West Sumatra Earthquake Relief

[gil at EVA.MPG.DE]

Dear all,

You have undoubtedly heard about the earthquake that hit Padang and  
West Sumatra province in Indonesia on September 30th.  A little over a  
week later, people are still buried under the earth and rubble, and  
the full extent of the devastation is not yet known.

As some of you already know, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary  
Anthropology has a Field Station in Jakarta, with a branch office at  
Universitas Bung Hatta in Padang.  After a few anxious days, we were  
relieved to learn that all our assistants in Padang were alive and  
well, and miraculously, our office also emerged unscathed.  However,  
many other people were not as lucky as we were.

Betty Litamahuputty of the MPI EVA Jakarta Field Station has been  
organizing a relief operation for the victims of the earthquake, and  
some of our Padang assistants are already in the field distributing  
aid ? food packages, tents, and so forth ? purchased with the  
donations that have started to come in.  You can read more about  
Betty?s relief operation at  
http://email.eva.mpg.de/~taylor/aardbeving/index.html.

But we need more money.  Donations to the relief operation can be sent  
to the following bank account:

Bank: ING-bank
Address: Breestraat 46
Place: Leiden, Netherlands
Bank account number: 3748676
IBAN: NL65INGB0003748676
BIC: INGBNL2A
Account holder's name: Mrs. B.H.J. Litamahuputty
Address:  Paramaribostraat 117, 2315 VH Leiden, The Netherlands

Any amount, however small or large, will be greatly appreciated.  Some  
people prefer to donate to the big established NGOs and relief funds,  
and indeed they are capable of doing many things that individuals like  
us cannot.  But on the other hand, we are there, now, delivering the  
aid where it counts, and with zero overhead costs: every single penny  
that you contribute will reach a needy person.

Many of you went to Padang in 2005 for the 6th meeting of the  
Association of Linguistic Typology, and returned with warm memories of  
the hospitality of the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra.  Now,  
unfortunately, they are in need of our help.

Thank you,

David Gil
(for Betty Litamahuputty)


-- 
David Gil

Department of Linguistics
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany

Telephone: 49-341-3550321 Fax: 49-341-3550119
Email: gil at eva.mpg.de
Webpage:  http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/














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