On Dec 26, 2004, Aceh was struck by a disaster never seen before. Five years after the tsunami, the place and the people have bounced back.
JUARIYAH looks adoringly at her two young children who are playing in the grounds of her new home. Her front yard is small but it looks pretty with carpet grass, plants and flowers in red, white and purple.
Sitting on her favourite teak wood bench out on the veranda, she chuckles at the antics of her two boys Mohd Rafi Rezeki, four, and Mohd Fito Magestra, one. And she poses for photos with them.
She is a picture of happiness and it warms my heart to see her like this.
Picking up the pieces: Juariyah has found happiness again with her two sons Mohd Rafi (left) and Mohd Fito.
My tears flowed as Juariyah, in between gut-wrenching sobs, spoke of how tightly she had clung on to her son Mohd Fandi, five, when the tsunami waves crashed into the second floor of her two-storey home in Banda Aceh, sweeping away everything in their path.
The waves thrashed them about – like they were in a giant washing machine, she described – and it was an almighty struggle to reach surface to breathe. But they managed it – twice. Then the water pushed them under again and finally the heavily-pregnant Juariyah did what no mother would ever want to do – she let go of her child.
“He was frothing at his mouth and then he stopped breathing. I didn’t want to let him go but he felt so heavy and I couldn’t hold him any longer. So I kissed my son for the last time and asked him to forgive me.”
That was the last she saw of Fandi. She never found his body.
Juariyah was also widowed that day and she didn’t find her husband’s body either.
Picking up the pieces: Juariyah has found happiness again with her two sons Mohd Rafi (left) and Mohd Fito.
“It was 10 months and 15 days before I finally went into labour. When Rafi was born, there was no more fluid in my womb and his skin was all dry and shrivelled like that of an old man in his 70s.
“I had to keep applying baby oil all over him. Thank God that helped and his skin is normal now,” she says.
In 2007, Juariyah married a male relative whom her parents had chosen for her. She laughs heartily when teased about her new man and she looks so happy. They have a child together– Mohd Fito and she is able to put the past, and the guilt, behind.
“I am doing good but I can’t say I am 100% recovered. The tsunami came as a high black wall of water and the sound was like a cat chewing on fish bones.
“I still get anxious now when the sky becomes dark and there is a storm. I am not sure if it’s really the sky or a tsunami coming.”
She adds that they have a small bag packed by the door with their important documents and their motorcycle always has a full tank.
“Just in case it is another tsunami and we need to get out quickly,” she says.
Constant reminder: Children playing on an abandoned boat at Kampung Punge Blang Cut in Banda Aceh. It is among the many smaller boats which were washed inland by the tsunami.
Triggered by a 9.15 magnitude earthquake, the tsunami raced across the ocean, sweeping over the island and crashing and smashing into homes, buildings, shops, schools, bridges, roads, cars, trees and, of course, people in its path.
It showed no mercy; and when it was over, 170,000 were dead and another 140,000 were left homeless!
The land, especially along the coast, was stripped bare. In some places not even a house or tree was left standing. It was as if no one had ever lived there.
Today, all that has changed.
There are houses as far as the eye can see. People have moved back and rebuilt on the very land that had snatched the lives of their loved ones.
Those without money relied on the Aceh Rehabilitation and Reconstruction agency (BRR) and international aid organisations to help re-build their homes.
But those with cash (yes, there were some who became rich instantly after the tsunami as they were sole survivors and inherited all their family land and property) re-built their own homes, some of which are massive with lots of land around them.
In areas that were not directly hit by the tsunami but were close enough to the town centre, people made quite a pile renting out their homes to aid organisations who planned to be in Aceh for some time and needed a place to stay.
Some people too became rich when, in the reconstruction process, the Government and aid organisations bought their land to build new roads, schools, government and other buildings, and new villages.
Phoenix risen
The tsunami destroyed 2,618km of road,119 bridges, eight airports and airstrips, 22 ports, 517 health facilities, 139,195 houses and 669 government buildings. In the rebuilding process, more than the number destroyed have been built.
But Aceh has come back better than before. It now has 3,696 km of new asphalt roads, which the people are so pleased about. There are 363 new bridges, and 13 airports or airstrips including an international airport which they never had before. Some 1,115 new health facilities, 140,304 new houses and 996 new government buildings have been built.
That’s not bad at all for a place that five years ago looked like the end of the world.
Yes, Aceh has cleaned up quite nicely. And there is excitement and a new confidence in the air.
The tsunami of Dec 26, 2004 was so powerful that it carried a 63m-long, 2,600-tonne ship, the LTD Apung I, and dumped it a few kilometres inland, smack in the middle of a flattened village.
That is one of the few reminders of the tsunami.
Now, the ship has become a tourist attraction complete with a Tsunami Education Centre and park, and the village has been built around it.
There are even little shops there selling “I Love Aceh” T-shirts, the famous Acehnese Ulee Kareng coffee and other souvenirs.
This is by no means the only boat “serving” as a tsunami reminder. The people have opted to let the “Noah’s Ark” wooden boat remain. On that fateful day, it had landed on top of a house, saving the 59 people who had climbed into it for refuge.
At the Pnge Blangcut village, two small boats have now become the children’s playground. Kids scramble up and down the boat and gleefully slide down the slanted sides.
Aceh too now has its own fun places like a water theme park by the sea called Banda Waterbom. It is a favourite of the locals who love to flock there during the weekends.
“The sea was a scary place after the tsunami,” says Hafaz who works at the theme park.
“So, isn’t it great to change that and have a place like this which is bright, cheerful and full of fun and laughter?”
At the refurbished Aceh Psychiatric Hospital, doctors are saying they no longer have people coming in to be treated for trauma or mental illnesses resulting from the loss of their loved ones during the tsunami.
They attribute this to the fact that immediately after the tsunami, there was a lot of psychological help and counselling in all the affected areas and this helped the people cope mentally.
While most people have come back to their area to live in their re-built houses, there are some who are still wary.
There are notices in some parts advertising the sale or rental of houses.
In places close to the sea, there are now four-storey escape buildings where villages can run to if there is a tsunami. Built by the Japanese, these are also earthquakeproof.
Yenny, who lives next to one of the escape buildings, says she would prefer to get on her bike and ride up to the hills and far away from the sea if there is another tsunami.
“But if there is not enough time, then I will use the escape building. After all, it is man-made so I am not confident about how strong it is,” she says.
Her friend Saedah chips in: “Surely God won’t let the same sort of disaster strike the same people again.”
Such optimism may be misplaced but at least this time the people are well prepared. They know what to look out for and what to do in the event of a tsunami.
Before Dec 26, 2004, very few here had heard of a tsunami.
There were many deaths because people were caught totally unawares and did not run when others screamed warnings that the sea was rising.
But sit down with almost any child, woman and man here now and they will tell you all about the tsunami, the signs to watch out for and the best way to save yourself.
Back in 2004, when I left Aceh after seeing the devastation and the endless number of bodies in this place which had been turned upside down, there was a chill in my heart.
Since then, Aceh has opened up and flourished.
And it has made amazing strides not only in rebuilding physically and mentally but also in forging peace between the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian government thereby ending decades of violence here.
This time, five years after the tsunami, I leave feeling at peace and truly happy and somewhat in awe of all that Aceh has achieved in such a short time.
[source: thestar online http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/12/20/focus/5339798&sec=focus]