Something not so financial, or is it?

It's been a while again, but I hope these long periods of absence won't happen too often anymore this year. I had a three-week holiday in Indonesia, which ended up being everything but a holiday. It was a period of family visits, my fiancee being from Indonesia, and a period of preparations for our wedding due early 2008 on Java. Usually, this site is a place for financial blogs and everything linked to the financial world, but there really is more in life than finance. Hence, I am sharing with you our findings in earthquake stricken Yogyakarta. The quake took place in May 2006, almost a year ago as we took our handycam and some money from ourselves, my family and some really great friends to the epicentre in Bantul. This was one of the villages around Yogyakarta where many of my fiancee's relatives live or lived. Upon arrival, we were shocked to see in what state the houses where. Most houses had not been rebuilt or only partly. The people living in these villages are generally humble people with little materialistic desire. All they need is a house, food and clothing to be happy. All home owners were informed by their Local Government that they were entitled to 45 mio rupiah (EUR 3,600). Yet most people haven't received a penny up until this day. That by itself is quite shocking, having to live without a roof or without any help of your Government, even medical help, for eleven months. But what is more shocking was that there were actually beautiful houses rebuilt in those villages. More beautiful than ever before. We couldn't help but ask around who these people were that built those beautiful houses there. The answer shocked us even more than the sights when we arrived that day. We were told that these houses were owned by Muslim villagers who lost their houses as well. These houses had apparently been funded by local Government aid and by donations from certain Muslim countries. Unfortunately, my fiancee's family happens to be Catholic. May I just say that when we in the Netherlands donate money, we do not discriminate on religion, skin colour, age or gender. We give money to victims in general. Shocking, but certainly an eye opener.