The first signs
On Saturday, Nov. 22, I flew from Jakarta to Banda Aceh, all the way in northern Sumatra. The next day I would travel by bus to Takengon, a ride of about ten hours, across mountainous terrain. At the beginning of the route, I checked my phone and Google maps and saw the first reports of flooding along the route. A river stepped outside its banks with subsequent roads slowly turning red on the map. When I arrived at Ketiara in Takengon in the evening, it became immediately clear what this means for life there and for coffee. If it rains for days in a row, coffee cannot dry. Point. Beans stay wet, because it stays wet, microorganisms develop (such as fungi), quality comes under pressure. The only thing one can do there is to wait.

The following days only got worse. It continued to rain. Monday, Tuesday....The coffee that had already been harvested could not be processed further. Everything was left lying around. And in the meantime, something else happened. In the middle of the night I woke up because the bed started to move. I didn't feel immediate panic but immediately sat upright in bed. Later it turned out to be an earthquake, 4.3 on the Richter scale. Not directly connected to the floods, but it made it clear that the area would be under increasing pressure.

That same night, I looked at the map again. The area of flooding had begun to expand overnight and mainly on routes essential to get out of the area. Toward Lhokseumawe, for example; a region where many roads are essential for traffic, food and fuel. The next morning we drove into the village where we were soon confronted with the first damage. A section of road had been washed away, right on a narrow ridge of a hill. Normally already a vulnerable point. Now part of the asphalt was literally hanging over the void. Just wide enough to drive carefully over it. Moments later we saw rivers that had turned into churning, brown streams. In the village itself, water stood in the streets. Stores were flooding. Houses too. The water was sometimes tens of inches high with a visible current.

Cut off from the outside world
In the car, you were relatively safe. But you saw enough to understand that this was a blow to many people. The real problem came with the landslides. With the combination of saturated soil and persistent rain, slopes began to give way. Roads became completely closed. Houses were severely damaged or even destroyed. Bridges damaged. In a short time, the area was largely isolated. To give a picture, toward Lhokseumawe, twenty bridges were damaged and nearly thirty landslides were reported. Electricity failed. So did the Internet. Communication with the outside world was no longer possible.
On Wednesday, I had one more moment of internet somewhere. In a restaurant where there happened to be a connection. Just enough to let BOOT, family, girlfriend and friends know that I probably wouldn't get out of the area anytime soon. Exactly how serious it was no one knew at that moment. We only knew: there is no power, no internet, and the roads are closed.
In the days that followed, the extent of the disaster slowly became clear. We drove past places where houses had completely disappeared under mud. In one location, six people had died, swept away by a mudslide. Further on, I heard about a grandmother and her two grandchildren. They hadn't had a chance. At the hospital, an emergency generator failed; ten people did not survive when the ventilation failed. The numbers were harsh, but the realization didn't sink in until I saw the places myself.

What touched me perhaps most was how people held each other in those days. Ketiara and Rahmah took the lead in that. I visited two mosques where families were temporarily hosted. In the first mosque there were 45 families, in the second there were 80 families. Blankets were distributed, mattresses laid out, food and water collected. Everything available was shared.

One woman told how she had managed to grab some belongings just in time when the landslide came. Her house was gone. Lost everything. Yet most of all, she expressed her gratitude that no one had been left behind under the rubble. Even after I was able to leave the area via a detour, contact remained. The situation did not immediately improve. There were food shortages, fuel shortages, and some villages were still inaccessible. Ketiara continued to organize help, getting food flown in and arranging supplies. The community continued to find each other, even as outside attention slowly waned.

Why relationship matters
The situation slowly recovered: rain stopped, roads were temporarily repaired and coffee could be dried again as soon as the weather allowed. What this period especially confirmed is how important our long-term relationship with the farmers and with Ketiara is. Precisely because we know each other, have direct contact and understand the conditions under which work is being done, we can remain realistic about planning and quality. It shows why things sometimes take longer than you would like. Not because of unwillingness but because of circumstances that simply take precedence over everything else: safety, community and recovery. Good coffee takes time, patience and, of course, a lot of passion. And that starts with understanding where it comes from. .Everything starts with caring about where it comes from.

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