Future in a Temporary Home
Mata Sujono, 49, was elated as he looked at a laptop monitor showing his future temporary home. At 6 meters x 4 meters, the creation of Muhammad “Dani” Ramdani, 25, a Palu architect, is helping survivors to overcome their trauma.
"Can the house be shorter? The wind in this valley here is very strong. I am afraid that the house could be blown down by the wind," Sujono said Tuesday (16/10/2018) on the terrace of his house, which collapsed during the earthquake.
"Certainly, Pak. The tallest is 2.5 meters. The terrace also does not face the valley directly, to reduce wind exposure," said Dani. Sujono nodded.
Dani was used to discussing such details with his customers when presenting his designs. This time, it was different. He was sharing his expertise for free with Sujono from Loru, Sigi regency, Central Sulawesi, who survived the 7.4-magnitude earthquake of Sept. 28.
"I hope to help alleviate the suffering of disaster survivors," said Dani, who decided not to flee Palu to his relatives in Bandung, West Java, and instead decided to remain with other survivors.
Sujono\'s house was nearly flattened by the earthquake. No one was killed. Since then, he has lived in an overcrowded emergency shelter with minimal sanitation. Sujono needs to be in a healthy environment, as he has been living with lymphoma for the past year.
So Sujono attempted to build a temporary home on his own. He gathered materials that could be reused. The problem was that he doesn\'t have enough strength or energy.
Sopyan and Rizki, volunteers of Kotaku Siaga Makassar (My Makeshift Makassar), observed his persistence in gathering the wooden beams and bricks from the rubble of his house. "We established a network of volunteers with backgrounds in architecture. It is a movement to select, sort and recover [materials] to build temporary homes together," said Sopyan.
Their efforts received a good response, as Sujono accepted their invitation. He did not mind that he must contribute to building his temporary home. He wanted to continue living independently after the disaster, without being dependent on the emergency shelter.
"I am used to working, it\'s hard for me to sit still. Even when I was diagnosed with cancer, I continued to work in the fields to keep my body and brain healthy," said the farmer, who also sells wholesale gasoline.
Facing trauma
The Kotaku Siaga Makassar community movement was initiated through the efforts of many parties from different communities. Many of its volunteers are architects hailing from the Indonesian Architects Association, Indonesian Architects Students (MAI) and the Architecture Community.
Riswandi Syam, an MAI member, said Kotaku Siaga Makassar was a self-help group that used recovered materials from the debris left after the earthquake to build temporary houses. In addition to Loru, the group is also active in Tompe and Wani in Donggala, and in Mamboro in Palu.
However, the temporary houses were not the only goal, said Riswandi. Community participation and encouraging the survivors to resume working were key values. By rebuilding the disaster-affected areas themselves, the group expected to help recover from trauma. "This is also a way for me to get back up after losing my mother, who was killed during the earthquake. All the work here is dedicated to my late mother and all the victims of the Central Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami," he said.
M. Amin, 25, another Loru resident, began to feel the benefits of the movement when he helped build septic tanks using recovered materials. He became physically active again after staying idle at the emergency shelter. His involvement with Kotaku Siaga Makassar helped bring the sweat to his brow and for him to use the muscles in his arms against the trauma that haunted him.
Another volunteer, Mohamad Nawir, said that discontentment seen among the survivors Central Sulawesi disaster had also occurred elsewhere. As a witness to the 2004 Aceh earthquake and tsunami and the recent Lombok earthquake in August, he knew from experience that staying too long at emergency shelters made trauma recovery difficult for disaster survivors.
"Working together effectively suppresses trauma. Communication between residents can be restored. Not only does that help recall the past, but it also opens room for dialogue to enable them to move forward," he said.
In Aceh, he and other volunteers of the People Driven program, which popularized the slogan woe gampong (coming back home), helped many tsunami survivors to build temporary houses in Aceh Besar and Banda Aceh. They built 3,331 temporary houses using recovered materials and without involving contractors.
"Another important thing is that we promoted houses with raised foundations. Mangroves were replanted to reduce the impact of future disasters," said Nawir.
Nearly 14 years later, Nawir applied a similar method on Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, through the Lombok Bangkit movement. There, he promoted building temporary houses of the traditional Sasak style. The frames were made of bamboo with roofs that used sirap (wooden shingles). The materials were also recovered from the debris left by the disaster.
"There are now 20 temporary houses in three West Lombok villages. The residents of three other villages plan to build similar houses. Hopefully this will become a trigger so people in disaster-prone areas can live in safety," he said.
Sharing knowledge
The volunteers also encourage others as they built Sujono’s temporary house. "Neighbors have come by to ask about my house. Slowly, others will become interested," Sujono said on Thursday (18/10/2018).
On Wednesday, Sujono was seen hard at work along with the volunteers, regardless of the cancer in his body. Under the scorching sun, they erected wooden beams for the frame. Zinc material, wooden boards and plastic tarp that had been selected and sorted the week before were used for the roof and walls.
Sujono said that aside from building the temporary house, a lot of know-how was shared about building houses in earthquake-prone areas, particularly the foundation. For Sujono, building his new home also served as trauma therapy.