(Excerpt from the book Titanic Made By Lapindo by Gus Maksum)

The Lapindo mudflow gradually disturbed the peace of Jatirejo. Nights grew longer as we slept less and less. In the day we busily talked about the boiling mud, but the more we talked about it, the murkier we became. Conversations about the mudflow did not progress, they spun in circles. People became annoyed and irritated. Sometimes just discussing the mudflow and what it has done incited us to pointless arguing. Everyone felt like an expert. Bit by bit, we grew more emotional and quicker to flare.

So much has happened. The unfolding chain of events has disrupted our social harmony--that between both villagers and their villages. Can you imagine? In the beginning we were all very close, but problems raised by the levees and our options for resettlement have torn us apart. The bonds of unity have been cut. Now even the slightest things trigger the passions of love and hate simmering between us.

Conditions have made us apprehensive—tender are the hearts of people that have fallen victim to the mud, in Jatirejo and elsewhere. Does anyone pay attention to us? Who cares if husbands and wives quarrel, while also fighting with in-laws?

Those of us that lived on this land steeped in disaster are left to either count the compensation owed, or fight tooth and nail to keep the land of our ancestors. Some argue that our entire legacy, what is left beneath the mud, must be sold as soon as possible because, they say, Jatirejo will never be a village again—not in the near or distant future.