Kom ut!

A joint effort between LGBT activists and members of a Qu’ran study group for warias turned into a highly appreciated mobile beauty parlour for Merapi evacuees. Mathius Indarto reports from an emergency relief effort following the eruptions of Mount Merapi on Java, fall 2010.

Text Mathius Indarto

Photo

When I write this it is almost a month ago since Mt. Merapi, which lies north to Yogyakarta – started to ‘cough’ and eventually erupted millions cubics of material and it’s the  ‘wedhus gembel’ (the hot ash clouds with 700 Celsius heat that locals named after the fleece of a sheep). The ashes, pebbles and dusts covered almost the half of Center Java with the varying intensity in some areas. It was almost like a Swedish winter landscape; except that it’s grey, not white. People had to wear facial masks to prevent from inhaling the corrosive ash material. The first eruption on October 27 totally devastated villages up to 6 km south from the crater and killed more than 34 people. On October 31, the second eruption of pyroclastic ash cloud swept an area up to 15 km from its peak and the dead toll raised to hundreds, and until now many people remained missing.  This situation forced even more people living along the volcano’s slope being evacuated and more than 250.000 people were evacuated.

Living as evacuees is not as comfortable as living in their own homes. Most of evacuees developed trauma and stress by the situation. Feelings of loss of families, their home, and their belonging could turn them mad and suicidal. This situation encouraged our organization, PLU Satu Hati and Pondok Pesantren Waria Al-fatah (a Quran study group for waria or transgender in Yogyakarta) to involve and assist in the recovery and trauma healing. Knowing that most of the warias have hair cutting skills, we decided to help the evacuees by the free-haircut. ‘I have nothing to give, I only have this scissor and combs and I hope it could help them to heal their trauma’ said Maryani, one of the warias.

We held the event in two different sites on November 10 and three sites in the following week, and all the sites belong to Muntilan, a small town northwest of Yogyakarta, one of the areas that was severely affected. The town was so silent, no electricity at all, the trees were fallen, the thick ashes and sands covered everything and the smell of sulfur thickened the air. As we reached the place, there was an announcement by loudspeakers that there would be a free hair-cut. Many people turned up and they were so happy to see us – men, women, the elders and the kids were enthusiastic of this program. We thought that they would hate and reject us since we were ‘different’ but in fact they were very welcoming to us.

It is interesting to see the reactions from the evacuees; both the LGBT and the evacuees perhaps have not directly met before, but this activity shows us on how wrong we judge people and vice versa if we have not met before.  Yes, at first they might judge us wrong and we are too afraid to blend with them, but as the time went by we found that some of us were sitting on the bench talking and giggling with the evacuees like there are no barriers of sexuality. Several TV stations came to cover our story. Last, it sounds like a proverb: there are thousands ways to go to Rome, meaning this activity also helped us to reduce the stigma, to gain the support and to promote the sexual identity in different ways, i.e beauty ways!! Viva la Beauty Parlor!!

NOTE: in the disaster quick response (emergency relief) PLU Satu Hati worked with Arus Pelangi and friends did several humanitarian works for example gaining the support, especially in the helping in the logistics and distributing relief goods. On the October 31, right before the second eruption we were distributing some fresh vegetables and daily needs (toiletries) to Kemalang, Klaten, Central Java and on November 20 to Senden, Magelang, Central Java.