Donation Day: an Endevour for Aceh Tsunami Victims

On January 20, the Indonesian Students Association (http://www.ppi-wageningen.org/) held a donation day to generate fund for the Aceh Tsunami victims. It was a jam-packed event, filled with a lot of cultural presentations of dances, singing, poetry, and more. I was assigned to be the presenter in that event. It was a 2-hour event, and I never imagined how heart-moving the event could be! The Mayor of wageningen, Rector of the university, and Ambassador of Indonesia came to the event, which was a major honor for us. One thing I noticed was that they were willing to attend the event, from beginning to the end; despite their busy schedule. I could see from the stage that they were indeed having a nice time with the cultural presentations we brought them. However there was a point where everyone was sanked into a deep hole of depression and sadness. It was when the visualization of Aceh disaster was presented. Not merely the sad background songs, but also the pictures presented, and the video played. The squeaky sounds of hundreds of people drowned into the rushing water. The pictures of deserted bodies. The video of crying widows and children. I saw all these misery with my very own eyes, and as I was on stage, in front of the big screen, I struggled to fight back the tears in my eyes. I had to present the next performance! How embarassing if I cried in front of hundreds of people? So after the visualization I got up from my seat, and as I started to open my mouth, I could feel that my voice was shuttering. My tears were nearly rushing down, and I still tried to fight back. "That was... the visualization... of the tsunami catastrophe in Aceh. Let's hope that..." I suddenly paused. My voice was trembling as I speak each word. I moved back from the microphone. Everyone was in silence. I felt like I was in a funeral! I couldn't stop here, I should finish what I was meaning to say! So after several seconds of pause, I stepped in again in front of the microphone. "Let's hope... that Aceh will again be able to see another day... with a glimpse of smile and a ray of hope." There. I've said it. Then I took a deep breath slightly. After that I had to present the Indonesian Ambassador to deliver his speeh. "We would now like to kindly invite His Excellency .... " I glanced at the Ambassador. Oh God... I could see his eyes were puffy, and ... oh no... I couldn't stare at him any longer! I should just finish my job and go back to my seat! So... with a bit of rush I finished my sentence and thank God, it was done as supposed to be. After the sad phase of the event, then it came the time for the auction. At first I really didn't know how I should do this technically, as I've never done any presentation on auctions. But then I remembered some scene from the movies (oh thank God I'm a movie-lover!) so there I was on stage, "seducing" people to have their bids on the items offered. At first people were shy and reluctant to bid, but then I felt that I had to cheer them with some jokes and I sometimes tease the rector / ambassador to make their highest bids. It turned out to be a success! All in all, the event was a big success! We managed to gather total donation of about 2010 Euros, which comes about to around 24 million rupiah! Thank God! I hope that this will mean something to show our support to our fellow friends in Aceh.