A few days after the earthquake in Central Java on May 27, 2006, I e-mailed a very close friend in Solo to make sure everyone was okay and to see if there was anything I could do to help if there was a problem. A couple of days later I got a reply from my friend saying that funds were badly needed for relatives of her sister-in-law in the Klathen area. I e-mailed around and collected some funds, which I brought to Solo in July. There I met Cathy Eastburn, from London, who supplemented the funds. My friend divided the rupiah into 31 envelopes and four of us drove down to Klathen to find the families that had been identified and give them the money.

What we found there was horrifying. In some cases, people had nothing left but a lot full of rubble where their house used to be. When we sat down for tea (a "must" for visitors to a home in Central Java), it was on tree stumps, not chairs. The majority of families had been able to gather enough funds to put up some kind of temporary structure (for example, one family had converted a shack that had been used to dry out their tobacco crop into an inhabitable structure). But everyone was worried about how these make-shift buildings would hold up during the rainy season, which starts in October. People were surviving, just, but there was real anxiety about the future.

I remember one person we met, an artist who was living with his family of five in a tent on a vacant lot. He was a topeng maker but the machine he used to make the masks had been destroyed in the earthquake. He had hauled it out of the wreckage and it was sitting there in the sun. When he met us, he asked if there was any way we could help him gather enough funds to get a new machine so he could start to work again and support his family. My friend asked how much a new machine would be, he told her, and she said that there was enough in his envelope to get a new machine and have a bit left over. He seemed very grateful, to put it mildly, and kept saying, "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

Many of the families, like the topeng maker above, knew we were coming because they had gotten text messages from Solo before we left. Some didn't, though, and cried when we explained why we had come. Some people seemed very bitter, but most, amazingly, seemed to be in decent spirits. In every case, it seemed, this was the first aid they had gotten, except for tents and some medical teams that came through right after the quake.

The recipients were all relatives of my friend's sister-in-law, who is from one huge Klathen family of dhalangs that seems to connect many of the artists in Klathen and in Solo. In fact, most Klathen artists are from this one extended family. We made note of the various art forms the families were involved in, and the list was: dhalang (about half the families had at least one dhalang), topeng maker, pesindhen, wayang painter, gender player, drummer, wayang klithik dhalang (I had been unaware that this rare form of wayang is alive and well in remote areas of Klathen), wayang orang, kuda lumping, ketoprak, sculptor, traditional wedding decorator, and dancer.

Many of the artists later came up to Solo so we could play together in a klenengan, one way, I think they felt, that they could show their appreciation to the people who donated. At that time, though, I realized that they look to foreign students of the Javanese arts as perhaps the only hope they have in terms of getting access to enough funds to get them out of their desperate situation. The Indonesian government has made proclamations about aid that will be forthcoming, but to date next to nothing has been delivered in the Klathen area and people are skeptical about how much, if anything, will be coming to them in the way of financial assistance from the government.

At this time we are collecting additional funds and hope to do a wire transfer this month, and at least one more after that. A little goes a long way in Java, so even the smallest contribution would be appreciated. In some cases, bricks have been salvaged from the rubble, so cement to make them into a new wall would not be that expensive.

If contributing to this project is something that interests you, please contact the Yogyakarta Artist Relief Fund at the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
ATTN: Yogyakarta Artists Relief Fund
437 Madison Avenue, 37th Floor
New York, NY 10022

http://rockpa.org/special_programs/yogyakarta-artists-relief-fund/


Anne Stebinger



Anne Stebinger founded Gamelan Kusuma Laras, along with Marc Perlman and Deena Burton, in New York City in 1983. She continues as Assistant Director of Gamelan Kusuma Laras, which is directed by I.M. Harjito.