Beauty queens help relief agencies

Beauty queens help relief agencies

Ian Timberlake, Agence France-Presse/Banda Aceh, Indonesia

It's not easy to look beautiful in this tsunami-leveled city, where the wind still brings the stench of dead bodies, dust fills the air and debris remains piled up beside the roads.

But that hasn't stopped three Malaysian beauty pageant queens, who are in Banda Aceh to work as volunteer translators for the international relief agencies that are helping the victims of the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami disaster.

Looking freshly scrubbed in white T-shirts emblazoned with the name of their "Soul2Soul" relief mission, and with face masks hanging from their waists, the trio showed up beside a soccer field where U.S. Navy helicopters collect relief supplies for needy communities on Aceh's west coast.

"We're the closest cousin to Indonesia in terms of language," said Pushparani Nathan, director of the project.

She accompanied Vijaya Arumugam, Miss Malaysia Indian 2004, Danutcha Catriona Chelliah, who held the crown in 2003, and Pradhiba Ramasamy, a pageant finalist.

Nathan said Soul2Soul had already shipped half a container of relief supplies to Aceh. Another container went to Sri Lanka, which also suffered heavily in the disaster.

The group arrived in Aceh on Saturday and expect to stay until Tuesday, when they are to be replaced by another group of pageant contestants.

"Coming from a country where everything is fine and well, and spending time talking to the locals, I find they are very depressed," said Arumugam, 27, whose long fingernails are painted a dark red. The commercial lawyer is on her first overseas aid mission.

Chelliah, 20, a mass communications student, said she hoped to make a video the group would use to attract more volunteers for the project.

"Our objective is to mobilize as many volunteers as possible," said Ramasamy, 27, who works in software development.

Speaking over the noise of waiting helicopters, she said they hoped to send the volunteers on a five-month project involving more than just translation services.

"We're looking forward to finding out more what we can do," Ramasamy said, citing the great need among survivors. "They need more help."

In the meantime, the U.S. Navy sounded optimistic it could use the beauty contestants' help.

"When translators show up, we use 'em," said Lt. Com.John Bernard. "I turned them over to the ops guys and said, 'If you need 'em, they're here'."