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Tsunami-battered Aceh Province searches for security, hope

Dec. 19, 2005	 News media contact:   Linda  Bloom * (646) 3693759*
New York {707}

NOTE: Photographs and related stories are available at
http://umns.umc.org <http://umns.umc.org/> .

By Chris Herlinge

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (UMNS) - It is difficult for an outsider visiting
Banda Aceh not to be drawn to the ocean.

Not to swim. Nor to fish. But merely to look and marvel at the ocean's
destructive power.

On Banda Aceh's coastline, neighborhoods like Kampung Mulia and Lampaseh
Kota took the full brunt of last December's tsunami. The surviving
residents, most still living in tents and awaiting completed housing,
still struggle with memories of an accursed day.

They include Afifuddin, 26, an information technology graduate who acts
as a community representative for Lampaseh Kota. The once-vibrant
neighborhood, now laid waste, is recovering from an almost indescribable
loss of life: from a population of 5,000, the urban village now has
about 1,000 residents.

Afifuddin lost a grandmother, nephews, nieces, a brother and a sister
Dec. 26. He speaks of memories of that day - of panic, confusion,
pandemonium - quietly, almost dispassionately. He is focused on the
future and not the past, but that is not always easy: many around him
are still traumatized, he said.

Church World Service provided basic relief items to his neighborhood -
CWS "Gift of the Heart" Health Kits, tents, mattresses - and those have
proven valuable in what has been a difficult year.

Last spring, the United Methodist Committee on Relief allocated $1.5
million to help fund recovery projects in Indonesia with Church World
Service, a longtime partner, and contributed $1.5 million to the appeal
of Action by Churches Together for Indonesia. Church World Service is
the lead implementing organization for that appeal.

Not far from Lampaseh Kota stands another urban village, Kampung Mulia -
"noble village" in Indonesian - and also a recipient of CWS assistance.

It is home to Marzuki Arsyad, a one-time pedicab driver and part-time
fisherman. Arsyad's immediate family fared better than many in his
neighborhood. His wife, a physics teacher, works in another city and was
not in Banda Aceh the day the tsunami hit. But he still lost brothers,
sisters and other family - 13 in all.

The memories of the day refuse to lay dormant. "We were like people
losing our minds. We saw these bodies - women, children, older people -
all around us, and we couldn't do anything."

Small steps

Staying determined and busy has helped ease a bit of the trauma. Like
Afifuddin, Arsyad  is focused on the future and believes Aceh's full
recovery depends on developing the region's economic base.

Education and easing trauma also have key roles, as Siti Mariam Nuzuriah
quietly but determinedly believes. Nuzuriah is a Church World Service
program officer who helps coordinate a trauma program for children in
Krueng Kala village, southwest of Banda Aceh, the site of a resettlement
program for internally displaced persons affected by the tsunami.

The program has noticeably helped the children, Nuzuriah said. Once
afraid of noises that suggested the roar of the tsunami - even the
sounds of helicopters sent the children cowering in fear - the young
people are now engaged, funny, and "not afraid to express their
emotions."

Those are small steps, to be sure, in what remains a long process of
recovery. Much housing has yet to be built, and Church World Service and
its partners are actively involved in that work. Aceh itself is
recovering from a double crisis caused not only by the tsunami but by a
30-year civil conflict that only recently ended.

The tsunami and recovery efforts are believed to have caused the
Indonesian government and rebels of the Free Aceh Movement to recognize
the need to end a war that, prior to this year, showed no signs of
abating.

That is why, as recovery efforts continue and the anniversary of the
Dec. 26 tsunami approaches, the word "security" has particular poignancy
in Aceh.

"This is not just about building homes," said CWS staffer Ejodia
Kakunsi, "but building for the future."

*Herlinger is information officer for the Church World Service Emergency
Response Program. He visited Aceh Province in November.

News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or
newsdesk@umcom.org.

********************

United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org <http://umns.umc.org/>

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