PEOPLE

The Bwt hpL
future, Hc was twenty-three and a trained computer programma:
Soon he would leave to join an uncle in the United States. Some
Bidong residents had been there for ten months and had still not
qualified for resettlement.
Mr Choy told his story overlooking the 'front beach: one of
Bidong's moat coveted - and cxpensive - residential areas because
it was close to the market, sdminimative centre, water and ratioq
distribution points and such other modest facilities as the island had.
Behind him lay a warren of shanties, some three storeys high. The
main beams of these houses were of hand-hewn timkr from the hill.
Uppcr rooms had slat flwn. The walls were made of cardboard, tin,
bark and timber; the roofs of blue plastic sheeting or bone-coloured,
waterproof sack8 that once contained e popular brand of Malayaim
sugar. An average m m was about three by two metres, in which
several fmmilies might crowd to sleep at night. The well-to-do on
Bidong - those who managed to bring some valuables onto the island
or who had made money since ariiving - lived less congested home
lives. Some even had lights drawing electricity from car batteries. .
The beach was fouled with heaps of rubbish rotting in the heat
and humidity, At one end near the jetty an incinerator was nearing
completion. Flies swarmed everywhere and the stench of hummn
excrement was oppressive, At the end of the btach furthest from the
camp centre, figures squatred on rocks defecating into the water.
Nearby, other rtfugecs were fashioning a crude screen around the
hulk of a nventy-metre boat lying in the shallows: it was destined
to sene as a temporary I~trinc. 'We face many dileulties,' said
Father Le Ngoc Trieu, former president of the Catholic education
board in south Vietnam. 'We have run out of space to bury rubbish,
We had to fill in some of the old latrine pits to build more houscs
over them!
Shortage of water for drinking and cooking was acute. A crowd
of children gathed around a well 'fishing' for water from a meagre
pool at the bottom. Of 120 wells, only about 20 were still in use.
'The rest were polluted or dry. Weather permitting, r barge ferried ,
water to the island from Kuala Trtngganu every couple of days,
Since the start of the dry season, quotas had been cut from five litrts
to two lim ptr person per day. A pair of water storage tanks were
being built on the front beach and abut a hundred fibreglass con-
tainers lay there awaiting installation, In the meantime the queues
for water were long. Tempers flared and fights sometimes broke out
as patience dried up under the burning sun.
Dr Nguyen Van Quoc, aged rhirry, was one of eighty doctors,
twenty pharmacists and twelve nurses in Bidong's refugee population.
They staffed a tin-roofed clinic in the centre of the camp.
Therc had been 371 births on the island and 78 deaths. Tht babies
were born on a slightly inclined tabletop wirh a pale-blue plastic
rubbish tin at its foot to catch the natal fluids and the afterbirth
waste. Sornc of the deaths could easily have been prevented. I am
afraid we do not have enough medicines. We uat what we fan get,
We need more antibiotics, vimin pills and drugs for treating
asthma and tuberculosis,' mid Dr Quoc. Early in 1979 a bout of
infectious hcparitisl struck about 500 refugees, Isoiated cases of
meningitis and typhoid, but fortunately no cholera, had also
occurred. There wtrt rwenty-eight cases of mental illness, most of
them 'RPM' piracy victims. One was a young boy who had wrtchcd
his father die at sea.
Deaths generally fell into TWO eatcgories: the old and the young.
Dr Quoe said malnutrition among children in the camp was common.
'The diet is not adcqu~tc for children. There are not enough
vitamins and prowins in the food they get. Their resistance to illness
drops. That can be fatal! For babies, the diet was potentially lethal.
For more than a month, refugee architeas and arpcnm had k n
working sixteen hours a day in two shifts to finish a new woodm
hospiral kforc the deprture of the French ship Iris & LumGn
which had heen serving as a floating hospital for serious cases.
Thc UNHCR'S
standard ration pack contained 900 grams of rice,
a tin of condensed milk, three tins of canned meat, fish and vegetables,
two packets of noodles, sugar, salt and two smll tcabags.
One pack was distributed to each person over the age of three and
had to last for three days. Children under three got milk powder and
dry biscuits. Fresh vegetables were officially available only every six
weeks or two months.
The monotony of thif; diet - and of lift itself - on Bidol~g was
cclieved by a booming black market. The island was a monument
to entrepreneurial talent. Tailors, barbers, mechanics, pawnbrokers,
bakers, cakemaktrs, and hawkers of all kinds sold heu skills, brawn