Meulaboh

It's been 9 days since Adrian left for Meulaboh. 14 days since the disaster.

It was boxing day when we first saw the news of the earthquake in Sumatra. At that point in time, the magnitude of it all didn't strike us. It wasn't until the day after, that we realised how serious it had become - like a domino-rally that had disasters coming one after another.

So I asked Adrian if he was going to be activated... and he said that he wasn't sure.

28 Dec Tue, 4pm: Adrian called that he was activated and scheduled to go to Aceh, possibly on Thursday. He told me that he would be going to HQMC to attend a briefing.

29 Dec Wed: Adrian went to hospital in the morning to settle all the paperwork and handover whatever was necessary at work. Then he spent the day at HQMC for preparation. Departure the next day.

30 Dec Thu: We sent Adrian off to Nee Soon camp in the morning. The ship was supposed to set sail for Aceh at 5pm. But there was some problem with the ship, and it was postponed to the next day. That evening, we managed to head out to Chinatown and bought a Victorinox Swiss Army Knife... claypot rice for dinner at the hawker centre, and I bought a couple of party poppers, party whistles, spray streamers and an airhorn for Adrian's trip on the ship. His boss had asked him to prepare a little New Year countdown party as a motivational thingy for the guys... since they would be on board on NYE.

31 Dec Fri: We woke up at 4.30am... it was raining very heavily then. Adrian was supposed to reach camp before 6am so by 5am, we booked a cab. I sent him there, said 'bye' and watched him go into camp. He was off... this time, for real. Destination: West Aceh - Meulaboh.

After i got home, i went to rest a while before waking up to continue baking cookies to pitch into SH's bake sale/car wash drive to raise funds for the Tsunami victims. I suppose as Adrian was actually going there to help the people this was the least i could do. I baked over $200 worth (selling price) of chocolate chip cookies. I'm not sure if they were all sold, but they managed to raise about $10K in donations. Good effort!

At 2pm, Adrian called... he was about to set sail. We weren't sure if this was going to be our last phone call for the rest of his mission. The journey was going to take 40 hours from Tuas. RSS Endurance.

12 midnight: This has been my quietest New Year's Eve ever.