ALT VI Padang venue unaffected by earthquake and tsunami

[David Gil]

Dear all,

This is just to reassure everyone that Padang, the ALT VI venue, was
unaffected by the recent massive earthquake and tsunami centered off the
northwest coast of Sumatra.

Just one week ago, I was sitting on the beach at Padang, listening to
some friends telling stories about giant waves that rise out of the sea,
together with monsters and other fantastic creatures.  (Wish I had had
my tape recorder with me.)  Yesterday, back in Jakarta, I started
getting sms messages from overseas asking me whether I was safe; not
being near a tv, it took me some time to find out why everybody was so
concerned.  Once I found out about the earthquake and tidal wave, I
called my friends in Padang, the ones with the stories of the giant
waves, to see if they were alright:  turns out they don't watch tv
either, and were completely unaware of what had happened a few hundred
kilometers up the coast -- apparently Padang was totally unaffected.
 Which goes to show that tidal waves and news travel in strange ways.

Looking forward to seeing many of you in Padang this coming July.

David

--
David Gil

[currently in Indonesia]

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://monolith.eva.mpg.de/~gil/