Matriarch in Aceh sees great-great-granddaughter born
Matriarch in Aceh sees great-great-granddaughter born
Margie Mason, Associated Press/Banda Aceh
Khatijah's eyes dance as she coos and tickles her 3-month-old great-great-granddaughter.
Six months ago, baby Manda Nisrina was still in the womb and 105-year-old Khatijah was praying for God to save her family when the earth rattled and the sea stood up and chased them out of their Indonesian village.
The walls of black water swallowed more than 131,000 people in northern Sumatra that day, leaving nearly every survivor with a tale of pain and loss. But as the room around Khatijah comes alive with chattering children and grandchildren, this family is among the few who beat the odds. All five generations lived to pass their tsunami stories down.
But the family did not escape unscathed. One of Khatijah's grandsons died fighting the waves.
"This is all God's will," said Khatijah's 70-year-old daughter, Asiyah, mother of the dead Marzuki. "He can take life whenever he likes."
The matriarch, her face a spider web of lines, gestures wildly as she recalls the morning of Dec. 26 in her native Acehnese tongue. She was sitting under a coconut tree feeding the family's chickens when the magnitude 9.0 earthquake rumbled. Moments later, throngs of people sprinted past her screaming, "Water! Water!"
Khatijah couldn't see the ocean's fury, but she knew what was happening. From her childhood, she remembered witnessing the same panicked scene when the sea sucked back and threatened to unleash its power on her village. But that time, the sea calmed as quickly as it swelled, the waves went flat, and their lives were spared.
"When it happened the first time, all the villagers could see it and so we prayed and the water stopped," Khatijah said in a frail, quivering voice. "But this time, I didn't see the water, and I didn't hear the call to pray from the mosque."
Knowing she couldn't outrun the waves, Khatijah sat and waited to be rescued.
Her 75-year-old son Musa Abdullah rushed in from working at a coconut plantation soon after the earthquake and hoisted her onto a motorbike. The two sped into a chaotic crowd of cars and people running for their lives. They drove to a nearby hill, safe from the angry torrent.
"I was very scared," Khatijah recalled, wiping tears from her cloudy eyes. "When I was on the motorbike, I prayed to God. I kept praying all the way, reciting God's name."
After the water receded, bodies and wreckage from flattened houses littered the village where Khatijah grew up. She was heartbroken to learn of her grandson's death, but the coming months continued to test her strength.
The family's house had been badly damaged and flooded with mud and debris, and they were forced to move into two tents set up in their village, Lampaya, which is part of the Banda Aceh municipality. It was rough living.
"It's not good at all to sleep on the ground. Who would like to sleep on the ground?" said Khatijah, who still walks unaided after a lifetime of hardship.
Although she does not have a birth certificate, she says she has lived more than 100 years, and her family insists she's 105.
She struggles to hear and see, but she remembers Dutch soldiers occupying Aceh in the early 1900s, then the brutal Japanese occupation in World War II.
Indonesia declared independence from 300 years of colonial rule in 1945, and Achenese separatists have been fighting the central government in Jakarta since 1976.
After surviving all that, Khatijah remains tough. She stayed healthy in the refugee camp and persevered through the difficult conditions there, including having to use a crude public toilet.
During that time, baby Manda was born, on March 28, and then a month later, the family moved into a breezy, tile-floored house that belongs to one of Khatijah's granddaughters. It took four months to clean the water, filth and bodies from the rooms.
A two-meter-high water mark remains above the door frame to remind the family how lucky they are to still be together.
Even with the family's one death, comes life.
Any day now, there will be another little one to rock when her late grandson's widow, Nurlela, gives birth to Khatijah's 17th great-grandchild.
GetAP 1.00 -- JUN 25, 2005 08:54:08