THE MENTOR INITIATIVE TEAM ON THE BATAVIA

Mentor initiative is a NGO specialized in Malaria control and prevention. A Mentor team joined the Batavia on Monday February 14^th to perform “large scale indoor residual spraying” (IRS) and start to collect information on the sanitary and health conditions of the villages located in the Lhokruet & Patek area. The Mentor team will also provide Malaria training for the physicians operating in the field.

We arrived in the Lhokruet bay on Wednesday February 16^th. Lhokruet was a fishing village before Tsunami and most of the businesses were located on the beach. The village itself and other villages further in land were depending on the fishing activities. They were saling fish in Lamno and other towns around. Everything is gone!!! All the people left after Tsunami, most of them went to Lamno, which is located 25 km further north and has not been too much affected by Tsunami.

They are 3 camps:

- The first one located on the beach, which is supposed to be the re-location area for the people originally from the village. There are 60 men that come back here and they expect 200 more people to come back in the next few days. Those 60 men are mainly originally from Lhokruet, and some are from Balampe? People are living in tents and this area is very much exposed to the sun. It’s hot!!!

- The second camp is located on the top of the hill and has approximately 35 people, both men and women. People have built houses probably with some spare pieces of wood they collected on the beach?

- The third camp is a military “posko”. They built houses with spare pieces of wood.

We collected some information on water, sanitation and health conditions:

Camp	Water & sanitation	Health
Beach	There is a source of water that has good protection. They say they boiled the water before they drink it. They don’t have any toilets. They think it’s a priority to built some, especially because of the people that are going to move back	1 case of suspected Malaria, needs to be tested and seen by a doctor
Hill	They use a source of water located higher than the village (400 m up on the road). They also wash themselves along the stream. We can find “garbage” all the way from the water source to the camp.	People suffer from diarrhea
Military	They probably use the same water than the second camp.	One case of suspected Malaria? And another who has belay pain.

We saw the original water tank and source located on the hill. We had to cross over all the debris and clamed a little to access the tank. One possible solution would be to restore this original source of water…

Those communities of people are not self-sufficient for food. They depend on the supplies provided by the government or the army. The question would be to help them to re-install the resources they were using before: boats for fishing, rice, farming. The rice locations have been transformed into swamps. There are still a few farms behind the hills (dixit Sam), the animals are gone and they would need seeds to grow cereals.

One of the objectives of the Electric Lamb mission would be to help this community to move back to this place…

They are more than 10 villages in the Lhokruet area and all those villages were mainly depending on fishing activities from Lhokruet. Everyday, people from those villages still walk down to the camp in Lhokruet to get food supplies. It is planed to go visit those villages.

Thursday Feb. 17^th

On Thursday Feb. 17^th, we went to Patek with the medical team (one physician, one dentist and one nurse) from Obor Berkat (OB). Patek has been completely devastated. There is a TNI camp on the beach. They are at least 20 villages in this area.

With the medical team from OB, we went to a village named: “Kampong Baru L” where we run a clinic from noon to 3:30pm. During this time, around 50 patients have been seen. We met the village chef who answered our questionaires:

Village and activities:

Kampong Baru L has 385 inhabitants: 50% male and female. Only 8 people died during the Tsunami, because they were on the coast, in Patek. The chief said that the population has been affected by the Tsunami because they can not travel anymore to buy&sale what they need. The main activity is farming (rice, oranges…). What they miss the most is fertilizers for the farming and the possibility to sale oranges.

Water and sanitation:

They use the water of the river for all purposes. Approximately 50% of the population boil the water before they drink it. I found that the color of the water was a bit “ground” , but it has not changed after the Tsunami.

Most of the houses have no toilet facilities, there also have no collective toilets. People go either to the river or the forest around the house.

Vector control:

They have a lot of Mosquitoes and they say it has increased after the Tsunami. They used to do some fogging in the past. Only a few people use nets.

Health

Malaria is endemic in this village. The chef said that there are approximately always 10 people who have Malaria in the village. Considering that Malaria diagnostic is not always obvious to establish, it could be useful to do RDT tests. Other diseases are Tetanus, thyphoid, Jaundice, Diarrhea, respiratory. The main health care resource in this area is IMC. They arrived after the Tsunami and they are permanently here.

Conclusion:

The town of Lhokruet and Patek need to be re-built. Fishing and transportation seem to be the key factors to help those communities to develop their activities again.

The villages located in the Lhokruet and Patek area were depending on the coastal activities. They are mainly affected for economic reason. Access to transportation could help them to buy & sale their products again.