Struggling for the basics in shelter
The Jakarta Post, Lhok Nga, Aceh
It's raining outside, and inside the tent, Ernida is frying tempeh and eggs for a very late lunch. On the other corner of the four-by-three meter tent, her husband Ridho is playing with their five-year-old daughter Khairani Maulani.
The daughter is about the only valuable possession the couple have left.
"Please join us for lunch," Ridho offered a visitor on this wet Sunday afternoon. In spite of their conditions, he remained true to the Indonesian tradition of generosity toward visitors, especially when it comes to lunch.
Welcome to Camp 85L in Lhok Nga, one of several in Lampaya district, the only village still standing in the area.
Ridho and his family are among 1,400 people now housed in this makeshift displaced persons shelter.
On Sunday Dec. 26, Ridho had been visiting relatives here in Lampaya when the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and following tsunami devastated most coastal areas of Aceh.
Their own home in Ulee Lheu near Banda Aceh had been completely wiped off the face of the earth and Ridho has become resigned to the likelihood that he had lost all his relatives there.
"I have nowhere else to go," said Ridho, adding that he believed this would be their home for the next six months.
Ernida, who is seven months pregnant, added: "I have to deliver the baby here."
Ridho is unsure what he will do next. "We are just waiting for some kind of direction from the government."
It has rained heavily every night over the past week and turned the camp into a mudbath, adding to the misery here.
"Water is still our worst enemy," says Tengku Zainun, a resident of Lampaya, who is the designated imam at the 85L Refugee Camp. "It rains every night, and most of the tents we are sleeping in simply are not water repellent."
Zainun lost his house, rice field and just about everything else, though all the members of his immediate family -- his wife, son and mother-in-law -- survived.
"We have seen some improvements over the last two weeks. We are now getting food and clean water. But with this rain, we need more tents."
Lampaya was spared the wrath of the tsunami because it is partly sheltered by a hill. Neighboring villages Lam Krut, Wuraya and Moniken were almost completely obliterated because there was nothing to stop the wall of water that rolled in that fateful morning.
In these three villages, virtually nothing is left standing. Wherever one looks, there are just mounds of rubble and debris, some of it pushed aside by bulldozers.
The remains of a cement factory owned by PT Semen Andalas Indonesia, the largest employer in the area, can be seen towards the end of the road to Lhok Nga, but the only way to get there is by a barge or boat because a key bridge was destroyed.
Assisting the people at Camp 85L are the Pompiers Sans Frontiere (Firemen Without Borders).
Jean Cartier, who heads the 10-person team, says the camp needs up to 30 more tents to be able to ensure that every family has even a rudimentary shelter above their heads.
"Hello Perancis (France in Indonesian)," some of the children shriek as they see Cartier walk by. Cartier, an old hand when it comes to emergencies and helping refugees with stints in Rwanda and Albania, greeted them back.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had earlier delivered 25 tents for the camp.
"That's about all we can do at the moment," said Mark Nyberg, a Finnish national and now spokesman for the UNHCR operation in Aceh.
"We wish we could do more, but we also have to think about the refugees on the western coast of Aceh," Nyberg said. "Over there, people still sleep in the open."
Nyberg promised that more tents would be made available by UNHCR for displaced people in Aceh. And they are good quality tents, light material but double ply to protect against the water and heat, and thus more comfortable.
Volunteers, meanwhile, still find bodies among the rubble in Lhok Nga, and vehicles belonging to the police or the National Mandate Party (PAN) can be seen doing the rounds to collect them and take them to a mass grave in Lampaya.
A procession of about 10 people walked pass Lampaya, carrying the remains of Zainal, a security officer at the cement factory, in a black plastic bag.
His older brother, Adenan, said he and his neighbors heard about the discovery of the body in the rubble of the factory. They recognized him by the name tag on his uniform.
Zainal will now be given a proper burial by his family. Thousands of bodies have been buried without being identified first.
If life seems hard for the likes of Ridho, there are others in nearby camps that are not so lucky.
Food distributed to the camps was not being divided equally between the groups within the camp, Burhanuddin Abdullah, an Acehnese man who lost his wife and child, and now works as a volunteer, told The Jakarta Post.
"Some groups are stronger than the others. They get all the food, while others are left to beg."
Even in this most difficult of times, many refugees still count their blessings. They know that things could be worse, and know that others did not survive.
"I am lucky, because I got a nice tent. I thank the French people," Ridho said.