Townspeople still jittery over quakes

Ati Nurbaiti, The Jakarta Post, Meulaboh

The wind is blowing in a strange way. Look at the water -- it's quivering. And the clouds are of a strange shape and color. And did you feel a quake just now?

Such are the snatches of conversation in various parts of the town. It seems what is needed is both an early warning system -- instead of separate analyses by each and every jittery person -- and also a crash course in trauma healing for all parties working with the young and old here, and those assisting authorities. The trouble is -- you need all that at the same time and preferably right now.

With all the regional and international conferences on early warning systems and various organizations involving psychologists, psychiatrists, consultants and scientologists, meeting that challenge may not be impossible. In any case it's evidently urgent.

As townspeople in this town on Aceh's west coast continue to try to rebuild their lives, like other Acehnese and those in North Sumatra they scrambled to save their skin and loved ones all over again at the time of the Nias quake on March 28.

Experts predict other quakes along Sumatra, with no guarantee that people need not fear a tsunami until the next 500 years or so.

In a community health center downtown, a translator for the French medics says they are seeing half the number of usual patients. One work day saw a truckload of villagers eager to meet the new, foreign doctors while on Thursday there were only about 50. She says locals were mindful of earthquakes predicted on Apr. 4 to Apr. 7, but no major tremor was felt.

Healing and helping entire communities and their different members after a rare event of entire towns and villages wiped out, amid the probability that it may happen again, is a field that few are familiar with, and many are just doing what they can. Many parties who have been working with the locals here since the tsunami are either trying to fill in the gaps, like teaching, or creating initiatives.

The French medics working at the local community health center, for instance, spread out sheets of drawing paper and colored pens, so youngsters can draw while waiting with their parents. Their work is then displayed on the outside wall of the building, the sketches bright and pretty. But even until a few weeks ago, one of the doctors, Sibylle Bevilacqua, said a little girl asked for a black pen, as she needed to draw the dark, giant waves that ate up the whole town.

And the most complaints reported to the health center? Headaches, gastric problems, apart from skin problems, and also hypertension, says Bevilacqua, who with the rest of her team signed up with the Red Cross in their country.

"Surprisingly," she adds, "people here will acknowledge that they have post-tsunami syndrome." And with that she can advise patients to first consult a psychologist before administering any drugs.

Like her, her colleagues have been in tragedy-hit countries before -- whether it's war, famine or a hurricane. There is something in common -- the contrite features, "the sadness"," says pediatrician Sylvie Cavare-Viqneron, who has worked among others in the former Yugoslavian states.

Perhaps the openness to acknowledge the need for mental help is thanks to the earlier teams of medics and psychologists, among others from the Medecins Sans Frontiers, who are among the hundreds of organizations assisting survivors.

With the young, things are more complicated. They just go gaily about their play or studies like the broadcasters at the Radio Matahari, a new radio station.

This is another notable initiative, involving teenagers who live in the Muhammadiyah orphanage here. It began with the Jakarta-based Radio 68H, whose director Santoso aimed to fill in the information gap through a community radio. The leaders of the Muhammadiyah organization here appointed the orphanage to run the station, as a measure to help them learn to be self-sufficient and also to help overcome trauma.

Meanwhile, the volunteers among the teachers who have been working here since December, are still trying to figure out whether it is the tsunami contributing to slow students' response, or whether it is the result of education in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, for years a conflict zone.

"There doesn't seem to be a drive here," says Poppy Mutia from West Java. "I've taught really bad schools in Bandung and this is worse, as if there's no need for competition, for achievement."

The volunteers have been here since January and are committed until July. Unlike a number of male colleagues they have stuck through thick and thin in the sticky heat, even if the orphanage where they are staying is still under renovation with dust flying around their mattresses and cooking utensils.

"This is the consequence of our choice," says a cheerful teacher of English, Wiwit Barokah. What they need most is for children to stay in class, and not have their parents coming to pick them up each time there's a rumor of a quake or the tide rising.

"Just imagine," says Ana Basirah, another volunteer from Yogyakarta who teaches math. "One child points to a dark cloud and everyone's shouting 'It's doomsday!' and the entire class pick up their bags and rush out. Doomsday indeed!"