'Azyyati helps cheer up children

Ruslan Sangadji, Contributor, Banda Aceh

Her face cannot hide her fatigue.

She has even started to lose her voice. And yet she looked happy in front of dozens of children who surrounded her last weekend.

With two dolls in her hands, `Azyyati Himidah told various stories to a group of 50 children at Ujong Batee refugee camp in Banda Aceh; they responded with cheers, claps and even laughter.

A third-year student at SMU Negeri 3 high school at Banda Aceh, `Azyyati admitted that she was so depressed and traumatized by the disasters created by the tsunami.

Like many other people in Aceh, she also lost many of her relatives. Yet, she felt lucky that her parents and brothers survived the disaster. Now, what made her really sad was that she was with children orphaned by the tsunami.

"I told myself that I may not stay sad any longer. There are many new orphans who need more help. Therefore, I decided to play with them to cheer them up," `said Azyyati, or Zya as her friends call her.

Subsequently, she became a volunteer to help and accompany children in a number of refugee camps. Sometimes, she would just sing together with them. On other occasions, she would just tell stories.

Often she said she could not stand the situation and cried at the sight of so many children left orphaned and living in squalid refugee camps, with temporary tents erected on grassy ground that were easily saturated whenever it rained.

"These children should be in school or in playgrounds together with their parents, not here in this camp as orphans," she said.

Aid workers would often come to refugee camps and distribute food, but that would not be enough for the children, she said.

"Just thinking about it, I became so stressed. Luckily, I met Kak Seto and Kak Rachma who restored my confidence to help these children," said Zya, referring to children's activist Seto Mulyadi, who is also chairman of the National Commission for the Protection of Children, and Rachma Fitriati, program officer of the commission.

She joined Seto Mulyadi and his team of volunteers on Jan. 2, touring various refugee camps to play, sing and dance with children there.

That Saturday, `Azyyati looked confident when leading the children to sing, dance and tell stories.

The confidence, she acknowledged, came after joining Seto's team. This confidence could also be a product of her rich past experience in a variety of bodies such as the Indonesian Islamic Students Organization (PII). Also, she was once chosen to represent Banda Aceh at the National Congress of Children in Jakarta.

On the day when the tsunami attacked Aceh -- Dec. 26 -- Zya and her friends were holding a PII training session in Bireun. After dawn prayers, Zya chose to sleep again, only to be awoken by her friends. "Wake up and go out... go out... there's been an earthquake."

She woke up, and stood ready to run but she fell to the ground instead. After the quake stopped, Zya and her friends decided not to enter the building and stayed outside. They did not realize that the huge earthquake would be followed by a massive tsunami.

After a few hours standing outside the building, they decided to return to Banda Aceh only to find the town devastated by the waves, with dead bodies littering practically every corner of the city.

"My friends and I helped a number of people who got lost because of the tsunami. We even shared our food we had taken from the training camp with them," Zya said.

Arriving at her home in Neusu, she found everyone in the house safe and healthy. Her house and other houses in the area had been spared by the tsunami, with only a little water entering their homes. "Thank God, they are all fine. But my father said many of our relatives at Lambada village were no more."

Although close members of her family were safe, she was still dumbfounded and saddened by the destruction and death toll created by the tsunami.

She was especially saddened by the fact that so many children were left orphaned by the death of their mother or father or both. That was why she decided to become a volunteer for children, to help them out through play, story-telling or just being with them.

"I can't stay silent in the midst of this situation. Otherwise, I'm afraid, we will lose an entire generation of children," she said.