Reminders, Reminders Everywhere

All week I was reminded of the tsunami. When I first came here, I saw the destruction everywhere, and every time I went down to the beach I imagined a giant wave sweeping towards me, dwarfing the palm trees. Every person I looked at, I saw as a survivor. It was fresh, so very fresh for me. But, it’s amazing how one can just get used to things. Now, when I go to the beach, I usually just admire the beauty. I can go for an entire day without consciously thinking about the tsunami and what the people here went through. But this week, I kept getting reminders of it- real, practical, every-day sorts of reminders. For example:

During the staff English class we were learning about the various rooms in a house. I asked a student how many bathrooms were in his house, and he asked before the tsunami or after?

This week we went out to invite children to come to our new English Club, we walked through one of the still-occupied tent camps where people are crowded in together so closely. This camp though, has a bit more of a long-term, lived-in feeling. There are a few tent-stores, bikes parked against tent walls, and a surprising amount of satellite dishes feeding in the latest TV series. We sat and talked with people, giggled with kids and generally answered questions about our programs. Then, as we were leaving, up walked one of the ladies who works in our office and house. She lived there, in a tent with her son; a tsunami widow who lost almost everything and was still living in a tent over a year later. And this was a woman that I saw everyday, that I knew, that was my friend.
Next we walked through a neighborhood that had been about sea level before the tsunami, but is now a bit lower so it’s always flooded with the waters rising to cover the newly rebuilt streets when the tides come in. When I asked why people are trying to rebuild over all that water, I was told… “this is their land, the only the land they have, so of course they’re going to rebuild on it.”

There is a lot of rebuilding, all over Meulaboh, slowly some of the ugly scars of the disaster are being smoothed over… but there are too many scars for it to be hidden. And the worst scars are on the people’s hearts themselves. Many are afraid of the sea now. Many still dream of their lost ones. This week, our intern, told me she had been dreaming of her brother last night, and that she missed him a lot. The way she said it made me think that he was just off in another town, going to university perhaps. But when asked, she said that no, he had disappeared in the tsunami. She said that they had hoped for weeks that he’d just show up again at their home… but as time went on, they just had to realize that he wasn’t coming back. She said she missed him so much, he had always given her such good advice and helped her out whenever she had a problem. She said that she really missed his advice.

What do you say? What can you do to help people that have suffered something so horrible that the average person who wasn’t there can’t even fathom?

What about all these children who are still living in tents? The children who are stuffed into over-crowded classrooms with little future opportunity? Granted, things were lacking educationally before the tsunami, but it certainly didn’t help matters. But, it has opened the door to this area that has so long been off the beaten path. Happily, there are people here who are working hard to make things better. And I’m excited to be amongst them, to do what little I can.

I’m a firm believer that a good education is an avenue for good opportunities on so many levels. A decent education allows a person to have the chance to do more with his or her life, it gives her/him a voice, self-esteem, and hopefully the capacity to dream, and to try to do something about that dream. When asked what sort of things they wanted NGO’s to help them with developmentally here, one big request was English and technology education. So, I’m excited to be help with the former, however as many of you know, I’m not that handy with the latter! There are many people here in Meulaboh doing everything from rebuilding homes, to giving business grants, to working in the educational sector.

If you want to support what FHI (Food for the Hungry) is doing here in Meulaboh just click on the Food for the Hungry link on the right side-bar here on this page! (yes, it's a shameless plug, but it's a great cause!)

Well, this has gotten long, and a bit soap-boxish. There’s a lot of stuff one just has to work through here. But, there ya have it!
Enjoy the pictures.