Pangandaran Tsunami Projects

I was just down in the beach town of Pangandaran a couple weeks ago. In the summer of last year, a tsunami hit this area and did extensive damage to the beach front and claimed about 300 lives. Renovations of the infrastructure seem to be coming along well despite the usual corruption. The major decline in tourism since the tsunami, however, has made the city’s comeback slow.

Here are some pictures of the CAMA funded projects there I’ve been assisting with:

The “Goat Blessing” project provides two female goats to poor families. Participating families commit to returning the goat’s first kid to the “goat bank” and the third kid to another family in need. CAMA also purchased two male goats for breeding. After an initial miscarriage, all seems to be going well. The first goat blessing baby was born last week.















CAMA partnered with a local youth org. to plant over 600 trees on the beach. The project helped revitalize the group post-tsunami and should help with tourism as the trees grow and add to the natural beauty of the shoreline. About 4 months after the trees were planted, the department of tourism decided the beach needed to be “flattened.” They hired a bulldozer which began to mow over the trees. When the local people realized what was going on, they ran out and stopped them. About 350 or the 600 trees are still doing well.

CAMA also helped provide vegetable seeds and has an on-going project to provide small loans to local business people. These trips to Pangandaran have been a nice change of pace from language study, and a great chance to be involved in community development efforts on the ground here in Indonesia.