Healing through Theater and Snacks

Some women refugees of the Mt. Sinabung eruption are trying to recover from the trauma of being uprooted from their homes by staging theatrical performances and making snacks.

KOMPAS/NIKSON SINAGA

Evacuees of the Sinabung Women\'s Voice make snacks on Thursday (31/5/2018) at the Simpang Enam Batak Karo Protestant Church (GBKP) in Karo regency, North Sumatera. The evacuees are starting a new life by making cakes and actively engaging in business.

Refugees of the Mt. Sinabung eruption left behind their homes and farms when the mountain erupted in 2010. Some women refugees are trying to recover from the trauma of being uprooted from their homes by staging theatrical performances and making snacks.

The women’s group is called Suara Perempuan Sinabung (SPS), or the Voice of Sinabung’s Women. “We left our home in 2013, just after my second daughter Desi Ginting enrolled for a month at a midwifery school in Medan,” Lisherlina beru Tarigan, 50, an SPS member from Sigarang-Garang village in Namanteran district, Karo regency, North Sumatra, said on Thursday (31/5/2018).

Lisherlina’s third daughter Regina Oktavina Ginting, spent her junior and senior high school years in a refugee camp. “I want her to go to college so she can realize her dream of becoming a teacher. I have nothing left to give her but a chance to get an education,” said Lisherlina.

Despite losing her home and farm, Lisherlina strives to make ends meet and provide an education for her children. She rents and manages farmland to make money so she can send her children to school. She does not want them to be mere farm laborers.

Today, Desi has graduated from college and is working at a clinic in Karo. Meanwhile, Regine is waiting for the results of her college entrance exam.

These past few years have not been easy for Lisherlina and her family. It was only after she had spent several years in the refugee camp that Lisherlina could finally accept that her home and farm were gone for good. This was all thanks to her work at SPS.

SPS chairwoman Erna Susanti beru Peranginangin, 46, said that the group was a medium for Sinabung’s women refugees to share their stories and let go of their grief.

The SPS was founded in mid-2017 as part of a post-disaster trauma healing program for Sinabung refugees. The Batak Karo Protestant Church (GBKP) diaconate asked at the time for stage artist Lena Simanjuntak, who now lives in Germany, to meet with the local women at the GBKP Simpang Enam refugee post.

After hearing the women’s stories, Lena encouraged them to establish a theater group. “At first, we were confused. How could women refugees from a remote region play in theatrical dramas?” said Erna. The SPS was established in August 2017 with 25 women from Sigarang-Garang, Sukanalu and Berastepu villages.

Lena asked the women to write down their suffering, sorrows, burdens and remaining hopes after the 2010 Sinabung eruption. Lena then wrote a play based on these writings.

Through their writings, the women told about the panic they felt when Sinabung first erupted, the children born in the refugee camps and the fights between refugees in the camp.

“When we wrote about our sufferings, we felt that we could finally let go of some of the burden that had been building up inside us for a long time,” said Erna.

After the writings were completed, Lena asked North Sumatran artist Thompson HS to train the women to perform the play at the refugee camp. “As it turned out, we could perform the play with passion, as the story really happened to us. During the rehearsals, we laughed, cried silently and were deeply moved,” Erna said.

KOMPAS/NIKSON SINAGA

Evacuees of the Sinabung Women\'s Voice make snacks on Thursday (31/5/2018) at the Simpang Enam Batak Karo Protestant Church (GBKP) in Karo regency, North Sumatera.

Performing on stage

Rustina beru Tarigan, 40, an SPS member from Sigarang-Garang village, was given a role in which she needed to show the mass panic during Sinabung’s eruption. She ran around onstage, covering her child’s head with a dirty pan to protect it from volcanic rocks. “It is only through theater that we could laugh about our own suffering,” said Rustina.

After several months of training, the SPS group performed at several GBKP events. The theater group could heal the women’s trauma and rekindle their spirit to start a new life. The women’s creativity and spirit have only grown.

Before the theater group was founded, Rustina said the SPS members were highly sensitive and easily provoked. Fights often erupted in the queues for soap distribution or for the public toilets. “We looked normal on the outside, but were really fragile on the inside,” she explained.

Today, the SPS has only 11 members. Many of the local women either have no time for rehearsals or have tired of them. Still, they gather regularly: this time, to make snacks.

At their gatherings, there is nothing but joy. This was evident in their late-May meeting at the GBKP Simpang Enam in Kabanjahe, Karo. While mixing the dough for cakes, they shared stories and laughed heartily. Their faces showed no trace of sadness.

They bought the ingredients and cooking tools with the money that individuals and companies donated to the GBKP.

The SPS members currently make 150 packs of fried snacks every week they sell to friends, families and at local churches. One pack costs Rp 10,000. From the snack sales, the SPS members make Rp 200,000 a month. “If the group was only about money, we would have disbanded long ago. We survive, as the group has relieved us of our suffering,” Rustina said.

The SPS has also obtained a food distribution license at the local Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) so the snacks can be sold at local shops and minimarkets.

GBKP deacon Rosmalia Barus said that the issues the Sinabung refugees faced concerned not only losing their homes, farms and source of food, but also healing their trauma from the disaster. The theater group and the snack business have helped their healing process – even if only a handful of women had joined.

These days, Lisherlina and the other Sinabung refugees are waiting for the third phase of the relocation program, after the refugee camp was closed in October 2017. Some 1,038 refugee families are still waiting for permanent housing and land assistance. During the program’s first phase, 370 families were relocated and another 1,682 families were relocated during the second phase of the relocation program.