One of the things that I do love about the world that i have chosen to inhabit is the kind of stuff that i get to do, occasionally.

I am in Indonesia. To be precise in Java. To be even more precise in the province of Yogyakarta – called by its inhabitants as Jogja !

I am here to continue the film “To Save a Million ” – on Disaster Risk Reduction, and how it is the new wave of thinking, especially in Asian countries that want to break out of the relief syndrome.

I travelled almost 12 hours from Mumbai to Jogja. Mumbai to Singapore via Jet, and then Singapore to Jogja on Air Asia. i got in yesterday at 3 p.m., zonked out of my skull. Today I was up at 5 a.m. local time and am even more zonked.

But, i wanted to pen this down (blog it across) before i forgot the day.
It was awesome. I have traveled to some seriously beautiful places. scenically beautiful and awe inspiring. From the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean. But, there is something about a mountain that is smoking, a mountain that blew less than 3 years ago that gets your jaw to hit the floor and bounce back very slowly back to it’s place. We shot today at a village that is most impacted by the Merapi Volcano – that last blew in 2006.

(Mount Merapi on the 9th of May – 2009. check out the glowing embers)

The village has practicing DRR since before then. When the volcano blew the last time around – the village had zero casualties. From training to mobilizing women, from Early Warning Systems to evacuation drills, from terracing to HAM radios – the village has adopted many DRR best practices that allows it to save lives and livelihood.

There is something about standing at shouting distance from a volcano. It would be the equivalent of standing in front of a dinosaur. A relic from another age that can kill in an instant. There is this primeval strength about the mountain. Pictures and more in a bit.