Field notes

A day like any other, in a small village near the equator in West Sumatra, begins at 5 o'clock in the morning with a call on the loud speakers from the muezzin. As villagers pray to Allah, daybreak brings the inescapable heat that will stay until after nightfall. Today however, is not like any other day, as today is survey day.

As part of a two-year disaster risk reduction programme, Mercy Corps is testing out an evaluation technique called cost-benefit analysis. The goal is to quantify in monetary terms the cost effectiveness of the awareness, education, skills training, capacity building and small infrastructure projects, which make up the Public Private Partnership for Disaster Management programme.

Now, my training is in the social impacts of disaster and is far from economics-based, so it’s a good thing I am working with an economist intern at my side. Bringing us to the days activities, we are conducting a survey to collect data on the effects of a short tsunami evacuation route built from a high risk village near the ocean’s shore to a village on higher ground a few kilometers away. This evacuation route will, in times of disaster, help community members flee from an incoming wall of water caused by an offshore earthquake.

A Mercy Corps staffer in West Sumatra conducts a survey with Siti. Photo: Teron Moore for Mercy Corps

This programme will not save houses or fields from begin damaged, but it will no doubt, reduce psychological trauma, injuries and lives lost in a tsunami. During normal times, this escape route will be used as any other road, bringing with it a route to transport goods, go to school, visit the doctor and talk to neighbors. For our purposes, these are the quantifiable economic impacts of our programme, with important results for this rural community.

Siti is 55 years old and the head of her family. She earns a living by renting a small plot of land near the new escape route to plant, grow, tend and harvest rice and corn. Hers is not a life for the weak of body or spirit. Siti relates the fact that, with this new road, she will be able to transport her crops to market in half the time it would have taken her previously. This is not only an added convenience, but the extra efficiency will allow her to add significantly to her earnings of about $4 a day to support her and her family.

Sarinah is a single mother of four and the owner of a small café (think food stall with fried rice and instant noodles). For her, this route will allow her children to get to school faster and allow her to gather her daily supplies for cooking much more effectively. This increases her wages as she is able to open her stall earlier in the morning and prevent closures due to running our of supplies. Not unconnected to this expected extra income, Sarinah is in the process of fixing her home, which was severely damaged by the earthquake in September 2009.

These, and many other stories like these, are what make my experience in West Sumatra so valuable. While we struggle at our computers trying to figure out how to put a dollar value on saving a villager's time, I think of all the Sarinahs and Sitis, whose daily struggle is just a little bit easier thanks to this programme. It makes the early mornings and oppressive heat a lot more bearable.

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This morning when I arrived at the office, I got a call from one of my team members, Hasdi — a Community Facilitator for our Community Development Programme here in Banda Aceh. He’s one of the members of Indonesia Response Team (IRT) in Padang, as a volunteer from our office. Immediately I was a bit worried, but he reassured me that everything was fine, just a little bit sleepless from the non-stop trips of assessment and distribution. He just missed us and wanted to hear the updates about our office.

“How’s work? Is everything fine?” he asked me with full concern. Then I said, “What work? We don’t have anything to do around here, so don’t worry!” Then we laughed heartily. I told him not to worry; I still have the other folks doing a great job and taking care of the work of those who have been deployed to Padang and surrounding areas for the emergency response. But it is, in fact, a busy time for us here: I am managing a team of 22 people for our two-year Community Development Programme here in Banda Aceh. We're at the peak of workload to be completed: it's the month when our quarterly report to donors needs to be submitted.

When the devastating earthquake hit Padang on September 30, 2009, I was on an airplane on the way back to Banda Aceh from a weeklong break for the Eid Ul Fitr holiday. Therefore, I know nothing about the deadly disaster — not until my sister called me from home to make sure I was fine. She was afraid that the earthquake has shaken Aceh as well.

The following day, instead of focusing on catching up on work after the holiday, I got a quick morning briefing from my supervisor about the steps we needed to take in response to the disaster. I was needed to make a quick decision, because four of my staff members are currently on the IRT and two of them are team leaders. So, I met both of the leaders and asked for their willingness to be deployed soon — of course, they did not hesitate at all.

Starting that day —the first day after the earthquake — we prepared our team for some of their colleagues being deployed. We talked about what we needed to do in order to keep delivering our programme in 40 villages across four sub-districts, as scheduled. We started preparing handover notes and appointing persons-in-charge.

Then came another day of decision: Tuesday, October 6, when Mercy Corps' Aceh Director told me that Padang needed as many team backup as possible. He planned to send all the IRT members in our office, plus some other folks who wanted to volunteer for the emergency response. That was the biggest pang for me: I needed to send five of our eight team members from our office to Padang the next day. It felt a little bit weird for me when that critical situation did happen, but we were ready. And it feels great that we could help in the emergency response by dedicating our team members there.

My conversation with Hasdi ended like this: “Okay, boss, I need to go now. We have a meeting."

Take care folks, we are supporting you! Keep up the spirit out there!

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