City of dead in Aceh showing signs of life

City of dead in Aceh showing signs of life

Jerry Norton and Pipit Prahara, Reuters/Calang, Aceh

The city of the dead. That's what some called Calang on Aceh's
west coast after December's tsunami smashed nearly every building
to rubble and left more than 6,000 of its 7,300 people dead or
missing.

But nearly two months after the Dec. 26 disaster that
devastated the community 130 km (81 miles) south of Aceh'S
provincial capital, Banda Aceh, there are many signs of life on
the flat fields of red dirt where the town once stood.

At their heart is a complex of large white tents from which
the voices of children can be heard doing their lessons in the
intense late morning heat and humidity.

Running from the primary grades through high school, the
complex has 801 students, according to coordinator and English
teacher, Dina Astita.

That large number, despite the massive casualties in Calang,
reflects the fact that the hills above are now now crowded with
the makeshift huts and tents not just of its few survivors but of
refugees from around the area, many attracted by the school.

"As a teacher I'm just thinking about education," says Astita,
33, as she leans forward to speak with earnest intensity. "The
children must have education."

Wearing a red Muslim headscarf and light brown blouse and
pants, she says she lost her own three children, a younger
sister, "also my house and everything we have before" in the
tsunami. She and her husband survived because they were attending
a wedding out of town.

Since then she has thrown herself into efforts to get help for
the school, originally set up by an Indonesian Marine unit that
is the most prominent government element in the area's recovery
effort.

"Reconstruction is nothing without education," said Astita.
Officials of the various U.N. and NGO groups operating in Calang
say they know Astita, for she pleads with them and anyone who
will listen for aid in getting more teachers and supplies.

The quarters and offices of the agencies join with those of
the hundreds of Marines and the school complex to form a mosaic
of green, white and blue tents sprawled on the peninsula that was
the heart of Calang.

U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) officer Francis Kenyi says
there are more than 50 foreign workers based in Calang for the
various groups, which in turn employ hundreds of local people.

Like several of the organisations -- which aside from WFP
include UNICEF, Spain's Medicos del Mundo, the Norwegian Support
Team, and at least a half dozen others -- the WFP uses Calang as
a base for operations in the region. In the WFP's case, that
means helping feed some 18,000 people from stores warehoused in
Calang.

With roads and bridges washed away by the tsunami, many of the
goods and people in the aid operation have to be moved by either
boat or air. The dusty helicopter pad, for which an old cemetery
serves as a passenger waiting area, is alive with traffic.

The refugees whose homes cling to the hills above benefit from
the presence of the groups that provide jobs, food and medical
care. Dr. Manuel Munoz, 34, says the Medicos del Mundo clinic
where he works treats a steady stream of patients.

In T-shirt, sarong and bare feet, he says the ever-present
heat in Calang is tougher to take than even what he experienced
previously in Africa. The "conditions are the worst conditions I
have ever worked, but I'm happy" helping those in need.

Like other refugees in the hills above her former town, Laila,
33 and a mother of two, tells Reuters the medical care and
education available below and the food and supplies coming from
the groups there make camp conditions relatively good.

But she and others from Calang are in no hurry to actually
live again on the low ground where so many friends and relatives
died.

"Only if we all move back together," she says. "We feel the
trauma from the tsunami. If everyone moves back together it won't
be so bad."

REUTERS

GetRTR 3.00 -- FEB 24, 2005 09:58:26