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A special report from Aceh

“Ma, I am fine but I cannot call home…”

Those who survived ‘God’s lesson’ in Aceh

Muhammad, a military sergeant in his late 40s, fought back tears as he stood outside a military post in Lhoong, a sub-district in Aceh Besar where approximately 11,500 villagers were killed in the earthquakes and tsunamis on December 26, 2004.

“Please say a prayer for my wife, my mother-in-law, and my father-in-law,” he whispered to me, his index finger raced to catch a falling teardrop. The man was well built and looked so strong that he could easily pass for a proud military commander. But his head was bowed and his shoulders were now stooped. His eyes were red with hidden tears. Somewhere in a pocket of his trousers, a copy of Surah Yasin was ready to be fished out and read for consolation whenever he was overwhelmed with sadness.

Muhammad had just finished breakfast that Sunday morning. He bade his wife goodbye. His mother-in-law was around the house while his father-in-law was outside pottering in the yard. Minutes after he reached his workplace, he learned about the rising ocean and tidal waves as high as the coconut trees that lined the beautiful beach of Lhoong.

He tried to return home but there was no longer a home. No longer a family. All in one stroke, the angry ocean had taken away all that was precious to him. He felt so alone in the world. Grasping at any chance of fighting the loneliness, he took a five-hour motorized boat ride to Banda Aceh, because all the roads were cut off, and he searched for his younger brother-in-law, Fajri.

The two men wept together. Fajri, who had been working there for the past few years, remembered calling home immediately after the earthquake in order to check if everybody was all right. “My sister took my call, and told me all was fine at home, and that I should take care,” Fajri said as his voice caught. “That calmed me down. I left the telecom shop, and saw people running in fear, shouting that the water was rising…”

Fajri went back to the telecom shop and made another call home. No one answered. He went outside again, and saw more people fleeing in panic. “Run, run, water, water…” somebody urged while running past him. He looked toward the sea, and saw “black, black claws of water, so high, smoke coming out of it…”

Fajri ran, he forgot for how long and how far. Until he came to shop-house and saw a young girl who had just stopped running and was ready to lay down in exhaustion. “No, don’t stop dik, or you’ll die,” he said, dragging her to climb the building. They were safe there, but afterward he had to watch dead bodies littering the road below.

Several days afterward, he returned to his place and met Muhammad. It was then that Fajri learned that he had spoken to his sister for the last time. “Just seconds after she told me to take good care of myself, she was killed,” Fajri told me on board a boat called Hidup Damai (A Peaceful Life) on the way to Lhoong. Fajri wanted to say goodbye to his parents and sister, even though their bodies were never found.

The sub-district used to have 15,000 residents, but only 3,500 survived. It used to have 28 villages; most were situated in the beautiful, coconut tree-lined beach, but only 3 remained now. Nasruddin, a local man who spent the first three days after the disaster burying a countless number of corpses, joked that his brother Mahdi no longer deserved the title of camat (sub-district head) because he was now in charge of only a small number of people. “You ought to be called kepala dusun (the head of a hamlet),” Nasruddin said.

With nightfall, Lhoong became as dark as a grave. There was no electricity; there was only a small power generator that Mahdi decreed could not to be used for anything but lighting and the sound system of the only masjid remaining in the vicinity.  

“This way, people can still hear adhan (the call to prayers),” he said. “Now more than ever we need to go back to the masjid. This lesson from God should be enough for us all.”

Countless refugees were huddled in various buildings around the masjid wearing grim looks on their faces. There were many wounded and sick people among them. Too many had lost their loved ones and too many children were now orphans. There were several who had even lost their minds, screaming at the top of their lungs at night that the claws of water were coming to get them.

There were, however, people still with enough energy for levity, such as Hendrik and Thohir, two members of the elite police force, the Mobile Brigade (Brimob), posted in Lhoong. Some 25 of their members were missing, presumably dead, and only one body of a soldier had been found. They looked at pretty girls and joked with doctors who came from Java to provide free health services.

Despite this,they took me aside, asking when I would return to Banda Aceh or Jakarta. "Soon," I said. “Would you mind calling my wife/mother/brother/sister and tell them that I am fine?” some asked. Lhoong had no telecommunications services whatsoever and so there was no contact with the outside world.  “They would be worried because they haven’t heard from us since the tsunamis.”

Of course, I would not mind, just write down all the numbers and I would call them all up. Soon I had with me a list of more than 25 telephone numbers, and the words I was supposed to read in order to assure their loved ones they were safe.

“Look, I know I am not supposed to ask you to call more than one number, that would be too expensive,” one young Brimob soldier said, “but please, may I ask that you also contact another number…it’s my girlfriend.”

“Oh no you don’t!” his friends shouted. “That’s unfair.”

“How about I call up your girlfriend, and ask her to inform your mother that you’re OK here?” I suggested.

“That would be asking for trouble…my parents don’t know about Pipit yet,” he looked worried, despite his friends’ teasing. So of course I promised to call both.

There were not many joyful experiences to be had in Banda Aceh these days, except when you got to be the bearer of good tidings. I called those numbers and read out whatever was written on my list.

“Ma, I am fine, but moal tiasa telpon (I cannot call home now), ” I parroted a Sundanese sentence written by one soldier. I was rewarded so many times over, not by their families’ thanks, but by their screams of relief:

“Alhamdulillah, Allahu Akbar, my son is fine!”

Read Also:

• Islamic Relief orphan sponsorship

• Indonesian Children’s Relief Press Release

• What does it mean to help an orphan?

• Muslim Hands 

* Santi Soekanto, +62 813 11 337 023 or santi-soekanto2001@yahoo.com