Survivors defiant through graffiti
Survivors defiant through graffiti
Dan Eaton, Reuters/Banda Aceh
After all that was lost, the writing on the wall is a simple,
defiant statement.
"The owner of this house lived. Tsunami Dec. 26, 2004," say
the words scrawled across one of the few structures left standing
in the waterfront area of Banda Aceh on the northwestern tip of
Indonesia.
All around this city of some 300,000 people, where tens of
thousands perished in just a few devastating minutes that Sunday
morning, survivors have recorded their hopes and fears in
graffiti.
Almost everywhere in the hardest hit areas, scratched onto
walls or daubed on doors and the broken hulls of boats is the
date the sea came in.
On the same waterfront wall, another survivor announces what
the future holds: "Remember, all of us must die."
More than seven weeks after the huge earthquake-triggered
waves crashed into the capital of Aceh province, unleashing
destruction of biblical proportions, the former residential area
of Ulee Lheue has become something of a tourist attraction.
Cars and motorbikes carrying Indonesian sightseers clog the road.
There is also a steady stream of expensive four-wheel drive
vehicles bearing the myriad logos of foreign aid agencies.
Amid the twisted debris, vendors have set up stalls selling
everything from drinks and cigarettes to macabre compilations of
home video footage of the tsunami as it crashed ashore.
"I needed to see it with my own eyes," said Zainal, a 25-year-
old office worker, squinting in the bright sunshine.
"Why us? Why did this happen? I don't know, but it's what we
are all asking," he said.
In Lhok Nga, a flattened beachfront community a 20-minute
drive south of the provincial capital of Indonesia's most devout
Muslim province, the graffiti has a religious flavour.
"Oh God, we repent," reads one scrawl on a free-standing
concrete wall.
"Help save us from disaster, Oh God," reads another.
"You're not repenting. Just wait for the next disaster."
Hundreds of thousands of survivors now live in makeshift
refugee camps or with relatives, their homes and livelihoods
gone. Others are being moved into hastily built wooden barracks
erected by the government, where relief workers speculate they
could remain for months and even years.
Officials and medical experts speak of widespread trauma and
the importance of counselling. They say survivors of disasters
can sometimes feel a sense of guilt at being alive when others
died, or a sense of responsibility for what happened.
At tent schools and in dilapidated classrooms, children are
encouraged to exorcise their fears by drawing pictures of what
happened to them.
"Art is definitely an expressive and non-confrontational way
for children to show their feelings," said Shantha Bloeman of the
United Nations Children's Fund.
"There is still a hesitancy from parents to discuss issues
around the tsunami ... Many are going through their own forms of
grief."
Although the United Nations is involved in recruiting and
training counsellors, little has yet been done for the adults.
"The therapy for post traumatic stress disorder is to express
their feelings, their cognition," said Peony Suprianto, a
psychiatrist at the Kesehatan Daerah Militer hospital in Banda
Aceh.
"One way to express it is graffiti, or to talk on the radio
and television shows."
But fear, even sparked by ordinary water, remains.
"I hear from my colleagues in the camps that many survivors
have post traumatic stress disorder. Even little children, two
years old, three years old, if they see drinking water, bottled
water, they cry and cling to their mothers," he said.
REUTERS
GetRTR 3.00 -- FEB 16, 2005 08:37:09