle they have always upheld called “gotong royong” which means working together.
One of our programs was in an emergency school. The original school was flattened to the ground, so the children had a temporary tent school provided by UNICEF. A group of Indonesian police, who were stationed at the site, helped us with electricity so we could do our puppet show for about 200 children. The local children who had been learning our songs “Time To Be Happy” & “Wear A Great Big Smile” also performed.
