The south Java coastal town of Pacitan was the most impressive of the three cities we worked in in terms of local efforts and successes. The local BPBD had set up 3-4 presentations every day to schools, community leaders and scouts. Volunteers and staff from BPBD accompanied us to every visit, they arranged for lunches along the way and they answered our many questions. Since many of the schools had more than a few days advanced warning, we were welcomed with singing, dancing, and gamelan playing. There were also snack boxes (including an egg roll, some nuts, a cup of water) or plates of snacks presented to us (boiled bananas, yams and peanuts, sticky rice and palm sugar treats etc.) at most every stop. Along the way it was encouraging to see maps posted of inundation areas and evacuation routes. On Sunday when we just had a morning presentation to youth scout leaders, we headed out in the afternoon to an isolated, beautiful beach where one of the graduate students had found large slabs of coral that had washed up on shore in a past tsunami. Part of our team had been trenching and auguring the past few days on this beach to find evidence of past tsunami deposits. It was nice to finally get out and see where our other half hung out.
