Reconstruction Chronicles

Posted: 27 June 2005

Oxfam's Elizabeth Stevens blogs her thoughts and impressions as she travels through Aceh, Indonesia, and sees how tsunami victims are rebuilding their lives.

June 7, 2005

I made a dramatic entry into Indonesia today. The attendants on my flight from Singapore, knowing I had a tight connection for the trip to Banda Aceh, snuck me forward into Business Class so I could make a quick getaway. An airport guide stood waiting for me on the tarmac, and we took off for customs at a run. Baggage was next. Bad luck: mine never showed. Airport officials gathered around to help, and after a few minutes of frantic form-filling, my guide and I were off again, baggage-free, tearing through buildings and parking lots. When we arrived at the gate, my plane was sitting there waiting for me, which was amazing enough. But the kindest surprise was that the staff and passengers looked like they'd been rooting for me all along. Welcome to Indonesia.

June 8, 2005

Today I really saw it. We drove out to where the tsunami made landfall in Banda Aceh. It is a plain of devastation as far as the eye can see in all directions but one — the ocean. One of my companions who had been on the scene just after the disaster remarked on how much things had improved. I couldn't imagine what he was talking about.

Moments later, we made a stop at Alue Deah Baro, a spot along a desolate road that, like many others, was marked by a handful of new, small buildings. This is not a village yet, but it once was. Before the tsunami, 1,400 people lived here; 207 survived, about three-quarters of whom have returned to help with rebuilding. We met with Pak Jhon, the village leader, and began a tour of the community-led programs Oxfam has been working on. A shelter under construction — one of 140 Oxfam and an Indonesian aid agency will work with villagers to complete in the next few months. A café. A poultry barn. A community center. Fishing boats. A barrier to the sea. Once they were pointed out to me, I could see thousands of little palm and casuarina trees poking up everywhere, planted by the community and funded by Oxfam. And along the village's muddy shoreline, there are 50,000 new mangroves. When they mature, they'll provide protection from ocean storms, as well as habitat for shrimp, oysters, and crabs. Pak Jhon mentions another benefit for the people who lived through this disaster: "The mangroves will keep the ocean out of sight."

So, this is the face of reconstruction in Banda Aceh. If your eye is trained on the vast destruction, it looks insignificant. But in the next few weeks and months, Deah Baro will become a village again. If I have a chance to return to Indonesia, I surely won't recognize it.

June 9, 2005

Today was a lesson in stretching the dollar, or in this case, the rupiah. We visited some of the hamlets of Lampaya to see what Oxfam is doing there to restore women's livelihoods through a financing project. From a list of nearly 300 men and women involved in this program, we decided to visit four women who are supporting family members.

Nuraini Pante is a shy woman who is grieving the loss of two sons and a grandchild. She invited my interpreter and me into her home for tea and explained how with financing from Oxfam she's building a small poultry business to support her remaining family; the water mark on the wall, which came up to my chin, told its own story.

The way the financing works is this: Oxfam has helped found community-based financial institutions throughout the region that are dedicated to assisting small businesses. We provide the initial grant, which the financial institution turns into many small loans. The loans involve little or no interest, but requiring payback ensures that the money benefits far more people than we could assist through grants.

This afternoon we visited Jamaliah, a widow who makes coconut oil, the seamstress Rewana, who supports her mother, and a young woman named Nonarita, who was staffing a roadside food stall for her family. All have been able to take micro-loans and make a new start on livelihoods. They are getting on with their lives, but they keep reminders of the tragedy close at hand: they have named the community financial institution Bungong Seroja --the flower the Acehnese plant on graves.

June 10, 2005

We traveled south along the coast today, headed for the villages of Pase and Meunasah Lhok. The road traces a thin strip of land that is squeezed between the ocean and mountains so steep they sometimes appear vertical. There was nothing to protect this coast from the tsunami, and it got pounded. In Lhoknga, we take a sudden detour to avoid a huge object. This turns out to be a coal barge that was lifted by the wave and deposited more than 100 yards from the shore. There it sits, upright and fully loaded, still attached to its trusty tugboat. An enterprising family has set up a café under the stern of the barge.

Camps for displaced people are scattered along this road. Many tsunami survivors are still living in tents and other temporary shelters because of complicated land title issues. For example, who inherits a piece of land when a whole family dies, and where does a community go if its land is no longer habitable? Oxfam is supporting these camps — our trademark green water tanks and latrines can be seen among the tents and wooden shelters — and we're also working on speeding the land titling process, which is the nature of our business today.

The villages of Pase and Meunasah Lhok are gone now. Like many settlements along the coast, the buildings and many of the residents were carried off by the wave. But in Pase and Meunasah Lhok, the land itself is now permanently underwater. The villagers now live together in a nearby temporary camp, where Oxfam has been providing help with water, shelter materials, and cash for work to clear the site of debris; we also built a ferry to help children reach school across a body of water that never used to be there.

Although residents have identified a new site to live on, purchasing land is beyond the means of these impoverished villages. They tried to get help from the district government, but nothing came of it, so this week Oxfam stepped in. On Wednesday, a group of staff including Lilianne Fan (advocacy coordinator), Dedi (community development officer), Faisal (shelter coordinator), and Afifudin (research and advocacy assistant) took photos and a letter from the village leaders directly to the district head, known as the bupati. They went without an appointment and stood outside the local parliament until the bupati agreed to meet with them. The result: an offer to meet with the villagers and Oxfam today to resolve the issue.

We arrived at a mosque in nearby Lhoong in time to hear K. Zamzami, the head of Meunasah Lhok, present his case formally to the district head. Then we drove out to the village site, where the bupati was scheduled to deliver his response.

If ever there were a disaster in paradise, this is it. The landscape here is surpassingly beautiful; the stories from the camp are excruciating. When the tsunami struck, M. Hatta, the village leader of Pase, was picked up by the wave and hurtled several kilometers inland. His clothes were ripped away, and so was his family. We came across a tiny house in the camp that looked barely big enough to lie down in. Beside it sat a 13-year-old boy named Farisal whose father had died in the tsunami and whose mother then remarried and abandoned him. He built the little house himself and lives there, supported by the community and his skills as a crab fisherman.

Looking out toward the ocean from the camp, K. Zamzami pointed to where he used to live. Water buffalo swim in a freshwater lagoon where houses once stood; the rest of the village lies under the waves.

A short while after we arrived, a line of SUVs drove up, signaling the arrival of the bupati and his retinue. They sat down in the community building with representatives from the villages and Oxfam. The bupati began by thanking Oxfam. He said that he had consulted with all the relevant department heads and that on behalf of Pase and Meunasah Lhok, his administration would now undertake to buy the land the villagers have chosen for their new home. He then turned to Oxfam and requested that we build 141 permanent homes on the new site.

I spoke to M. Hatta as the officials drove away, and he was a happy man. When the land issue is resolved, he thinks villagers will be able to turn their attention to rebuilding their livelihoods. "When we work with different aid agencies, things are much less organized, and sometimes there aren't roles the community can play. Oxfam people know our needs and sit down and talk about them with us. I hope that Oxfam provides for all our needs from beginning to end because you have a close relationship with the community."

Kudos to the staff.

June 13, 2005

It was the laughter at the home of Fatimah that I remember best. Seven women sat on the floor of her home bakery, preparing little cakes filled with bean paste and cracking jokes. Jim Holmes, the photographer who's accompanying me on this trip, was a huge hit there. I left to interview the owner in the next room, but it sounded like a stand-up comic was working the crowd next door. There was a great raucous outburst when someone realized that a clothesline full of underwear was about to appear in his viewfinder. Later, I heard him say "No, sorry. I'm already married," which nearly brought the house down.

The bakery is supported by Oxfam through a grant to a community-based lending organization, and it provides income to 10 people. But after spending an hour listening to the women laughing and talking together, I sensed that our greatest contribution to these women's lives was in giving them an excuse to spend their days together.

Over the weekend we visited more people involved in Oxfam's livelihoods programs—prawn fishers, and a woman who prepares fish curry take-out meals. Everyone we visited wanted to feed us. We tried to refuse, knowing they are all operating on slim financial margins, but their generosity was unstoppable. As we were leaving Lampaya, two women hailed us from a motorcycle at an intersection. They're bakers who are being financed by Oxfam, but we missed them when we dropped by that morning. They handed us some little cakes, and before we could refuse, roared off on their motorcycle.

June 14, 2005

Today we climbed aboard a small UN plane and flew to Meulaboh, a town about 250 kilometers south of Banda Aceh. Road access to Meulaboh was cut off by the wave, and from January through March, Oxfam had to deliver relief materials here by helicopter.

We had a good look at two camps for displaced people where Oxfam is providing water, sanitation (latrines, bathing cubicles, laundry areas, and sewage disposal), and cash-for-work programs. We're updating our sanitation structures here, replacing the emergency toilets with facilities that provide more privacy, building separate latrines for women and men, installing electric lights, and developing security measures for women. For a variety of reasons, people here are not ready to move back to their village sites. Some have lost their land to flooding or to changes in the contours of the coast; others are frightened to move back into what could be the path of another tsunami one day. They are building additions to their tents, planting gardens. We will support them until they make the decision to leave the camps, and then we'll give a hand at the sites they've chosen for their permanent homes.

A final highlight: Oxfam was honored at a ceremony in which we officially handed off a new set of latrines to a camp for displaced people near our Meulaboh office. The ceremony involved the modern ritual of ribbon-cutting as well as the traditional practice of cake-feeding. I would have enjoyed it more if someone hadn't placed me at the table reserved for people making speeches. Happily, I was spared by the mistress of ceremonies, whom I will always remember fondly.

June 15, 2005

“Congratulations on the Red Sox.”

The burly man who climbed into the car beside me enjoyed the expression on my face as I tried to make the mental leap from this remote Acehnese town to Ortiz’s walk-off homeruns. Anton Hamid is a Sumatran engineer who is one of the brains behind Oxfam’s water and sanitation program in Aceh. Like his engineering colleagues in Meulaboh, Harry Lambertus and Phil Weatherill, he is in hot pursuit of a better mousetrap or, in this case, a better sand filtration system.

Today we headed for the camp for displaced people located at the village site of Suak Tima. It was a long, slow drive from the town of Meulaboh over deeply rutted roads. The dense forest on either side of us turned out to be an overgrown rubber plantation. Highlight of the ride: a one-and-a-half foot lizard in the road who appraised our truck as a possible food source before scuttling into the underbrush.

In Suak Tima, Anton first gave me a glimpse of the local water. Looking down a well, I saw something you’d expect to find in the middle of a swamp—rust-colored water with an oily sheen on top. Beside the well sat an Oxfam water filter—a large green barrel, where water makes its way through layers of gravel, charcoal, sand, and a palm fiber known as blackfeather. This is the same filter technology that was used by local people before the tsunami hit, with one important Oxfam contribution: a tap. Sand kills E. coli bacteria, and the longer the water sits on it, the better. The local model of the filter has a hole at the base of the barrel that lets water trickle out as soon as it passes through the filtering materials. With the Oxfam tap in place, the water lingers on the sand before being released. Anton showed me the output from the filter: water as clear as any from a faucet back home.

Next, we took a look at the latrines and bathing cubicles, which have been built to provide men and women with separate facilities. Here, Anton has introduced a more high-tech innovation: solar-powered lighting. To ensure privacy in the sanitation facilities, the walls and roofs have been built solidly—which means no natural light is available once you close the doors. Anton’s solar lights have fixed that little problem.

He pointed to a man pedaling by on a cargo-hauling bicycle rig, known as a becak, and explained that he is part of the camp’s water-delivery system. Oxfam has supplied the town with becaks, and the community has organized regular deliveries of water and other goods for people who live in outlying areas.

We left Suak Tima for Kambung Cot to visit a cash-for-work project that Oxfam is funding through a local partner organization. Men and women are restoring rice paddies by removing debris from an 80-hectare field. A wooden fence to keep out water buffalo and goats is being fashioned from the longest, straightest posts they find, and they are building drainage ditches as they go. Although the land here is somewhat contaminated by salt, it will still support a rice crop. The first planting is slated for August.

Next, we visited a bridge under construction—another cash-for-work project that we’re carrying out through a partner organization. This was a lively spot on a sweltering day. Boys were flinging themselves off the half-finished bridge into the water, making sure we watched their most daring moves. The bridge going up is built of coconut wood, and it’s massive. In 15 days it will be complete, repairing a broken link in the road from Meulaboh to Calang.

On the way home, we made a stop at the village of Pinem, where we watched two men cultivating a 40-hectare plot of land that will soon become rice paddies. Hamdan is one of the workers. He has a low, gentle voice and a warm smile. He explains that before the tsunami, they used to have to dig down only 20 centimeters, but the wave deposited clay on top of the sandy soil. Now they have to dig 50 centimeters in order to mix the soils together, so Oxfam has supplied them with two hand tractors to speed the work. Hamden lost his four buffalo to the wave, and his land is permanently inundated. He works for someone else now, but hopes to share the profits from the rice harvest. As we returned to the truck, a water buffalo watched us from a mud wallow next to a grassy spot where someone had etched the word “OXFAM” on the ground in letters ten feet tall.

In one of our last stops of the day, we joined a meeting of 25 villagers who are about to receive financing from Oxfam to restart their tailoring businesses. They discussed their needs and concerns with Oxfam staff. A woman named Aiki turned to me and said, “We are very lucky. So appreciative.” She burst into tears. “We could only get aid from Oxfam and not from other agencies. We cannot begin to express our gratitude.” I meant to reply that it is her right to have the resources she needs to earn a dignified living, but in the emotion of the moment, I didn't find the words.

June 27, 2005

Since my return, I've often found myself thinking about the extraordinary way in which the Acehnese appear to be dealing with the disaster. The tsunami has certainly left its mark on their psyches. Many villagers are reluctant to live near the ocean again, and women I met often cried with me about their lost children. But there is an overriding mood of warmth and cheerfulness in Aceh that is hard to reconcile with the tsunami tragedy. The Acehnese seem to have given themselves the permission and the wherewithal to enjoy life in the present. In the end, rebuilding Aceh is in their hands, and I came away feeling that these are remarkable hands indeed.