Aubrey Belford, Bunga Pasang (West Sumatra) – Indonesian housewife Edib Mulyati stands in the ruins of her quake-hit house and smiles bitterly at the government's promises of aid, saying most of it will be lost to corruption.
Married to a low-ranking civil servant, she knows how the system works and expects nothing more than a trickle of funds to reach those most in need after the money passes through the various levels of government.
"It gets thinner and thinner and then just a mouse's tail comes out the bottom. That's Indonesia," she said at the village of Bunga Pasang on the outskirts of Padang.
Indonesia ranks 126th on a corruption perceptions index compiled by watchdog Transparency International, putting it on par with African nations Uganda and Libya.
The government has pledged Rp 6 trillion rupiah ($636 million) for reconstruction efforts in West Sumatra, where up to 200,000 homes are estimated to have been damaged in last week's 7.6-magnitude quake.
In Mulyati's house, the family of four has abandoned the wrecked inner rooms for the relative safety of the front lounge, where they sleep with the front door wide open in case they need to make a quick escape.
Her husband, who declined to be named fearing for his job, said his family was already Rp 75 million in debt and could not afford to rebuild without the help of the government.
"I've heard the government wants to give out aid, but we're not convinced we're going to get it," he said. "The ministers at the center said the assistance won't be skimmed. But in reality, it is."
Security guard Ali Lintar, a 36-year-old whose extended family's four homes were levelled in the quake, said he had first-hand experience of how aid vanished on its way to the needy.
When his simple home was toppled by quakes that struck further south on Sumatra Island in 2007, Lintar was promised Rp 15 million rupiah ($1,590) to rebuild, but he says he got half that amount.
"I want to rebuild but I don't have the money," he said at the front door of his mother's crumpled brick and aluminium sheeting home. "Maybe there'll be government help, we hope. If there isn't, we're already poor, so we'll live in tents," said Lintar, who earns about Rp 1 million a month.
Padang Mayor Fauzi Bahar promises a prompt response and says the aid will reach people like Lintar and others made homeless.
"I guarantee 100 percent that there's no such thing as corruption and will never be," he said. "We'll spend all donations and funds on the people. We won't misuse them and let our people suffer."
Lintar's mother, 50-year-old Eti Aslyarti, said the initial reaction had been far from reassuring. A few Red Cross workers passed through to survey the damage and then a handful of government officials appeared to hand everyone a single small packet of cooked rice. "Five minutes and they were out," she said bitterly.
Next door, beneath a precariously leaning two-storey home of concrete and pastel walls, 47-year-old policeman Eroplis sobbed as he recounted how much he has lost.
"For 24 years I worked, I saved and I saved," he said, placing his head in his hands. "I still will rebuild. I'll borrow from whatever bank to rebuild. Even after I die, I want to leave it to my children to live out their lives," he said.
"In this catastrophe, if they want to help us, they should put the money right into our hands."