Life slowly returns to Banda Aceh

Life slowly returns to Banda Aceh

Harry Bhaskara, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh

The following articles are based on a three-day
visit by Harry Bhaskara of The Jakarta Post to Aceh
on June 7. The visit was sponsored by the Melbourne-
based Asia Pacific Journalism Center and was made
together with eight Australian journalists.

Banda Aceh seems to have a second soul: The commercial part of
the city is bustling with life.

Except for a few shattered buildings, few traces remain of the
catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that struck six months ago.

"This is exactly what it was like before the tsunami," says
Udin, a civil servant in Banda Aceh.

Most restaurants, shops and offices have been reopened.
Children in school uniforms walk along the streets. The
ubiquitous motorized becak (pedicabs) are back in service.
Youngsters play soccer in muddy fields.

The evening cafes along Jl. Machmudsyah, catering to a young
clientele, have been reopened. Teenagers park their motorbikes on
side streets and sip coffee and soft drinks as darkness falls.

"It says in the Koran that a huge amount of water is poured
into the land," says Bachtiar, a 53-year-old civil servant in
Banda Aceh. "We have to accept the tsunami as something that was
sent by God. It is not right to vent our anger at God."

He said this awareness came slowly following what seemed to be
an endless feeling of sadness.

Juwai of Deah Baru village said Acehnese were used to gales
and storms, but the tsunami was something they could not escape.

"We should accept our fate; it is God's will that we have to
go through this suffering," he said.

The smoothly flowing traffic in Banda Aceh is a far cry from
the scene of destruction immediately after the Dec. 26 tsunami,
when it took more than two hours to travel just one kilometer.

"I will never forget the scenes of utter destruction I saw
when I arrived here," says Enayet Madani, a UN government liaison
officer in Banda Aceh who was out of the capital when the tsunami
struck.

"The streets were full of bodies, debris and mud. Nobody did
anything about it because people were frantically looking for
their loved ones," he says.

But the havoc brought about by the tsunami is much more
pronounced in those parts of the city within three kilometers of
the coast. Shattered buildings lie in ruins, testament to the
earthquake measuring 9.8 on the Richter scale that preceded the
tsunami. More than 129,000 people died in the earthquake and
tsunami and a further 90,000 are unaccounted for. The apocalyptic
scale of the disaster is most visible in coastal areas like Lhok
Nga and Baet village.

These are places of total destruction.

The tsunami may have occurred six months ago, but its impact
is still felt.

"I only found out today that one of my cousins died in the
tsunami," said Nina Darmawan who was living in Medan at the time
of the tsunami but has since moved to Banda Aceh. "I have been
searching for her for six months and I met a friend today who
told me that she had already died."

She said her sister, who lives in a coastal area of Banda
Aceh, heard two huge explosions just before the earthquake on
Dec. 26. "The explosion seemed to originate from the bottom of
the sea," she said, quoting her sister.

People also wonder whether the parties held on Dec. 25 to
celebrate the upcoming New Year helped invoke God's anger.

"Last year's parties were exceptionally raucous. People were
partying through the night until the early morning on beaches in
Banda Aceh," said Udin.