Gary is a big man, tall and bear-like with large, capable hands. He arrived in Ubud on the first day of February to volunteer for service in Aceh, an elderly teddy bear tied to his belt.
The staff at IDEP was delighted to see him. For Gary is a seasoned Disaster Management Logistics Specialist, his skills honed by a career in the British military. He unstrapped Tiger, the bear, and sat him gently on the table beside him. “Tiger and I are retired now,” he stated, conceding that he took some flak for carrying a teddy bear in the Marines. “We’ve seen a lot of action together. Now we’re looking for action of a different kind — helping people put their lives back together. Especially the kids.” Learning of IDEP’s initiatives in Aceh from another ex-Marine living in Bali, he decided to join forces with the Ubud-based NGO. He plans to stay a year, or as long as he can be useful, at his own expense.
What inspired Gary to make the long journey from Yorkshire to Indonesia? A few days after the tsunami he was watching the news on television. A picture flashed on of three small orphans sheltering under a cardboard box in the devastated city of Banda Aceh. A devoted family man, Gary thought about the wonderful Christmas he had just enjoyed with his wife, children and grandchildren. The big man found himself in tears. “I have to go,” he told his wife. Without looking at a map or knowing exactly how he might be of assistance, he began to make plans to travel to Sumatra. Three weeks later he landed in Bali.
Only two days later Gary was on his way to Banda Aceh in company with an IDEP project manager. While Sam liaised with local agencies, Gary prowled what was left of the city.
Then he heard that there was a relief ship at the docks restocking for a trip to the tsunami-struck coast. Less than a week after leaving Yorkshire, Gary and Tiger were aboard the Batavia.
The Batavia had been running emergency aid along the Sumatran coast for several weeks. Gary was in his element. A logistics expert, he helped plan the loading of the boat with donations from Operation Blessing, Mentor and other agencies. “We didn’t sleep for 40 hours,” he recalls. “Volunteers from Green Camp helped us load several tons of aid by hand using only a small passenger ramp. We took aboard 8,000 food packages, building materials, treated tarps, spraying equipment for mosquitoes and several Boston whalers to offload supplies.”
The ship sailed the next night for Lhokkruet, about halfway between Banda Aceh and Calang. They arrived at dawn to a scene of utter devastation. Gary pauses before describing his first impression. “It was spooky. There was no one around. Not one building remained standing. Most of the debris had been swept away by the wave, and the sea bed had risen to cover the footings of the buildings.”
Lhokkruet had been a thriving coastal town of about 6,000 people on December 25. When the Batavia dropped anchor, about 30 survivors remained; the others had retreated into the hills above the shore. Over the five days Batavia was at Lhokkruet off-loading aid, about 1,000 people wandered down from the hills. Five-sixths of the population had disappeared.
The Indonesian government had raised three big tents to shelter supplies, and Gary soon had a team of men building floors in them to protect the aid supplies from damp. “Then I had a look at the shoreline and realized we needed a dock before the Boston whalers could land safely. The closest place we could build a dock was 1.5 km from the tents, so there was still a long haul over rough ground to offload the supplies.” It was hard, hot work. They used scrap wood and fallen trees to create a sturdy dock that is still being used by other boats.
Gary and the rest of the crew toiled through the hot days digging latrines, clearing one well and locating a new one. He encouraged three small boys who had been hanging around to help build the community kitchen. Two of them were orphans. “I found them little tasks to do, like finding bricks in the rubble. Every morning they would turn up, three little faces smiling up at me. Tiger and I made them laugh. I felt that even if I could take their minds off it all for a few days and let the joy in again, it made the trip worth while.”
It was time to move on. Gary caught a flight with Mission Aviation Flyers to Muelaboh on a single prop plane that used a straight section of surviving road for a runway. A day later he flew to Medan, where he used his own money to purchase and ship the equipment necessary to clear the new well in Lhokkuet.
By the time he arrived back in Ubud he was sunburned and several kilograms thinner. Tiger was distinctly grubby. Gary took a group of tired IDEP volunteers on a de-stress weekend to Sanur. I washed Tiger and dried his stuffing in the sun, then Wayan carefully mended his unraveling seams and carefully knotted a little poleng sarong and sash around his stout middle. “So the Aceh people will know he’s a Bali bear,” she explained.
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What do you want to do now?” we asked Gary.
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Take a rest, maybe go to the mountains?”
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I want to go back,” he replied immediately.
Gary and Tiger were last seen headed to Surabaya to check out a new relief ship before heading back to Aceh. A big man with a big heart, doing good and making the children smile again.
