~ Sumatra ~

This was the first rubber estate to be established in Aceh This building, is part of the rubber factory of Langsa Lama Rubber Estate which was established and built by Marriette's grandfather Willem Marius van der Veer in 1905.

Mariette said this is probably the old house-image 1, house-image 2 that Willem and Henriette lived in from 1905 to around 1918. Langsa was a small village then, but now it is a city with over 175,000 inhabitants.

History of North Sumatra

Lake Toba is the site of a supervolcanic eruption estimated at VEI 8 that occurred 69,000 to 77,000 years ago, representing a climate-changing event. Recent advances in dating methods suggest a more accurate identification of 74,000 years ago as the date. It is the largest-known explosive eruption on Earth in the last 25 million years. According to the Toba catastrophe theory, it had global consequences for human populations; it killed most humans living at that time and is believed to have created a population bottleneck in central east Africa and India, which affects the genetic make-up of the human worldwide population to the present. More on LakeToba. A few other views of Lake Toba.

pic 2

pic 3

pic 4

pic 5

It has been accepted that the eruption of Toba led to a volcanic winter with a worldwide decrease in temperature between 3 to 5 °C (5.4 to 9.0 °F), and up to 15 °C (27 °F) in higher latitudes. Additional studies in Lake Malawi, where Mariette lives, well not IN the lake, but in Malawi, East Africa, show significant amounts of ash being deposited from the Toba eruptions, even at that great distance, but little indication of a significant climatic effect in East Africa.