Today we worked for 11 hours straight. We were tasked on Saturday with redesigning and laying out the agency newsletter, a seemingly menial task. Or at least that's what i thought until this afternoon when The Boss came in and we learned all about the political subtext of every word that we were writing. The Boss is a brilliant man. The Boss is trained in neuro-linguistic programming and so can always tell when you are lying. he is a highly trained negotiator. He will talk your ear off about philosophy, but he has some very interesting ideas about social contracts and the human aesthetic.

So it seems that I unknowingly bought an incompatible memory card before I left. It will be a day or two before I can get to the one electronics store that I've located, so I've been begging other people's cameras. Thanks to Matt, I have managed to score a few prime pics. We spent yesterday afternoon driving around the tsunami-effected areas in Banda Aceh. I've posted a few pictures. I hate how you can't change the format after you upload.

This is the coastline out near the beach and one of the most affected areas of Banda Aceh. Man, these pictures being centered is killing me right now. It's 12:44am, and tomorrow will be another very long day. I just can't pull myself away from this, though.

A boat in the waterswept bog. The wave carried saltwater, obviously, and a secondary though seriously profound effect of this was that rice paddies (these should be freshwater) were tainted and rendered useless. The environmental focus here has always been on forestry, but hopefully that will change in the future.


Houses are built in little clusters, sometimes just feet away from the brief outline of a previous foundation. Though many people still live in barracks, this place seems to show signs of life going on. Most houses out this way (we're about 100 meters from the water at times) are raised. Our driver pointed frequently: "Chinese", "Turkish", "Canadian" to indicate their origin. There have been many complaints of slow progress. The two largest sectors of the economy are agriculture and oil/natural gas. You can imagine which infrastructure needs were first addressed.


While working on the newsletter this morning, I reviewed a cd of agency photos taken about two years ago. I believe they were part of an initial assessment. The images were incredibly grounding, and it is amazing to see how people who are essentially living in a graveyard have managed to rebuild their lives even to some extent. They rebuild their homes with the help of various organizations. Many people don't even know where their loved ones are buried and have to guess when they go to visit a mass gravesite. There are three such sites in Banda, and we stopped at one yesterday. Our driver pointed out to us where people of different ages were entombed. Babies all the way to the right.

I wish it were harder to be here. It doesn't seem fair to be so far afield from the grief that these people must feel. I'm writing newsletters and reading papers and even helping to craft strategy, but none of it is anything for the here-and-now. I am a collection box of experiences that others, my parents and family and friends, have donated somehow. I keep waiting to be just a little useful.