Quake hits close to home
Category: Opinion
October 12, 2009 | BY Aziza Musa
My dad grew up in one of the cities severely impacted by the earthquake that hit Indonesia on Sept. 30. He lived in Padang for the first 17 years of his life before moving to the country’s capital, Jakarta.
As a child, I often heard stories about the Sumatra of his youth. Then, the province and its citizens were poverty-stricken, and my dad’s family was no exception. They struggled more than others because of his mother’s death when he was 9-years-old and his father’s inability to work due to age. These conditions left my dad and his siblings with the responsibility of working to support the family while completing their education. To earn money, my dad fished in Lake Maninjau, West Sumatra, and sold the catch of the day to local markets. His family planted nutmeg, coffee beans, and vegetables, which were also sold at the market. The money allowed my dad to buy items the family needed such as oil, sugar, and laundry soap.
It’s become a cliché to say that, in your youth, you walked miles to school in bad weather. But my dad did walk everywhere he went, including his middle school, which was 5 kilometers, about 3.1 miles, away. Despite the distances, he did not own a single pair of shoes. Eventually, my dad was able to buy a bicycle. It remained his primary method of transportation for most of his adolescence.
Despite living in abject poverty, my dad held Padang dear to his heart. It meant home. It meant family. And its destruction and devastation during the last quake has made my parents immensely sad.
Officials report that at least 809 people were killed in the magnitude 7.6 quake. As of Oct. 12, 241 are listed as missing, and 1,250 are injured, many from the massive landslides that were triggered by the quake. More than 135,300 buildings, including Jam Gadang, a massive clock built by the Dutch when they colonized the country, were damaged or destroyed.
The archipelago of Indonesia was the home to President Obama for four years of his childhood. In response to the recent disaster, the president pledged $3 million in aid. The U.S. Air Force Humanitarian Assistance Rapid Response Team has been deployed to Indonesia to help the survivors, many of whom have been left homeless due to the extensive damage.
Even though my dad lives in Houston now, he hasn’t forgotten his roots. The Indonesian community in Houston, in collaboration with the Indonesian Scholarship & Relief Assistance of North America, is conducting fundraising activities for the earthquake victims. They hope this fundraising will help lessen the burden of people affected by the natural disaster. To learn more about their efforts, or contribute to their fundraising, you can visit their Web site at http://www.israna.org/.
Tags: International Disasters
About the Author
Aziza Musa: Aziza Musa is a student at The University of Texas at Austin, where she plans to major in journalism and psychology. She has a deep interest in international relations and social issues. Aziza believes the U.S. news media tends to ignore most countries, and will pursue changing that mindset after graduation in 2011. For now, Aziza will focus most of her writing on the Y Gen Out Loud site to giving underrepresented countries a voice. For the past two years, Aziza has been a member of both the National and UT-Chapters of the Society for Professional Journalists. Though she doesn’t affiliate with any particular party, Aziza tends to lean toward the political left.
