'We never know when our time is up'<\/p>\n
Ruslan Sangadji, Banda Aceh, Aceh<\/p>\n
Usually addressed as Ibu Ina, Inayah Sa'adudin, the wife of the
\nformer North Aceh regent, has her own story about coping with the
\nearthquake and the tsunami that recently hit Aceh.<\/p>\n
It is about how she saved herself, but also about how, driving
\nthe truck herself, she carried away dead bodies found around her
\nhouse.<\/p>\n
Ibu Ina, the mother of Nailini Tarmidzi 17, Raburrayan 15, M.
\nFakhri 12 and M. Haikal 8, told The Jakarta Post that on Dec. 26
\nshe and her entire family had fled for safety to Dayah Tgk Chie'
\nOmar Diyan Islamic Boarding School in Krueng Lam Kareung.
\nIndrapuri, Banda Aceh.<\/p>\n
Accompanied by her husband, she returned a few days later to
\ntheir house on Jl. Todak in Lampriet, Banda Aceh, the capital of
\nAceh, which is also known as the Veranda of Mecca.<\/p>\n
About 50 meters from her house, she was surprised to find
\nbuilding debris as virtually all the houses in her neighborhood
\nhad been destroyed. Surprise, however, soon turned to shock, then
\nhorror, when she saw a great number of blackened dead bodies
\nlying scattered along the road leading to their house.<\/p>\n
Unable to do much about this, she could only put her trust in
\nGod and try her best not to cry. Other residents were busy
\nlooking for family members and relatives among the scattered
\ncorpses.<\/p>\n
It was her husband who suggested they should carry away the
\ndead bodies and bury them, and Inayah set about procuring a truck
\nwith which to transport the corpses.<\/p>\n
Finally, she located a truck that belonged to one of her
\nbrothers-in-law. She drove the truck to her house, and without
\nfear or any feeling of repugnance, loaded the dead bodies into
\nthe truck and took them to Lambaro, now a mass burial site.<\/p>\n
\"I drove the truck myself to Lambaro and my husband followed
\non his motorbike,\" she said, the memory that many of the dead
\nbodies were those of children bringing tears to her eyes.<\/p>\n
After driving the corpses to Lambaro, she left the truck there
\nas it was out of fuel. Together with her husband, she returned
\nhome. When they arrived, they found their house still standing.
\nNot even a single dead body or a piece of wood was found in the
\nyard.<\/p>\n
Even the chairs on the terrace were in their usual position.
\nOf course mud covered the floor of the house but nothing inside
\nthe house was broken. Inayah could not explain why this was so.
\nShe only said that every day she sat on the chair, reading the
\nKoran. Even after the earthquake hit the area, she sat on the
\nchair, reciting Asmaul Husna (a passage from the Koran).<\/p>\n
Early in the morning before the disaster, Inayah said she had
\na bad omen about Banda Aceh, her birthplace. That is why she
\ndecided not to go out that Sunday.<\/p>\n
However, her third child, M. Fakhri, asked her to take him to
\nthe soccer field and she complied. She and Fakhri later went to
\nthe house of one of Fakhri's classmates. They were going to play
\nfootball together.<\/p>\n
While they were on the way, there was an earthquake. The car
\nshe was driving rocked. She stopped the car and, arms tightly
\nwrapped around Fakhri and his friend, she left the car. The three
\nof them sat on the road. When the earthquake was over, she
\ndecided to return home. Back home, she found her husband and
\ntheir three children were reciting Asmaul Husna.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, it was very noisy outside. People rushed out and
\nshouted wildly: \"Water! ... water! ... water!... . Inayah and her
\nfamily decided to move to an Islamic boarding school in Indrapuri
\nfor safety.<\/p>\n
They had driven but a few meters when someone stopped the car
\nand asked them to help his old mother because the old women could
\nno longer walk. They took her into the car. To their
\nastonishment, ten other people got into the car as well.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, seawater had covered part of Banda Aceh. The water
\nwas as high as the car's wheels. Driving through a knee-deep
\nflood, they finally arrived at the Islamic boarding school.
\n\"Thank God, we are all safe,\" she said upon arriving there.<\/p>\n
A day before the tsunami struck, she had a feeling that
\nsomething bad would occur. With her husband, she addressed at
\nleast 800 students of Syiah Kuala University, Banda Aceh, in a
\nprogram about Emotional Spiritual Quotient (ESQ). They were
\ngiving the students something to contemplate.<\/p>\n
She said: \"We never know when God will take us. We will never
\nknow whether we can still see tomorrow.\" She remembers uttering
\nthose two sentences but does not know whom of the participating
\nstudents was spared.<\/p>\n
Now she can only hope that this major natural calamity was the
\nlast to happen in her birthplace. She also hopes that this
\ndisaster can arouse in the community a desire to jointly rebuild
\nAceh.<\/p>\n
\"Nobody can rebuild Aceh but the Acehnese themselves. That's
\nwhy we must always foster our togetherness and discard
\ndifferences,\" she said.<\/p>",
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