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