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The Boat That Landed On A House

Today was officially my last day in Banda Aceh, and my last day with the IRC. I was so busy, that I (almost) didn't have time to dwell on the fact that it's all over. I was still making last-minute edits on my project, and that kind of kept my mind off of the fact that I'll soon be gone.

Martin, Lisa and I went and ran some errands over lunch. I had a list of things that I needed to get done on my last day here. We did a little bit of shopping, and then headed out to the last thing on my list: to see the boat that landed on a house.

Kate and Ivana had told me about the boat before, but I have been so busy I haven't had a chance to go see it. As it turns out, it's down near where we boarded the boat last Saturday for the bike trip of death and destruction. But neither Martin, nor Lisa, who have both been here for about two years, had seen the boat so they didn't know where it was. Luckily, our driver Mimi was in the know and he took us there.

Although I had heard about it, I really wasn't prepared for what I saw. I thought maybe it would be a small boat, but it was a pretty large wooden boat. Check out the pictures. This boat is right smack-dab in the middle of a neighborhood of houses. The boat came in on the tsunami wave and landed on this house.

Apparently, the owner of the boat and the owner of the house got in a dispute after the tsunami about who owned what, and the government stepped in and bought both the boat and the house. Apparently the plan is to make it into some memorial, but right now it's not really being cared for too much.

As we were walking around inside, an older woman started speaking to me in Indonesian. Martin and Lisa came over and spoke to her, and she told them that she lived in the house next door and was there during the tsunami. They ran up to the second floor of their home, and they weren't able to stand -- they were swimming in the room. That's the house that is right next to the boat.

She went away after the tsunami but had just recently returned. She said that she is afraid that the boat is going to fall on her house. The government isn't doing anything to keep the boat and the house maintained. She's worried about what is going to happen next.

It was pretty crazy, the whole thing. I'm glad that I went, but it did bring up an interesting topic of discussion for me, Lisa, and Martin. They were here immediately after the disaster, and neither of them took pictures for almost a year into their time here. They said that it just didn't feel right. The way they explained Banda Aceh, it was just so completely different than what it is now. I mean, basically everything was completely flattened, and there was total chaos.

I understand what they're saying and I've felt the same way before -- to take pictures is disrespectful in some situations. Whenever I walk by Ground Zero, I always feel kind of uncomfortable to see people taking pictures but at the same time, it's different for everyone and it's based on personal experience. In this case, I felt okay about it but I guess the point is to go with your gut.

Ibu Sam

When I moved from House #3 to House #4, I not only gained two new friends in Ivana and Kate but a new relationship with our house cleaner, Ibu Sam. "Ibu" is the equivalent of "Mrs." and is a way of showing respect to someone.

It was an interesting relationship, that’s for sure. The thing that always made me slightly uncomfortable from a humanistic point of view is that Ibu knew so much about me, yet I knew nothing about her. The woman knew the most intimate details of my life – she cleans my underwear! – but I really didn’t know anything at all about even the most general details of hers. Because I can’t speak Indonesian and she doesn’t speak English, all I really knew was her name.

Well, I guess that I knew a little bit more about her than her name. I know that she very enthusiastically -- and loudly -- opens up all of the curtains every morning to let the sun in. She starts her day in the morning here by very enthusiastically -- and loudly -- sweeping outside our house. She seems to take a very enthusiastic -- and loud --approach to her job. I kind of love anyone who does everything with such gusto. 

Every morning as I leave for work, she is outside and I usually shout, “Hi, Ibu!” and she shouts back, “Hi!” on her way into the house. It’s funny to me, because she is literally waiting for the first of us to leave so she can pounce on the house and begin cleaning.

I wanted to know more about her, so I asked Martin to come over to our house today after lunch to translate. Martin very kindly allowed me to make Ivana’s room into a “study room” and work from here all day. I’m the type of person who kind of needs to get away, batten down the hatches, and hibernate to get projects finished.

I found out that Ibu is married, and she has two children. Her daughter is a freshman in high school and her son is still in primary school. I’ve seen her son here before as he often comes to the house after school and hangs out with his Mom until she gets off work. Her husband, Sulaiman, was a driver but he is now unemployed. She has worked for the IRC for about seven months, and before that she worked as a cleaner for a different NGO.

Ibu is 42 years old and she graduated from high school. She likes working for the IRC. She likes cleaning, tidying and washing clothes. She said that even when she’s in the house, when she doesn’t have anything else to do, she still likes to clean, tidy, and wash clothes.  It was very endearing to me when she said this, because I could tell that she really wanted me to know how hard she works. She didn’t really need to tell me that, though, because our house is always spotless and even the smallest details – like a tableful of loose change – gets stacked and ordered.

Ibu lived in a village in southern Aceh when a match was made with her husband, and she moved here to Banda Aceh after they were married. After their marriage, she hasn’t returned to her village. She and her husband discussed where they should live and they decided that they would stay in Banda Aceh. Can you imagine having a marriage arranged for you, moving away from your family, and never returning home?

When the tsunami came, she was at her older sister’s house doing the family washing, and her daughter was at home. A neighbor was looking after her. The first earthquake hit, and she said that she didn’t know what to do. Another earthquake quickly followed (the aftershock). She started to head back to the house and she couldn’t find her daughter. Her daughter had been taken somewhere else by a neighbor, but Ibu Sam didn’t know that. Then there was another aftershock, and people began running to higher ground as the tsunami hit and Ibu Sam joined them.

After she deemed it safe, Ibu Sam went back to her home and on her way back she found her daughter sitting by the side of the road with a large group of children. Her daughter had been taken to safety in a car by the neighbors.  The children were in shock, many were crying, and they didn’t know what to do. Ibu Sam grabbed her daughter and found a doctor, who gave her daughter some medicine to help calm her down and she felt better.

When she returned to her house, it was completely filled with water and mud – about 4 feet high. She put the things that she could salvage in a higher place, and took the things that were most valuable that she could carry.  She met up with her husband and her son, who had been in another area of town. They all went to the refugee camp together and they lived under the standard, UN-issued plastic tarps.

It was really crowded in the refugee camp, and there were people sleeping everywhere. There was no sense of order and there was no food provided. Ibu Sam and her husband weren’t sure how to get food, and the relief agencies were only providing water. She didn’t eat for a week. Some of the people who surrounded her gave her food so she could feed her children. It wasn’t until the eighth day when a relief organization brought food that Ibu Sam actually ate. 

Ibu Sam said that everyone was confused, and there was a lot of people in shock and a lot of people were crying. She said that there were good things, and bad things, about living there in the refugee camp. It was busy and it was crowded, but it was good because everyone in the community was gathered together. The children were able to play with each other. And when all of the community was together, they could chat and talk and be together.

But the problem was that she and her husband kept on thinking about their house. They were happy that they were all together, but they were sad when they decided to return to their home, after ten days, to find that their house had been partially destroyed. Not only that, but their neighbors had stolen the things that she had left in the home when they went to the refugee camp.

“We had a lot of things, but what can I say? It is other people’s good fortune,” she said.

They realized that they couldn’t stay there at their home, and they went and lived with friends for the next month. She said that they were afraid to go to their home. She said that she can still see watermarks on the walls of her house showing how high the water reached.

What were they going to do for the future? That was the thing that they were always worried about.

Luckily, Ibu quickly got a job as a cleaner for a French NGO, and that house was subsequently occupied by the IRC and she stayed on at the house as a cleaner when the house changed hands. Ibu told me that she got her new job on Jan. 9, 2005 and the tsunami hit on December 26, 2004. So in the span of two weeks she went from being a housewife, to having her home destroyed and living in a refugee camp, to a cleaner at an NGO house. Can you imagine?

Through Martin, I thanked Ibu Sam for cleaning my clothes and my home and I said that I really appreciated all of her help. That’s when I was completely caught off guard, and she began crying! As is the custom here, she said that she was sorry if she had ever offended me. When people leave the IRC at work, as Ivana did last week, it is customary to send an e-mail to everyone at the organization saying thank you for everything, and “If I have done anything to offend anyone, I am sorry.”

As soon as I saw Ibu Sam start crying, I started crying, too! I was just overcome with emotion. Knowing what this woman had been through in her life….and how sweet and conscientious she has been to me…..and knowing that I am leaving in three short days….it just overwhelmed me. And you know how sometimes, once you start crying, you just can’t stop? That’s exactly what happened. I would start to feel like I was going to be able to stop but then I would look over at Ibu Sam and she was still crying, and then I would just get going again.

Martin just sat there, and let both of us have our tears. To me, it was a pretty powerful moment.

Soon after, Ibu Sam’s daughter arrived on a motorbike and Martin encouraged her to have her daughter come inside. She came in, and shyly sat next to her mother on the couch. Her name was Yanti.

She said that she was with a neighbor when the tsunami came, and she was sad and upset and wanted to know, “Why is this happening? Why? Why?” She ran with her neighbor down the road. It was only when she went back to her house a little bit later that she saw her mother. She was so scared, but she was very happy to see her Mom.

She wants to be a nurse when she grows up and she is now studying science, biology, math and English -- although she said she’s not very good at English. 

“Ask her if she has a boyfriend!” Ibu asked.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” Martin inquired.

“No!” she said.

“But do you have someone in mind?” Martin asked. She quickly hid her head behind her school backpack.

The interview was wrapping up, and I asked Ibu Sam if I could take some pictures of her and Yanti. She said yes, and then quickly ran off. Martin said that she wanted to put on her jilbab – honestly, I haven’t ever seen Ibu with her jilbab on the entire time I’ve been here. Apparently, she wears it to work in the morning but I’ve never actually seen her arrive. Martin said, don’t worry about it – and so she didn’t put it on.

After the interview, I went back into Ivana’s old room/”the study” to continue working on my paper, but suddenly I was just really emotional and I had to finish my cry. It’s a combination of things, I think, and it’s all very bittersweet. My experience here has just been so amazing, and I’m sad to be leaving on Friday. I’m sad for Ibu Sam, and the people who had everything destroyed in the tsunami but I’m happy to have known her and I’m happy that she survived and her family did, too. I’m sad for people whose lives have been so dramatically changed because of the tsunami, but also happy for them because there is hope for their future.

Note about the pictures: People here tend to wear a "whitening" lotion on their skin. You can see it in the first picture of Ibu. I find it ironic that Western people want to be more tan, and people here want to be more white. Anyway, another peculiar thing to me about pictures here is that it's not customary to smile. So although Ibu looks very solemn in all of these pictures, I assure you she usually has a big grin on her face.

Tour De Pulau Aceh

The thing I love about myself is that I’m pretty spontaneous and up for anything. The thing that sometimes drives me crazy about myself is that I’m pretty spontaneous and up for anything. Sometimes it works for me ("I think I'll move to New York City!" or "I think I'll go to grad school!") and sometimes it doesn't ("I think I'll go on a camel safari in the middle of India near the Pakistan border with some random guys I've never seen before who can't speak English!"). I’m definitely in the category of people who don't know the meaning of “look before you leap.” I prefer “leap, and the net will appear.”

So sometimes this gets me into a little bit of trouble. Last week, Martin asked me if I wanted to go on a Acehnese Bike Club trip to an island called Pulau. I love islands, I like to ride my bike. It seemed like a no-brainer.

But I kind of forgot to ask Martin any more questions about the trip. In my own defense, it was a pretty busy week. It was kind of too late to back out when I found out that the boat was leaving at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday morning and it was a two-hour boat ride on potentially crazy seas. My favorite Saturdays are when I’m still in bed at 7:30 -- P.M.!! To top it all off, I knew I would be up late the night before because it was Ivana’s going away party.

But then the lure of “fun!” kept calling my name. As I’m leaving soon I really want to pack it all in, and this just sounded like a good time. So this morning, when the alarm went off at 6:45 a.m. I rolled out of bed and off I went. I gave Ivana a goodbye hug on my way out the door and Martin was waiting outside.

By this time I’m familiar with “rubber time” so I wasn’t shocked when the boat didn’t leave until 9:30. I’ve pretty much adopted the “what can you do?” attitude of most Indonesians here when it comes to time. When we finally found the boat, we loaded up all of our bikes with an ant-like system which was pretty cool. The ride over was really nice and not as bad as Shirley and Kate warned me it could be. We were in one of those wooden boats and if the water is choppy, there goes your breakfast.

By the time we actually got to the island, the sun was scorching. We rode for a bit and everything was fine. Then we got to a pretty big hill. I tried biking up it but quickly realized that this was one of those “admit defeat and walk your bike up the hill” situations.

Going down was difficult, too, because it was really steep. This German girl totally ate some dirt and scratched up her arm. She ripped her pants and had blood all over them. I didn’t actually see the fall, but saw her injuries when we all stopped and grabbed coffee while Bill, one of the leaders, fixed the chain on his bike, which had snapped.

As I was sitting and drinking my water I remembered when I met my Mom in France with her Bitburg friends for a bike trip and how completely different that trip was. We would ride for a mile or so across beautiful, flat countryside observing vineyards, and then stop for some wine and cheese or a 4-course lunch. Ahhhh, memories.

We all jumped back on the bikes and rode for another hour or so through some cute villages. Pulau Aceh was hit really hard by the tsunami and basically flattened. Most of the people living there were evacuated to Banda Aceh for a while. When Martin worked for the British Red Cross, he helped with a livelihoods program there as they relocated people back.

One of the big “crops” in Pulua is reputably marijuana. GAM (Free Aceh Movement) was big here (they were fighting the Indonesian government in the 30-year civil war) and apparently they traded ganja for guns with Thailand and Malaysia. Martin said that he was at a few community meetings where people got very giggly…and hungry! I didn’t see any of that today, though but then again I wasn’t looking.

Just as the day was getting almost too hot to handle, we approached a pretty huge hill. To say it was brutal and grueling is seriously an understatement. Again, I had to walk my bike but it was so steep that it didn’t really help because pushing your bike up the hill was almost as difficult as riding it. And just when you would think that you were in the clear and would have a little break with some flat land, you would realize that the hill kept going. It was probably one of the most physically strenuous things I’ve ever done. I think that it had more to do with the sun than the grade of the hill.

Whenever we would find some shade on the road, all of us would stand under it for a few moments just to cool down. The road wasn’t paved, it was just dirt. I seriously felt like I was on some “extreme sports” show, without the cute host at the end to offer me a million dollars and a weekend getaway to Hawaii. We were all drenched in sweat and some of the men were just literally dripping huge beads of water as if they were in a sauna. My t-shirt was wet all the way through and I could just wring it out. I’m sure I smelled terrible.

I was kind of bringing up the rear when my tire got a flat. I was so hot, and in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t know what to do. Luckily, one of the trip organizers, Melody, noticed and helped me out. This other French guy had a kit to repair the tire and away we went again. Part of me was secretly wishing that it would be unfixable so I could just jump on one of the “emergency” motorbikes following us. No such luck.

We ended the day with a late group lunch at a villager’s home. Then, we went and swam at the prettiest beach I have seen yet here in Indonesia. The sand was white and the water a deep aquamarine color. The water was clear and clean and the waves were manageable. I was so hot I couldn’t bother changing into my swimsuit and proper Sharia-complaint get-up. I just parked my bike and walked straight into the ocean with my regular clothes on. Heaven!

On the way home we saw a really cool rainbow, followed by a beautiful sunset. I don't think that it gets any better than that.

By the time we got back it was dark and Martin very nicely rode me home to my door after a quick grocery run at the Blang. I called it an early night, only to literally be pulled out of my bed by Kate, Ivana and Nina to go to a Czech Red Cross party. I think that this is probably the first time that this has happened to me since college. But after I got done protesting and decided to just roll with it (these girls are VERY persuasive!) I ended up having a good time.

All in all, it was probably the best day I’ve had in Indonesia.

Hey, Teach!

The past few days I have been traveling around to different schools with Martino, one of the technical staff guys in Calang who heads up the education initiative here and, luckily for me, has excellent English. The goal is to speak to the teachers and learn what has worked and what hasn't with the Gugus Revitalization Plan that the IRC has implemented over the past year.

Yesterday we went to two very different schools. The first school was built by the German Red Cross and was really nice. For the first time, I noticed a mini-mosque on the site. Martino told me that all schools are built with a small mosque on the premises. In light of all of the church vs. state debates in the U.S., it was interesting to see.

UNICEF was doing some teacher training, and I spoke with "one of the best teachers," according to Martino. The teacher was really smart and enthusiastic about his job and the interview went really well.

Next, we went to a temporary school on the other side of town. Apparently, the German Red Cross was also building a permanent school for them as well, but they were having problems with the contractor and have been waiting for over two years for the new school. It was really sad, it was like night and day in comparison to the other school. As we approached, there was a big construction crew mixing cement or something right outside the temporary classroom and they were making so much noise I couldn't help but wonder how these kids could concentrate.

Something quick about the Red Cross that I learned when I got here and that is that every country has their own Red Cross. So there's the American Red Cross, which is working with the IRC in Calang on a huge water project (making water available to everyone in Calang), there's the German Red Cross which is building houses and schools here, there is the British Red Cross, etc. etc. I guess in Banda Aceh all of the Red Crosses share office space except for the American Red Cross, which has their own! Prompting many people, of course, to say: "Americans!" I will post on that some other time, but trust me it gets old. I had a long "discussion" with the headmaster of the temporary school -- about Bush. It's hard because of course, by no means am I a fan of Bush.....but at the same time....can't we move on, people? I steered the topic to Hillary Clinton just to see what he would say, and we were soon talking about women leaders like Margaret Thatcher, the German Prime Minister, etc. etc. and that was much better.

So my interviews have been going really well and I am encouraged by what the teachers are saying. I'm excited about their ideas and suggestions regarding the program, and I think that my final project is going to be really great. As I've never done this sort of research before it's been a bit daunting but it's a good kind of new challenge for me.

Of course, there are points at which the interview becomes pretty sad, especially when teachers start talking about how over half of the teachers who used to work at the school died in the tsunami, or how the classes had 40 students per grade before the tsunami but now have only 20 per class. Put in numbers like that, that you can wrap your head around -- it makes the tragedy so real and so sad.

After more interviews today I got back to the compound and Glenn told me that they were having a going away party tonight for Micah, one of the volunteers here who just got a job at the World Bank in Jakarta. So I went to the party tonight and it was actually lots of fun! One of the guys who was chopping up vegetables for the salad asked me if I wanted to help. I said sure, and I started chopping......then, he asks, "Alexis, do you have health insurance? Because if not, I think I'd better do the chopping!" He could see how clumsy I am with the knife (but not a corkscrew, people!) so he took it away from me, and everyone laughed. Oh and by the way, I do have health insurance through the IRC.

Tomorrow I am off to Meulaboh to do more teacher interviews, and will spend the weekend there. Now I'm off....to look for the wild boar! I heard it last night but was too tired to get out of bed and take a picture.

Oh and as far as the pictures go (must learn how to caption photos within a post, sorry) -- the first is of the new school, the second is of the temporary school, the next is of some girls at the temporary school, the next is of me and some teachers I interviewed today in Calang, followed by a picture of everyone crowding around trying to get some fish tonight at Micah's going away party.

Adi's Story

Adi is one of the IRC drivers with extremely proficient English as well as a kind spirit. He drove me last night to Marta Tillar, the “Women-only Spa” located near the big mosque (you have to be specific as there are hundreds, if not more, of mosques in Banda Aceh). Don’t be jealous, but I got a 1-hour massage, foot scrub and amazingly detailed pedicure…for $19! Quite the bargain and it was nice, after Calang, to pamper myself a bit. Also, everyone walks around in bare feet everywhere here, which is great for comfort but not always so nice for feet appearance.

Adi likes to talk. He told me that the past four IRC directors remembered him best out of all of the drivers, because he is so “talkative.” Well, he definitely lived up to his reputation last night and told me his story.

The thing that I didn’t really realize before I got to Banda was that the tsunami was really just the latest in a long series of catastrophes to befall Aceh. The first was the civil war that had been raging for 30 years between the GAM (Free Aceh) party and the Indonesian government. Basically, Aceh wanted to be an independent state and break away from the rest of Indonesia for many reasons. One of them was that in the 1970’s, under agreement with the Indonesian central government, American oil and gas companies began to exploit Aceh's natural resources. People in Aceh got upset because there was an alleged unequal distribution of the profit between the central government and the native people of Aceh. There were also religious issues, which I have discussed at length. Aceh borders another area of the island of Sumatra that is Christian, and this also caused problems. In the 1980’s the movement to free Aceh (the GAM movement) gained some momentum, and troops were sent in from Jakarta by the Indonesian army. Soon, the whole area was dangerous and at war.

As we were driving to the Blang (grocery store) last night after my pampering, I mentioned to Adi that the city of Banda Aceh really comes alive at night. It’s the same in Calang – vendors with their stalls, everything is brightly lit and there is a hustle and bustle of many people gathering together to talk, drink coffee, socialize. Oftentimes you drive by a coffee shop or restaurant with one big television and 10-15 men sitting around watching together – usually a sports event but sometimes what looks to be a soap opera or MTV.

Adi told me that before the tsunami, by 9:00 the streets were empty and only the police were out. It was too dangerous to be outside after dark and people didn’t venture out of their homes. He said that it was “much, much” better now after the peace agreement, known as the memorandum of understanding. This was brokered by the Finnish-based NGO the Crisis Management Initiative and signed on August 15, 2005. Aceh would receive special autonomy while the GAM agreed to disarm and the TNI (Indonesian military) to demobilize.

But if you look at Indonesian history, the 30-year war is really just a series of countries trying to take over Aceh – the Dutch (declared war in 1873) followed by Japanese occupation during World War II. The birth of the Free Aceh movement began in 1949 and continued until the tsunami hit. That’s over 100 years of fighting.

Back to Adi. Before the tsunami (people seem to demark time here in a way that I have distinguished as B.T. (before tsunami) and A.T. (after tsunami)). B.T., Adi owned an automotive spare parts business. He was there, working, on the morning of the tsunami.

He said that the ground started to shake and he ran outside, into the street. He saw the street opening up before him, and water coming up from the cracks (this was, perhaps, water from the river? Water from plumbing pipes?)The earthquake, which preceded the tsunami by about 10 minutes, was a 9.3 on the Richter scale and one of the biggest in recorded history. Apparently, the earth was moving and shaking for five minutes. Think about how long that would be!

Adi suddenly heard a large boom. I asked him what this was, and he said maybe it was a house falling down or something falling off of a building. He saw a dark cloud gathering on the horizon, and thought that maybe it was a rainstorm. Suddenly, though, it dawned on him that it was a huge wall of water.

He started to run, “Like a horse,” and ran as fast as he could for as long as he could, without looking back. He said that he estimates that the water was about 100 meters behind him. He outran the tsunami!

When he determined that he was safe and out of danger, he walked back to his house, which is in an area of Banda Aceh that wasn’t affected by the tsunami. He called his mother and father and brothers and sisters – and amazingly, everyone was fine! His wife and his children live in another town about 200 kilometers inland and they were fine as well. They had felt the earthquake (though it wasn’t as strong there) but they were too far inland for the tsunami.

“I said, “Thank God, Thank God, Thanks to God,” Adi said. I’m happy that his story has a good ending, as so many don’t.

Adi lost his business because everything was devastated, but he is saving his money now and is hoping to start it up again, but for now he says that he is happy as one of the IRC drivers. He’s been working here for two and a half years.

The picture above is one I took from a children's book about the tsunami. That's the picture on the cover. I think that it was written by an adult, but illustrated by a kid -- both were in the tsunami. The whole book is in Indonesian, though, so I'm not sure. I asked Adi if I could take his picture to accompany the story I was writing about him on my blog, but he declined! He's the first Indonesian to say no to me regarding photos, and I respect his wishes.

More About the Tsunami

 

Although I’ve talked about it lots in other posts, of course, I guess I’ve never addressed the tsunami and how the people I know were directly affected or survived. Some people have e-mailed me some questions so I thought now would be a good time to answer them. There’s a lot of information that I didn’t know before, and haven’t seen published elsewhere although it probably exists.

I've posted two pictures here, one (above) a satellite photo of Banda Aceh before the tsunami, and one (below) after. For more really interesting photos like this, go to this page. 

Almost everyone in the IRC office (local staff) was, of course, affected by the tsunami. More often than not, the men survived and the women and children didn’t (this is a general statement, but more men survived than women). This is because the tsunami hit early in the morning and many women were at home with the children, whereas men were out of the home. I don’t know why you had less of a chance of survival if you were at home than not, but I guess that’s how it happened.

Apparently, right before the first wave hit, the water started to recede quite dramatically. Because this hadn’t happened before and people really weren’t aware of the signs of tsunami (I mean….do you know what the signs for a tsunami are? I surely don’t), many people on the beach, etc. started running towards the water because many fish were left behind and were flipping and flopping on the sand where the wave was before. People wanted to go and pick up the fish, which I guess as we all know probably wasn’t such a great idea.

In some areas, Martin told me that certain lore had been passed down through the ages that stated if the water starts to recede like that, start running as fast as you can. Kind of like where I grew up in Nebraska, where everyone knows to run to the basement as fast as you can if there is a tornado (although I still remember all of the dads going outside and trying to catch a glimpse of the tornado! Now why was that?) In these places, obviously, the rate of survival was much higher but I don’t think that in Banda Aceh this was the case. In some areas like the towns we drive through on our way to Calang, they are right by huge cliffs and mountains and there simply wasn’t any place to run.

So there were three waves, and the third one was apparently the worst. I think that Martin said that it was 30 meters, or 90 feet high. How many stories is this? Well, if a story is typically 10 to 12 feet, then that is a 9-story building! Many survivors speak of it as a huge cobra before it strikes – I guess that this is the most common description. This means that some people who actually saw the wave survived and I’m not sure how this is possible. Luck, I guess.

One of the weirdest things I was told is that many of the fisherman had gone out fishing for the day, and didn’t feel anything at all. I don’t now why they didn’t feel anything, but I know that there were people scuba diving in other countries who weren’t affected either and I don’t understand the physics of this. Anyway, these fishermen returned at the end of their day to total destruction and didn’t even know that a thing had happened. Now how weird would that be?

Psychologically, in a way, I don’t know if people have completely dealt with the enormity of it. When I was getting some of my orientation from one of the computer guys, he spoke of how his wife and children had died in the tsunami and he just fell silent for a moment. One woman who works here, her entire family – husband, kids, mom, dad, sisters, brothers – everyone was killed. But the thing is, you would never really get that sense from her as she has a very happy disposition and always seems to be in good spirits. One of our drivers survived by holding on to a piece of driftwood. Many people speak of why they survived and others didn’t. Martin worked directly after the tsunami with recovery and he said that many songs were written and sang during this period about, “Why has God forsaken me?”

One direct result of the tsunami was that many religious leaders in Banda Aceh used the tsunami as a way to crack down with Sharia law. They said that the tsunami had hit because people weren’t devout enough, and God was angry. This is one of the explanations for the strictness here of the Sharia law. In other parts of the country, I’ve been told, it’s not the same level at all.

This brings us to the separation of “church” and “state” here. There isn’t any, really. If you are Achenese, you are a Muslim. Leaving the religion really isn’t a decision, because it means that you are leaving your family and community – you would simply be ex-communicated. The Sharia police (religious police) work directly with, and for, the “regular” police. The Sharia police specifically enforce religious law. If you break religious law, you can be caned in public. Apparently the caning isn’t so much about the physical punishment, it’s more about the public humiliation. I don’t know how often this happens but you can get caned for adultery or premarital sex. I don’t know what else you can get caned for.

Another interesting thing is that I heard that if you want to buy condoms in Banda Aceh, you have to show the person at the register your marriage certificate. Only married people are allowed to have sex. Kate is working with a program about HIV/AIDS awareness and they aren’t able to talk about how to actually use a condom, or how the virus is spread because leaders here have said that it’s forbidden to talk of these things. If two people are “caught” having sex, they are forced to marry the next day.

This leads us to one other thing that is different, and that is the reality that oftentimes neighbors are reporting other neighbors to the Sharia police and there is a certain culture of being watched at all times. If two people of opposite sexes go into a house together and don’t emerge for some time, the Sharia police can be called. In Calang, men and women are not allowed to share cabins (each cabin has two bedrooms and a common area). A man and a woman cannot ride on a motorbike with each other unless they are married, and people carry around their marriage certificates to prove it. Two non-married employees of different sexes at the IRC shared an office where the door was regularly shut because the room had air conditioning, and this wasn’t acceptable and ultimately the woman had to be moved to a different office.

Although it’s been three years and this seems like a long time in some ways, the tsunami will definitely have long-term effects above and beyond the physical destruction. I guess that you could say that, in a sense, the waves continue to ripple and probably will for quite some time.