Proyek Kampung Loco

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Newsletter April 2015


So many things happened the last months. We want to tell you all about it.

Our last letter ended with the story of Marijke’s operation. Everything went very well and that is the reason we could leave on the 31st of December to Asia. We took our time and did everything relaxed, but we were on the road again. After a stay in Bangkok, Thailand and a very short stay in Bali, we were “home” on the 12th of January 2015.

The warmth was there in real and in the harts.



Next October the project will be 10 years old. Quit some time, in which we learned a lot and happily we were able to help a lot of children to get an education, which made them find a job. It is sad to see that for many children the university is no option. We do understand. Next to de support from the project there are always extra costs for the parents and the afford is not that big. There are just not enough jobs out of the tourist sector. O yes, there are governments jobs, but you still have to bring a lot of money to get one. That is a rule we don’t want or will deal with. This is Indonesia and something we have to learn to accept.

For the next school years it looks like this:
38 children at Elementry school, including 5 new children
22 children at Junior High school, including 2 new children
16 children at High school
12 children at university
(we should have 9 children coming form High school. Bur we doubt they will go, see the text above)

In total we have 88 children in the project, A number were we are proud of.
Thanks to you: the sponsors!!!!

10 children stopped last year:
3 children moved
1 finished the education
3 will stop after finishing High school for sure
3 children didn’t come for the picture
(this sound not so nice, but we had posters every were in the kampong that we made the pictures in February. They could come for 4 Sunday mornings from 9.00 until 12.00 am)

The sponsors who it may concern will get a private message.

Then the beautiful fixed bemo. We had a very long talk about this car. The bemo doesn’t bring any money in. Every time less children go by bemo. Almost every family has their own motorbike on the moment. The results are that the bemo sometimes transports only a few children and some days he just stays in the kampong. For that the car is too expensive. Another important thing was that the bemo took care of the transport to a doctor or hospital. (last year luckily only 2 times). We had a good talk about it and decided to sell the bemo. With that money we want to support the children, who want to go to university with some extra. The people who need to go to a doctor or hospital can order another bemo or a taxi if they need transport. Project will pay.


Specially for Cuk this was a hard decision, as he was driving the bemo and spend a lot of energy in fixing the bemo again. He did this al in his spare time, next to his job as a security. We are proud of him that he could agree with this decision. We already got a message from the guys that the bemo is sold for a good price. They did a fine job.  

There is a leak in the water tank. They know already a while. But still they want to wait until we come to decide what to do. We took a look for a new water tank, but couldn’t find a good one. The guys want to fix this one. So that is what going to happen. Also we will have a float in the tank, so there is no spoiling of the water.

The mandi (shower) and toilet are a disaster. Already 2 times we put in a new door and several times we changed the tap. But the young boys love to bang the door, when one of them is taking a shower, to make him hurry up. Those doors are not strong enough so we have a problem. Nobody feels responsible for this. We will tell you later.
Because of our health problems of the last years, we start talking about the future. We are not getting younger and some day we would not be able to make the trip anymore. No, we are not sad, but this is just reality. That why we (Joep and Marijke) made a decision. The help for the school children will stop in 6 years. This year we got some new children and you have to keep your promise. So they will have support for another 6 years. The children who are now in the project will go on for another six years. This gives them the best opportunity to finish their school and will give the parents some time to find a way to help their children in the future. By that time we will be 72 and 66 years old and that is a nice time to stop.
We made this choice because we don’t want the project to have a suddenly stop, which would bring a lot of problems to the children and their parents.
By then the children of the kampong had support for 16 years. It feels like a complete geration. These children, some of them have children of their own already, will surely send their children to school. So by then we have reached our goal, a better future for the kampong and the people who live there.

Dear sponsors, don’t let us down. We are still going on for another six years and hope you will join us on this trip the help the children until then.

This is a big decision and we want everybody of the kampong understand real well. So together with the team we invited the “wise men” of the village. They understand our decision and will help us to spread the story in the right way.
Also we talk to them about the mandi and toilet and told them that we don’t want to spend any money anymore. The Kepala Kampung (head of the village) took over and he promised that the toilet will not longer be damaged by the young boys. Too many older people also use this shower. We agreed for one more time to fix everything and that officially hand over the toilet and shower to the kampong. We will not longer take care then.

The water tank will remain in our control and we also have a sponsor who pays every year for the water we use.

For the medical support we will go on as long as possible. As long there are sponsors willing to help us, we will try to help the people of the kampong. In a country were they have medical support, but were people have to die if they don’t have the money, we have to help them. We found out that the people are very scared to go to a “real” doctor. That is why we think is we take away their financially problems they more easy will go. If they learn that the doctors really can heal them, they will not be afraid anymore.

Our sponsors were still there and kept on helping. We got some beautiful donations.

Maria Meulendijks who reached a nice age (no, we are not going to tell you what age ha-ha) decided to give the project a donations. Congratz Maria and terima kasih!

Frank and Gerrie van der Hoeven (friends of Adi and Mariam) are not only trying to get those two to the Netherlands, but also decided to do an extra donation. Thanks a lot!!!!

In Lombok we met Cor Fennema en Diety de Vries-Fennema. Brother and sister who regularly make a trip together, are very open minded and like to meet people. A great couple. They held spontaneously an action with their friends, what ended up in a nice donation for the project. Real great!!!

Then in the end everything turned out wrong!! We got a phonecall from the Netherlands. Dear lovely Jeffrey, son of Nick, died suddenly. Nick and Elise are our most dear friends and you will understand that the only thing we could do is go home and hold them!
Jeffrey was only ones in kampong Loco, but he came home. Never ever did someone adjust so quickly in the live of the kampong. Jeffrey was one of the boys and enjoyed every minute of his stay. The people of the village send their support to Nick and Elise.

The last line of text in the obituary was:
“In stead of flowers please give a donation for his beloved Proyek Kampung Loco at Lombok”

JEFFREY TERIMA KASIH DAN SELAMAT JALAN.
JEFFREY THANKS A LOT AND HAVE A SAVE JOURNEY

A very long story this time, but a lot of things happened. Still we go on and we hope that you will support us for the next years to come. Without sponsors we do nothing and we don’t have a project!!!!!!!!!!!!!



“CARPE DIEM”








 

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