The
hero of the green and grey tent city of Hamadan is bright red,
soft and fluffy. “Topolino, Topolino,” a hundred
children’s voices resound.
Topolino thanks them with a short bow. Then everything goes
quiet, and Topolino tells his short story. It is funny and colourful,
in contrast to the world in which his audience lives.
Topolino is a hand puppet. He speaks with a twang and fools
around in a cheerful, merry voice, making the children forget
the heaps of rubble that loom around the Red Crescent camp.
Bam is a city of ruins; 85 per cent of its buildings have been
destroyed and almost half its inhabitants – more than
43,000 people - were killed in the earthquake on 26 December.
The survivors found shelter in tents on street pavements or
in organized camps.
Lingering silence
Driving away grief and sorrow, if only for a short while, is
not an easy job for Topolino.
A threatening silence lingers over the streets of Bam, a silence
that threatens to stifle any laughter.
But Topolino is a regular visitor to the Hamadan camp and to
other camps in the city, and the children know that this small
red puppet can conjure up a smile.
So a crowd of children sits tightly packed on large, multi-coloured
carpets in front of a white tent, Topolino’s stage. Usually
the tent is home to the camp’s kindergarten. Home-made
pictures have been stuck to the tarpaulin, a plastic frog dangles
from the awning, swaying back and forth in the wind. Using wax
crayons, small hands have scribbled big houses and colourful
flowers – a reminder of the Bam that disappeared in the
space of 12 seconds on 26 December.
A contented Ahgdas Kafi looks out over the children’s
heads. With her “psycho-social support” team, she
has helped thousands of people in Bam. Since the earthquake,
20 voluntary workers and five psychiatrists of the Iranian Red
Crescent have been at the disposal of those affected.
Topolino’s performance is part of the programme, as well
as consultations with adults, group sessions or painting therapy
for children. The methods and approaches are different, the
goal is the same: giving back the will to live and the courage
to face life.
Longing for normality
The presence in the camp of a school and kindergarten represents
a kind of familiarity. In Bam everybody is longing for security
and normality. “We must encourage the people here and
open up perspectives for them,” Ahgdas Kafi explains.
Not far from the camp there is a banner stretching across the
entrance of a shop. Of the shop itself nothing remains but a
heap of reddish-brown clay bricks, but the length of white cloth
defiantly proclaims “Bam is still alive”.
Rebuilding this shattered city will require courage and perseverance.
It will be a new Bam, a different Bam.
Bam’s future lies with its children. However, they are
the most vulnerable victims. At one of Bam’s main roads,
Sajedeh is standing. “When I look in the direction of
the mountains, everything is as it used to be” the ten-year-old
girl says pointing to the old Mercedes trucks thundering past
her on the street, trailing clouds of dust behind them.
Beyond them, in the distance, majestic, snow-covered summits
point to the sky. It makes for a magnificent view, free from
ruins. Between the road and the mountains stretches a barren,
stony desert landscape.
Behind Sajedeh, the sad reality takes shape - a row of tents
stands in front of a bleak desert of rubble, devoid of hope.
It is late in the afternoon. The few remains of ramshackle brickwork
cast long shadows over the heaps of rubble. Here and there,
a dust-covered palm tree towers above the mounds.
Flags for the dead
Sajedeh lost a brother and two sisters in the ruins. The girl
talks about her siblings as if the three children will be with
her again the next day, as if, by itself, a heap of clay bricks
could re-arrange itself into a grand building.
Above Bam’s main cemetery, thousands of flags flutter
in the wind. At each of the innumerable new graves, a flag has
been planted. Often a whole family has been buried, leaving
no survivor to mourn the dead.
It is hard, but Sajedeh is coming to accept her loss. She looks
into her parents’ faces, with a stony face marked by infinite
sorrow and sadness. These are the moments when the girl realizes
that the life of her family will never be the same again.
The ten-year-old has come to learn that she must be strong,
acting as a stand-in mother to her younger siblings. She organizes
small games, hugs her youngest brother when he is in tears.
“The little ones often cry at night. Recently the earth
has been shaken again, so it has been worse than usually. Then
mother and I have comforted them,” she says.
Children's laughter
“It is the children who find it most difficult to understand
the consequences of the earthquake. In just a few seconds they
have lost everything that gave them a sense of security: family,
friends, the house they lived in. More than 7,500 lost at least
one of their parents. This is exactly why the psycho-social
programme of the Red Crescent is important. What is a world
worth without children laughing,” Iain Logan, head of
the Federation’s operation in Bam points out.
Near the Sajedeh family’s Red Crescent tents, an old car
is parked. The portraits of four children, photocopied on white
paper, have been fixed to the inside rear windscreen - four
children who paid for the earthquake with their lives.
As the driver sees Sajedeh and her siblings playing, he watches
them for a while. “I’d give anything to see my children
playing like this. What kind of future have I got,” he
says quietly.
In the distance a cloud of dust rises. Excavators start clearing
away the rubble. Not far away prefabricated houses are being
erected. A new chapter of the city’s history is being
written in Bam. It starts with pain, but for Sajedeh and her
siblings it will bring a new future.
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If
only for a short while, children at the Hamadan camp are
able to forget the sadness of their everyday lives when
Topolino visits (p11233)
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To
the children, Topolino is an entertaining puppet, but
he is also part of the psycho-social programme aimed at
helping children come to terms with their grief (p11234)
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Ahgdas
Kafi (right) is reponsible for the Red Crescent psycho-social
support programme in Bam (p11231)
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In
just a few seconds, many of Bam's children lost everything
that gave them a sense of security: family, friends and
home (p11235)
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Ten-year-old
Sajedeh often acts as a stand-in mother to her younger
siblings (p11237)
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