Flying over Sumatra as Mr Jacob

In my work with water, lots of interesting stuff happens. The following is one such episode. The book project (Providing Water) contains many more. 

After the 2005 Christmas Tsunami, I got a contract to supply 200 slow sand filters to decimated villages along the west coast of Sumatra. We assembled these filters in a week working 12-15 hour days in the shop in Santa Rosa California. Fedex flew the filters to Indonesia for free, several pallets worth. There was also an urgent need for training of the people in Indonesia who would be setting the filters up in the villages. So, I went. If you’ve never flown from the US to south east Asia, let me tell you, it’s one long trip. 24 hours after getting on the first flight in Seattle, I disembarked in Medan, Sumatra. A  little worse for wear, I was met by the US team that was handling the filters and informed that they were grabbing a puddle jumper flight to Banda Aceh to speak with members of the team there. They wanted to know if I wanted to come with them, or go on to the hotel to recover from my long flights from the States. Banda Aceh was off limits to everyone due to the conflict between Islamic Jihadists and the government, but a truce was in effect because of the public health catastrophe that was the Tsunami. I didn’t even have to think about it, of course I wanted to go to Aceh. The departure “lounge” was in a state of pandemonium with people trying to get in to effected areas. There was no way to get a ticket to the flight which was leaving in 30 minutes. That’s when one of the Indonesian team members held up his finger indicating for me to wait a minute. He disappeared into the crowd and returned a few moments later with a boarding pass for me. I looked incredulously at the document as we all started heading through the queue to board when I noticed that the document was in the name of Mr. ES Jacob. My turn in the line came, the woman took the boarding pass without a second glance and sent me  on my way up the steps. What followed was an adventure for another time.