Part 1 of 2: Survivors take brave, first step toward new life

Part 1 of 2: Survivors take brave, first step toward new life

Upon the invitation of the International
Migrants (IOM), The Jakarta Post's Chisato Hara
days observing developments in the tsunami-
devastated province, including the hand over of
shelters to displaced people in Tingkeum, Banda
Aceh. The following article is one of two parts.

Tasya is six months old, perhaps a little underdeveloped for her
age, but bright-eyed and quick to smile -- even at strangers.

"She is a good baby. She was about two months old when the
tsunami came," said her grandmother, Zabaidah. "A week before,
she started crying non-stop ... We took her to the doctor, but
nothing was wrong with her. A couple of days before the tsunami,
she suddenly stopped crying. Then the tsunami came. She knew --
the baby knew."

Tasya's brother, Athafayyath, is three and a half and just as
welcoming, introducing toy after toy -- all donations: "This is a
lion. This is a boat." From somewhere, he gets a bucket, fills it
with murky water and releases the wind-up boat with a single
passenger in it -- a ping-pong ball.

Who is the ping-pong ball? "Fayyath," he grinned.

Inside their hut made of salvaged wooden panels, their 28-
year-old mother, Zuhrasafita -- Ira for short -- is cooking
breakfast. "Please have some. It's just fried fish in chili
sauce -- Acehnese food. I thought maybe you haven't had any
breakfast, you were out here so early."

The rice steaming in a dented pot is food aid; the fish and
spices were bought with money her husband, Muammar Ma'ruf, 37,
who has electricity, construction and wood-working skills, had
earned from the odd jobs he goes out to find every day.

Ira's family is just one of nine camping on the outskirts of
Tingkeum village in Daruimalah, Aceh Besar regency, waiting to
move into the first mobile shelters provided by the International
Organization for Migration (IOM) under its Transitional Shelter
Project. In Tingkeum, 107 families left homeless by the tsunami
of Dec. 26 will be given new homes.

The nine families comprise 75 internally displaced people
(IDPs) and represent four villages -- Lamno, Lamlumpu, Pungai
Blangcut and Lagun, all coastal villages decimated in the
disaster and have either a direct or indirect familial connection
with Tingkeum village, which has a population of about 100.

The villagers are active participants in the project, and not
only have they agreed to host the IDP families, but they have
also willingly welcomed the families into their community. This
acceptance and willingness of the host community is a key
criterion of the project.

Pak Ajis, a Tingkeum villager, is housing five relatives from
Uleulhe on the northern coast. "Some have lost wives, others
husbands, still others have been orphaned. Many (here) arrived
four or five days after the tsunami, some immediately afterward,
and the (emergency) tents didn't arrive until about nine days
after (the tsunami). Before that, the villagers gathered together
plastic tarps and helped them settle onto an open plot. We're
happy to be able to help. We're happy to have them here. They are
family."

Ira's brother, Eddy Saputra, formerly a construction worker,
phrases the same sentiment differently: "Kami saudara tsunami (We
are 'tsunami family')."

The shelters belong to the IDP families, and the units are now
configured into two three-meter-by-four-meter rooms and a living
area; they can also be disassembled, moved to a different site
and reconfigured into single-room units. The units are wired for
electricity and have private toilet/bathing facilities, as well
as space for a kitchen.

"We don't know what these families will decide to do over the
next two years -- they might stay, they might try to get back to
their original villages -- so the shelters were designed to be
flexible (mobile)," said IOM shelter project manager Graeme
Rapley. They are also earthquake-proof, as was tested and proven
during a recent 6.7-magnitude tremor.

The land for the settlement in Tingkeum was donated to the
project through the local Ministry of Public Works office by
villager Umardani, and by agreement, the IDP families may live
there for at least the next two years. Any further extension of
their stay is to be decided in discussion with the local
government and the village community.

The morning of moving day, the camp is not bustling with
preparatory activities; instead, its residents are going about at
a routine-like pace, mending fishing nets, cooking breakfast and
bathing, and the children are playing in the narrow "alleys"
between tents. Visiting from tent to tent, each family offers a
warm welcome, opening their homes, introducing themselves. They
answer sensitive questions graciously, and the overall sense is
that they want to tell their tales.

Pak Yatim is an elderly gentleman, formerly a fisherman of
Lagun, Aceh Jaya, like many of the men in the camp. Asked about
the move, his slow smile widens into a broad grin that crinkles
the sun-wizened features of his face.

"About 10 people live in this tent, including a few babes, my
younger sister and brother, my wife. We will be happy to have a
proper home again."

Inside the tent -- assembled from blue plastic tarp and canvas
sheets stamped with UNHCR and UNICEF logos over a slim wooden
frame -- is a ramshackle of cartons stuffed with secondhand
clothing and toys, and sleeping mats with bedsheets of varying
designs lie directly on the bare earth. One corner holds a gas
burner propped on a wooden crate and a small assortment of
beaten-up pots and pans. The tent is stuffy, and it is easy to
imagine how it would heat up during the day or from cooking, and
how the chill would creep in during the night.

Yatim's wife suddenly pops her head from around a flap and
pipes up, her eyes darting here and there, yet intensely focused
at the same time: "What about doctors? What about formula milk
for the baby? We have one here who lost his entire family. And
food? Water? If there's a well (at the shelters), how many are
there? If it's only one, how will it provide for more than 100
people? Will the new house have a kitchen? Or space for a
kitchen? And beds? Will we have beds? The little ones catch a
chill from sleeping directly on the ground. Will we have a roof?
The tents leak when it rains." And she is off before she can give
her name, fussing through a pile of clothing.

"My wife is a little worried about moving," her husband said
apologetically.

And it is no wonder. These and thousands of other families who
survived the tsunami -- regency head Zainin Aziz estimates up to
94,000 IDPs in Aceh Besar alone -- have had to face so many
drastic changes in their lives, the least of which was losing
everything they ever owned. The "black water", as they call the
tsunami, swept away life as they knew it. Many then journeyed
days on foot to reach safety, carrying only what they wore and
traveling with whatever family they could locate, in some cases
taking in orphans on the way.

Suwardi, a fisherman and construction worker in his 30s, lived
100 meters from the sea in Lagun. He grabbed his family -- a wife
and two children -- when the sea rose, but lost everyone. He
shares his tent with his sister-in-law, Nur Akmal, her two
children -- one an infant -- and a cousin's orphaned child.

Cut Ayah is a fisherman from Pungai Blangcut -- he spells it
outand was carried three kilometers inland by the water "into the
hills". He grabbed his wife Rostiawati, five months pregnant at
the time, and his 12-year-old son Tuku Rafdi and ran. His daugher
Defi Rosita, 21, was away at university and so lived. His wife
was lost in the waves, and Rafdi was torn from his grasp -- but
got caught in a tree and survived.

"Several people found (Rafdi) and kept him safe. I reached him
a few days later ... he wouldn't move. He just sat and kept
waiting for his mother to come for him," said Cut Ayah, who
speaks mostly with his eyes closed, especially at points that
touch on his late wife and unborn child.

Both father and son sustained gashes on their legs from being
"rolled by the black water" -- the wounds have healed, treated by
emergency medical workers, but Cut Ayah has difficulty bending
his right leg. They live with Ferdi Setiawan, 10, the son of
Rostiawati's younger sister Desi Marlini, who was also lost, and
Ferdi's father Muhammad Ali. Like the boxer? "Yes," smiled Cut
Ayah. "Like the boxer."

Rafdi is sitting nearby on a coconut tree log with his cousin,
smiling shyly, and gets up to show the discolored scars that zig-
zag up both legs.

Ira's father, Pak Sumino, 65, is originally from Madiun,
Central Java, and stowed away on a ship from Tanjung Priok,
Jakarta, when he was 17, following his Coast Guard brother to
Aceh. He also lived in Pungai Blangcut, and while he, wife
Zabaidah, Ira, her children and son Eddy survived, he lost his
four other children in Uleulhe, and the whereabouts of two
grandchildren are unknown; he presumes them to be lost.

More than three months since the tsunami, the memories are
still fresh and survival is foremost in his mind: "If we're given
food, we eat; if we're told we can move, we move." He pauses.
"But now we can laugh. Before, we couldn't think, couldn't chat
or joke amongst ourselves."

Asked how he feels about moving, he replied, "Alhamdulillah
aja (It's God's will, is all)."

Ira worked as a secretary at an economics university in her
life before the tsunami, and speaks a little English -- of which
she is teaching Fayyath the basics. The university, she said, "is
no more. It's completely gone."

"We appreciate everything that has been provided for us, these
clothes I'm wearing, rice, shelter ... but what concerns us is
the future ... sending our children to school, having work to
support ourselves."

As a large IOM truck arrives at the camp to transport the
families' belongings, she excuses herself to take a bath and get
ready to move into her new home.

Shelter specs

Design Bandung Institute of Technology

Construction 86 customized concrete panels, wooden wall panels,

corrugated metal alloy roof, cement floor tiles,

wooden doors with locks, latched windows,

nuts-and-bolts assembly

Area 36 sqm/two 3x4 m rooms, living area,

kitchen space, private toilet/bathing area
Weight appx. 2.5 tons

Facilities septic system, well

Amenities wired for electricity, piped for running water

Feature earthquake-proof

Ownership displaced family residents

Source: IOM