Aceh tsunami refugees moved to new 'homes'

Nani Afrida, The Jakarta Post, Jantho

Truckloads of displaced persons moved from their tents to their new "homes" on Tuesday. However, these homes were also tents, and the sun beat down even more fiercely here in the hills than down in Banda Aceh.

There is nothing here on these hills but row after row of tents. The main difference is that after three months of often forced civility between strangers living together in the same tent, there is now some privacy.

There are new tents for each family and for hundreds more expected to arrive in the coming weeks in Jantho, the capital of Aceh Besar, which lies some 50 kilometers to the southeast of Banda Aceh.

The town was virtually deserted until recently because of the armed conflict between the Indonesian Military and the Free Aceh Movement, and development has been slow to reach the area.

Local authorities, however, said this was the most convenient site to house tsunami survivors.

It has electricity and running water, though on Tuesday the water was not yet running, to the exasperation of the women trying to cook lunch.

Almost 400 people willingly moved to this new site, taking up an offer from the Taiwan-based Tzu Chi Buddhist Foundation, which has members in 39 countries.

More families living on the grounds of the TVRI building in Banda Aceh are waiting their turn to move into the tents. There are some doubts about the move, because most of the displaced persons come from Banda Aceh or fishing communities along the devastated coast.

Zainal Abidin, 34, was among those who made the move on Tuesday. He was a construction worker before the tsunami and finally decided to leave the communal tents, along with his wife and three children.

"If I stayed I would not be able to work and I am just tired of this," he said. "I have no land, no house; moving to Jantho is better."

Aisyah said now that she was in Jantho she planned to start up a small business selling cigarettes. She owned three shops before the tsunami.

"There will be lots of refugees selling cigarettes," she said, adding that it would be fairly easy to start a new life because her children were still young.

The field coordinator from Tzu Chi, Budi Wijaya, said 92 families signed up to move to the new tents. They were mostly families who lost everything in the tsunami, such as construction workers, landless farmers and fishermen.

Budi said the displaced persons would remain in Jantho for a year, after which the foundation plans to build 3,000 houses in Banda Aceh, although he said everything depended on the final master plan.

The concept of the assistance, he said, is to help the displaced persons "but prevent them from being dependent".

Basic needs such as rice will be provided for, he said, but residents will, at least for now, be left on their own to work out issues such as their children's schooling and jobs.

He said providing each family a temporary home was an important first step.

So, what will the families do in such an isolated location?

"I am still waiting for a (promised) pedicab," said Muksin, a new resident here. "I can be a pedicab driver here."

Muhammad, 45, said he and several others would continue to work in Banda Aceh, where he works as a cleaner for Rp 40,000 (US$4.44) a day. "We rent a truck together to take us back and forth between Banda Aceh," he said.

Tzu Chi, which also hopes to build several thousand homes in Meulaboh, the ruined capital of West Aceh, has helped to ensure electricity and running water for the 1,800 tents, Budi said.

Thanks to the tsunami victims, this deserted capital of Aceh Besar is starting to come alive.