Rain has come to Indonesia but the problems remain
Rain has come to Indonesia but the problems remain
By Jon Corbett and Mary Stockdale
SAMARINDA: Well, the rains have finally come. The forest fires in Indonesia will no longer be news in your part of the world. But life in Samarinda, in East Kalimantan, is not yet back to normal and it sometimes seems doubtful whether it ever will be.
The smoke you heard so much about was only one of the more obvious effects of the long drought we've had for the past few months. The closest fires were 100km away, but it felt as though the neighbors had lit a large bonfire next door, with smoke hanging in the air and large flakes of ash drifting out of the sky into the house. The days were very dark, with the sun a deep red glow even in the middle of the day. At its worst, we felt very worried about the effects the smoke could be having on baby Emma's lungs, but by that stage the airports were closed due to low visibility and we couldn't have flown out anyway.
Even with the drought, it is strange that we would run out of water, since Samarinda is on the banks of the Mahakam River, one of the largest rivers in Borneo. Nonetheless, the river level dropped so low that salt water reached 50km upriver, causing the city's fresh water plant to close down for fear of pipe corrosion. Samarindans are confused because they remember far longer periods of drought in the past, during which fresh water continued to flow. Some believe the forest clearance upriver has caused the rain water to flow out to sea much faster than before.
Does this mean that from now on, whenever there is no rain for more than a few months, Samarinda will have no fresh water? Imagine a city of 400,000 without water. It was everyone's obsession. Water, water and how to get it. People in vans, people in trucks, people on motorcycles, people with wheelbarrows, all went to the few wells that still had fresh water, waited in long queues, filled up their jerry cans and sold water in the streets.
At least they were happy with the windfall profits, as was the company that has a monopoly on bottled water. The price of water rose day by day. The rich paid; the poor drank from the salty, sluggish Mahakam River -- with the result that the hospitals reported at least 40 deaths from typhoid and other waterborne diseases.
The haphazard nature of obtaining water from street vendors meant that we were never sure whether each batch of water would be our last, making us strictly ration our use of it. Everyone rarely bathed and seldom washed their clothes. The adults in our household learned to bathe with just one ladle of water each, although we tried to give Emma her daily basinful.
There were many other repercussions of the drought. Huge fires burned down at least 800 houses in the city's slums, leaving some 4,000 people homeless. Neighbors there told us that everybody just watched the houses burn, as there was no water to put the fires out.
Prices in the local markets skyrocketed as the rice harvest failed and the fruit and vegetable crops produced very little. All sorts of other businesses, from restaurants to food processing plants, were closed down, and shop owners were complaining of low sales.
As we said, the rains have now returned, but even that was a mixed blessing initially. You know what it feels like if you are sitting next to a camp fire and someone pours a bucket of water on it? The choking half-smoke half-steam made it difficult for us to breathe for the first few days. We were warned not to go out in the first rain as the acidity level would be too high -- although this wasn't heeded by many Samarindan children, out celebrating the return of water.
It is hard to believe all is normal in the rest of the world when one is in the middle of an environmental disaster, deprived of the basics of air, water, food. At least we can fly away soon, but we feel sad for all the Samarindans we will be leaving behind. They are still affected by the combined effects of drought and environmental mismanagement and will undoubtedly have to face similar extreme conditions again in the not too distant future.
Dr Mary Stockdale and Jonathan Corbett are researchers based at the Oxford Forestry Institute, University of Oxford. They have recently returned from a half year spent in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, Indonesia.
-- Guardian News Service