back on line

Hello Friends,
We stopped with our Blog when the situation in Aceh became difficult. Writing the blog would be too dangerous, since sensitive information could find its way into the Blog. Local legal conditions made working nearly impossible. Our private live was affected by the situation so much that we in the end we had to decide to leave Aceh behind. Our principles got in the way. It was very hard to say goodbye to so many wonderful people.
My job as Engineer’s representative was an engineer’s dream. We were making roads, bridges, river training, coastal defense, drinking water treatment plants, drinking water distribution networks, deep water sea harbors, etc. in total 26 projects. It took me 11 days to see all of them. They were spread over the entire province (825 km long trip). Luckily was Nunung able to join me on many of the field trips. We have seen beautiful places and spoken to some wonderful people from Aceh. Money corrupts…………….. so also some of the administrators of the Aceh projects. We were forced to make projects (white elephants), which were intended only to be money makers instead of helping the population of Aceh. It was my opinion that facilitating corruption is equal to corruption, hence I was forced to work against my principles and had to stop. It was for Nunung and me very difficult to take that decision. It took us three months to come to the conclusion that, although it would cost us dearly, we had to live up to our principles and go away whatever the consequences. After we made the decision to stop we were at peace with it and life became bearable again. We left behind friends for live and the wish to be assigned to Aceh in the future. We love the people and the land. They say that if you have drunk the water of the springs of Aceh you will always return. (We have already and will again for sure)

In Holland we had nothing left. We had burned all ships behind us the year before. We were going to stay in Indonesia/Asia for the coming ten years we thought. So coming back to just a load of stuff in storage was no fun. Looking for a house is not easy in November. Friends and family helped us out with a place to stay until we were able to buy a house in Arnhem. This house was however much smaller than our other houses that we had before. So our storage and sea freight were stuffed into this small house in such a way that all rooms were stuffed to the sealing. We had a lot of fun though, happy to be home and near the kids and as a bonus a wedding and our first grandchild on the way. Life was smiling at us again.