BANJIR

Banjir is the Indonesian word for FLOODING!

Since last Friday torrential downpour has hit Jakarta. At night it rained like never before for hours and hours.

We woke up on Friday morning with 2 bathrooms flooded and a swimming pool that had almost disappeared into a small lake in our garden.

Our minor problems were nothing however compared to what other people had to deal with. At 6 AM our driver called to let us know that he couldn't come to work because the area where he lived was completely flooded. At some places the water level had gone up 4 meters!!! Can you believe that?

A good friends of ours had 2 meters of water in their living room and just managed to save most of their possessions by moving it all upstairs.

At 7AM the school emergency phone tree was activated and we heard that school was closed for the day. The school was not flooded, but it was just impossible for a lot of people to get to the school. Also traveling was in some areas very dangerous because of the flooded streets.

As a result of all the flooding phone lines went dead, power was out at a lot of places and of course Internet connections were out as well.

On Saturday and Sunday it kept raining, but not as much as before. On Monday morning we found out that school was closed for another day. The water levels had gone down, but this time the problem was the fresh water supply. Apparently there was no fresh water available on campus.

I used that Monday to go with Sofia(Noah's nanny) into her kampung to look at her little house and the damage that the water had done. A lot of people were driven out of their homes and lost most of their possessions. Her house was not flooded anymore but they had lost a lot of their belongings. The lower areas of the kampung were still flooded.

It was amazing to see how these people accept their fate with smiles on their faces. They even allowed me and encouraged me to take pictures, which I was a little embarrassed about. They could have easily thought...what is this rich 'buleh' doing here taking pictures of our misery?

According to the official reports, as of now about 350,000 people are homeless in the city and 20 have died. It just never stops here does it?

Guess what the weather forecast is like for the next few days? RAIN !!!

In case you want to see / read more about the floods you can also check out Scotty and Rob's blogs. Just click on their links on the right side.