Living in airports !

The airport is my home. Over the last ten years I seem to have spent more time in airports, flying, hotels, guest houses, than I have in my own home. I am writing this in the J J Royal café at the Jakarta airport. It is the only smoking café at the airport. I don’t like smoking, but the only places I find people chatting noisily, belly laughing and generally having fun, is in smoking lounges at airports. I find it worth shortening my life by a few years inhaling their smoke, while imbibing their laughter and joy. You need to find boredom breakers when you travel.


One of the best bars at Singapore airport is a smoking lounge that doubles up as an Irish pub. Similarly, Hard Rock café in Singapore airport is relaxing too. I didn’t set out to write an article on the best bars in Asia, but I suppose I pick up a lot of knowledge as I tred the weary path.

The water supplies we put in villages have a huge impact on the health of everyone.


Over the past 29 years I have kept a diary of my life, times and travel. The first few pages are where I record every town, village, city or significant place visit. Annually I visit well over 200 and over 300 in a good year. Sometimes these places I record are a village four hours up the side of an Indonesian volcano, others merely a cafe in Arthur’s Pass in the NZ alps. Most tend to be villages I visit in the course of my work in Indonesia where we have built houses, put in water and sanitation systems, provided livelihoods, clinics, schools, hospitals etc.

Sometimes the reception I get is hilarious such as a village near Mandrehe, on remote Nias island in Indonesia, which I visited last year. An old man came running up to me and hugged me as soon as I entered the village. We had put in a quality water supply six months earlier and he said, “ I could hardly walk then, I was ill, my stomach full of worms and I didn’t want to live. Once the Red Cross put in a water supply and latrines, slowly but steadily my health came back. Now I can run and I am able to work the fields again,” he told me. Hebent over and whispered in my ear, “ I can now chase women again."
In the same village people told me how absenteeism was high at the school, with around 50% attendance. Some months after our water supply was complete, attendance rocketed up to 90% and then higher. To do this work you have to travel, and airports become your home. I am travelling to Kuala Lumpur today for a tsunami planning meeting. I love KL airport because of its design, cafes, bars, book shops and friendly staff. And the worst airport I have been in ? There is no such place as airports, as every airport, like a sea port, has its charm. You just need an inquisitive mind and even from the most obstinate official, you can get a recommendation to his favourite café. Nine times out of ten he will come and pay for your meal. Everyone is human, if treated as a human being, and a smile, a nudge will bring the best out of the glum.

Just as I am about to post this jotting, a conservative Moslem woman covered from head to toe in black comes into the smoking cafe. Now this is unusual. She looks around, adjusts her head scarf, and lights a cigarette. Never a dull moment on the trail!

Next week I am in Bangkok. I hope I don't get stuck in the airport as there are certain tensions there at the moment.

THE LAST MEGALITHIC CULTURE - Nias, Indonesia

Traditional houses at Ono Limbu, Nias Island, Indonesia. The houses are set on a series of vertical pillars (enomo) which are not anchored into the ground, but rest on stone blocks. Secondly, the vertical pillars are reinforced by slanting piles (ndriwa), which created very resistant earthquake-proof three-dimensional structure. This is why the traditional structures survived the 2005 earthquake. The Red Cross, in building houses, took into consideration the tradition of building in wood, and built houses out of wood in consultation with communities. Photo: Bob McKerrow

I came back from Nias last week and said I would post a few photos and write about my trip. On my four earlier trips, I got glimpses of the culture and visited a World Heritage site in southern Nias, but this time, while inspecting one of our many water, sanitation and housing projects, I discovered a very traditional village named Ono Limbu. Here I saw many traditional houses and stone statues, pillars, columns, flat stones and Stonehenge type arrangements. It was utterly fascinating, I would like to write a little on the Megalithic culture and to do so, I have borrowed from papers written by the Nias Cultural Musuem and also from Wikipedia.

Some historians and archaeologists have cited the local culture as one of the few remaining Megalithic cultures in existence today. While this point of view is hotly debated, there is no doubt that Nias' relative geographic isolation has created a unique culture. Nias best known for its remarkable diversity of festivals and celebration. The most well known events are War Dances, performed regularly for tourists, and Stone Jumping, a manhood ritual that sees young men leaping over two meter stone towers to their fate. In the past the top of the stone board is covered with spikes and sharp pointed bamboo. The music of Nias, performed mostly by women, is noted worldwide for its haunting beauty.

A warrior in battle dress in the Nias Heritage Museum. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Gunungsitoli is home to Nias's only museum, the Museum Pusaka Nias (Nias Heritage Foundation), which houses over 6000 objects related to Nias's cultural heritage. The museum had recently built a new building and had improved their storage and exhibitions when the 2004 earthquake and tsunami occurred. The museum suffered some damage to the grounds and collections, but museum staff are working to recover from this devastating event. More on that later.

Stone Statues outside a house in Ono Limbu, Nias Island. Photo: Bob McKerrow

The predominant religion is Protestant Christianity. Six out of seven Niasans are Protestant; the remainder are about evenly divided between Muslim (mostly immigrants from elsewhere in Indonesia) and Catholic. However adherence to either Christian or Muslim religions is still largely symbolic; Nias continues into current day celebrating its own indigenous culture and traditions as the primary form of spiritual expression.

The people of Nias build omo sebua houses on massive ironwood pillars with towering roofs. Not only were they almost impregnable to attack in former tribal warfare, their flexible nail-less construction provide proven earthquake durability.

Nias is home not only to a unique human culture but also endemic fauna which differ from other areas of North Sumatra because of the island's remote location separate from Sumatra.

The Nias megaliths are found in the hilly and coastal (or lowland areas). Nias megaliths show a mixture of old and new megaliths. Old megaliths, such as menhir, terrace, and flat stones, and new elements (which also may be classified as megaliths), such as human statues and animals, are found there. New megaliths consist of neogadi, sitilubagi, neobehe, and lawolo.

Small stone statues honour the dead. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Menhirs symbolize the male while flat stones are usually female. Vertical standing stones and imposing stone statues are set up to achieve and maintain the honor, prestige and popularity of a leader. A large number of kerbau (water buffaloes) are sacrificed as hundreds of people come from other places to actively participate in the ceremony. A communal spirit of the megalithic society is not only shown in the way they build megaliths or ceremonial houses but also in their way of deciding on questions of customary law or cases. Such a place to settle and reach consensus between leaders and people are found in the areosali.

Firstly, all houses were set on a series of vertical pillars (enomo) which are not anchored into the ground, but rest on stone blocks. Secondly, the vertical pillars were reinforced by slanting piles (ndriwa), which created a very resistant earthquake-proof three-dimensional structure.

While surviving earthquakes, Nias traditional architecture is presently endangered by two big challenges, namely deforestation and modernization. Nias has largely been stripped of its forests over the past 150 years since head hunting ceased and the population grew rapidly. This has nearly depleted the native efoa, manawa dano, and simalambuo hardwood trees, used for the pillars of the traditional clan houses (omo hada), chief houses (omo sebua or omo nifolasara) and large meeting halls (omo bale).

Graves of ancestors, recent and old, take a prominent place in front of the houses. Ono Limbu. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Secondly, modernization has reduced the strength of the clan (mado), with most Nias people preferring now to live in Malay houses, while the government has also forsaken Nias traditional architecture in all official buildings.

Larger stone statues in the village of Ono Limbo. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Fortunately, two European charities — the German aid organization, Johanniter Unfall Hilfe, and the British Turnstone Tsunami Fund — have assisted the rebuilding of remaining omo hada on the island. Johanniter cooperated with the Nias Heritage Museum (Museum Pusaka Nias) in Gunungsitoli, the capital of the Nias district, while the Turnstone Tsunami Fund cooperated with the Medan-based North Sumatera Heritage.

The Nias Heritage Museum. (Museum Pusaka Nias) Photo: Bob McKerrow

With Johanniter’s assistance, Museum Pusaka Nias has helped families rehabilitate 26 traditional wooden houses in 13 villages. In addition, with financial assistance from the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta and the Muenster and Konstant Municipalities in Germany, the Museum has rehabilitated eight more traditional houses in seven other villages. Then, with the assistance of other donors, the Museum has distributed funds — ranging from Rp 200,000 to Rp 5,000,000 — to 357 traditional house owners to rebuild their traditional houses.

Inside the museum in Nias: Photo: Bob McKerrow

The museum was trusted by all those donors due to the serious dedication of its director, Johannes Hammerle, a naturalized German-born priest, to revive Nias traditional architecture. I met Father Johannes some time back and he explained how he has studied chief houses (omo sebua) since 1990, and supervised the construction of the museum compound — with its various wooden buildings — according to Nias traditional architecture, involving Nias and German carpenters.

Tsunami and earthquake:

On December 26, 2004 the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake struck a few kilometers north of the island, creating tsunamis as high as 10 meters. 122 people were killed and hundreds more rendered homeless.

On March 28, 2005, the island was again hit by the 2005 Sumatran earthquake, initially presumed to be an aftershock following the 2004 quake, but now regarded as the second-most powerful earthquake in the world since 1965 and twelfth-most powerful ever recorded. At least 800 people were reported dead, with the possibility of more than 2,000 casualties. Hundreds of buildings were toppled and many thousands of people were made homeless.

Nias's coastline has changed markedly with the tsunami and earthquake. [7] In some areas, the coast has moved over 50 m inland. In other areas, as much as a further 100 m of land is exposed from the sea. The uplift of land has been recorded as being as much as 2.9 m.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has been priviliged to work with PMI ( Indonesian Red Cross) in building water and sanitation systems, livelihoods and houses on this culturally rich island of Indonesia. The water and sanitation programmes have brought clean water to approximatley 100,000 people. or one sixth of the island's population, and houses have been provided to 3,000 families, 2100 of them from the Canadian Red Cross.It has been a joy, a rare privilige, to workn in one of, or if not, the last megalithic cultures in the world.

Leaving Nias tomorrow

I leave for Jakarta tomorrow after spending five days on remote island of Nias, situated west of Sumatra. What a fascinating place to visit. This was my fifth trip to the island to see the outstanding work the Red Cross (IFRC) has done there. I travelled with Nigel Ede, who is in charge of the operation on Nias. I will post some photos over the weekend but here is an article written my my colleagues Ahmad Husein, which will give you an idea of what we have been doing here.


Sabaria Lasse, 49, in front of her new latrine in Hilizukhu village, Lahewa, Nias. After she saw the popularity of the latrines built by Red Cross for community, she built a new one with her own money.

Sabaria Lasse, 49, always looks enthusiastic every time people asking about her new latrine. It is a half brick and wood construction situated behind her house in Hilizokhu village in the northern district of Lahewa, on Nias Island.

“I copied the design of the latrines that the Red Cross built and I made it with my own money,” she says proudly.

Before having the latrine, Sabaria and others in the village just dug a hole in the back yard or used the riverbank as their local toilet. With a poor understanding of good hygiene practises it wasn’t surprising that the incidence of diseases such as diarrhoea was high among the villagers


Children play happily in a springwater catchment structure being built by Red Cross in Ombolata Afulu, Nias. By channeling the water from this hill area down to the village, children now can access the water easier.
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The situation changed after the Red Cross arrived in the village two years ago. The earthquake that struck Nias in 2005 left almost 80% of the homes in the district damaged or destroyed. The Canadian Red Cross stepped in to rebuild over 2,000 houses on the island, they also funded the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to carry out water supply and sanitation projects across Lahewa.

“Historically Nias has been a little isolated from the rest of Indonesia. We discovered that prior to the earthquake less than 30% of the island had access to clean water, that’s alarmingly high“, says Nigel Ede, IFRC’s Head of Sub-Delegation in Nias.

Clean water, basic sanitation and an understanding of good hygiene practices were an obvious priority when the IFRC assessed the humanitarian needs on the island. For the past three years the IFRC has focused on providing 35 communities in Lahewa and a further 30 communities in the central district of Mandrehe with community toilets, tap stands and washing facilities. Some villagers are now benefiting from piped water connected to spring water catchment systems while others have rainwater harvesting tanks that provide water throughout the year.

“I saw the latrine made by Red Cross; people like it,” Sabaria remembered. Each three or four families got a latrine to share. But for elders like Sabaria and some other villagers, the preference is for a latrine nearby their houses. So she decided to build a new one for her family. It took three days to install a latrine with septic tank, which cost USD 100.

Better access to clean water
It’s not easy to implement the programme in an area such as Nias. For instance, in Ombolata Afulu village, people have to walk hundred metres to reach the village’s old water catchment tank where they collect water from spring water source located 300 metres at the hill. The water is channelled to a tank using basic bamboo pipes.

With IFRC support, a permanent spring catchment is now being completed which safely pipes the spring water to three water catchment tanks from here it is piped to communal tap-stands around the village. “We thought about building toilets before but could never afford to – food was always our main priority”, says Belifati Warowu, the head of village. “Now 40 families in this area will have access to clean water at their doorstep”.

Ownership of each project is taken by the community. The IFRC provides funding, raw materials and technical expertise. The community has to form a committee to decide upon and manage the projects. To show their commitment, villagers contribute sand and gravel for the construction work to the value of about US$100, and they also provide some labour. Committee members are taught to disseminate good hygiene practices, such as hand-washing to other villagers and the Red Cross is also training local school teachers so that the right health message reaches children at an early age.

Serious but not fashionable
Basic sanitation is still a serious problem in many developing countries. Nearly a billion people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water .

“Safe water and good sanitation are essential to poverty reduction and good health”, explains Nigel Ede. “Diarrhoeal diseases kill more children worldwide than HIV and malaria combined, but when you compare international funding, remarkably little is spent on clean water and sanitation”.

IFRC statistics show that in 2007 and 2008, around 60 per cent of all requests submitted by National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies for allocations from the IFRC Disaster Response Emergency Fund (DREF) were directly or indirectly related to outbreaks of acute diarrhoeal diseases. This is about 35 per cent more compared to similar statistics in 2006.

Fatal Neglect’, a recent report produced by the NGO WaterAid, also highlights the imbalance in healthcare investment and the lack of political will to invest in basic sanitation. The report argues that the global response to diseases caused by poor sanitation is ’simply not rational’. It suggests this is because sanitation is just not fashionable or emotive enough to get politicians excited.

Water and sanitation programs such as those on Nias continue to improve the health and welfare of millions of households throughout the world. Over the last 15 years, more than nine million people globally have directly benefitted from IFRC water and sanitation programmes.

Trip to Nias Island Indonesia

This beautiful island was devastated by two disasters in 2004 and again in 2005. It is slowly coming back to life with the help of Red Cross and other humanitarian organisations


Ever since the tsunami struck Nias on 26 December 2004 and a huge earthquake hit Nias again on 28 March 2005, the Red Cross has been doing relief work, building houses, rebuilding schools and hospitals, running livelihood programmes and large water and sanitation programmes, training volunteers in health education and community based first aid, together with a risk reduction or disaster preparedness programme to reduce risks in the future. The damage caused by first the tsunami and later the earthquake was island-wide. The force of the earthquake tilted the island with coral reefs being lifted out of the sea and are now high and dry. As head of our operation in Indonesia, I visited Nias Island this week for monitoring and to talk to and motivate staff and volunteers. Nias is situated off the West Coast of North Sumatra. Around 700,000 people plive on Nias which has one of the lowest standards of living in Indonesia. It is a beautiful island that used to attract dedicated surfers before the Tsunami.

They are slowly trickling back and trying new breaks and waves created by the uplift of the island. Surf Aid, comprised of surfers from around the world, are doing a lot in terms of rehabilitation. The Red Cross has about 200 staff and 1500 volunteers working on Nias

Here are a few photos of my five day trip to Nias this week.

Bringing clean water into villages and installing proper latrines is an important part of our work


An important part of building toilets in the communities is durable and long lasting septic tanks.


Hundreds of septic tanks awaiting distribution and installation.


One of the 3000 houses the Red Cross are building on Nias


The port of Gunung Sitoli is the capital of Nias and is the main sea port where we off-load our water and sanitation components and housing material. Supplies come my small ships, barges and landing crafts.



A meeting with Indonesian Red Cross Volunteers who are trained in public health, first aid, disaster relief and community development skills.


Componets for houses stored in our compound in Lahewa



It is a beautiful island. Sunrise at Gunung Sitoli


A jetty outside my hotel in Gunnang Sitoli


Some of our team:

Vera (l) from Montenegro and Biserka from Macedonia


Younos (i) our head of office and Christopher in charge of construction for the canadian Red Cross. both are from Malawai.


I got back last night, Friday from Nias, where I had been starved of world news. So sad to read about the cyclone in Myanmar but delighted the Red Cross are responding very quickly. My good friend Joe Lowry is in the country working for us and is getting out news reports on our website: www.ifrc.org