When
the tsunami of 26 December 26 completely destroyed the home
port of Malahayati and the Inong Balee - or Widow Warriors -
it created a land of widows, orphans and widowers, as it did
all along the coast of Aceh province.
The tsunami killed 800 people in the three village neighbourhoods
of Kreung Raya, and left only nine houses standing. The Canadian
Red Cross will rebuild over 700 homes in the area and American
Red Cross will provide water and sanitation support. The Netherlands
Red Cross – in partnership with an Indonesian NGO - is
also funding the rebuilding of almost 200 permanent houses here,
many of which are nearing completion.
More than 400 years ago, Malahayati’s husband, Sultan
Alauddin, won a decisive war against the Portugese, but only
at the cost of thousands of Aceh’s best male warriors.
The loss of the warriors was a terrible blow and left Aceh seemingly
helpless and vulnerable to invasion by the next force to come
along.
The sultan asked Malahayati to form and command a new navy.
Malahayati – who had been serving as palace commander
– created a brigade out of the widows of the Sultan’s
dead soldiers.
A handful of Kreung Raya’s tsunami survivors live in a
row of shacks at the foot of the stairs leading to Malahayati’s
hilltop grave. One of them, Sawihya, is shy because she lost
her front teeth when the wave crushed her home and left her
unconscious at the bottom of Malahayati Hill. She also lost
her mother, and for an awful part of a day, thought she had
become a widow, too.
Sawihya did find her husband. Almost immediately, the two of
them began gathering battered and broken scraps of tsunami debris
and cobbled together a shelter only metres from where the wave
had left her.
Sawihya says that she is finally cooking as often as she did
before tsunami. But, she says, “this is not home. The
land belongs to someone else. That does not feel comfortable.”
Less than 50 metres down the lane from Malahayati Hill, men
from Sawihya’s village are hard at work building brick
homes. One of these homes and the land it stands on will belong
to Sawihya and her husband.
Rebuilding lives
Materials and funding for the houses is supplied in part by
the Netherlands Red Cross, through a partnership with the Jakarta
branch of womens’ group, Soroptimist International.
Indonesian businesswoman Lily Kasoem of Soroptimist Jakarta
arrived in the city of Banda Aceh on the fourth day of the disaster.
Ms Kasoem decided to focus her efforts on a neighbourhood village
of Kreung Raya. She arranged food distributions and almost immediately
began seeking funds and permissions to help rebuild the village.
The first phase of the project includes rebuilding 195 homes,
80 of them on land deeded to the project on a high hill above
the port, the other 115 inland at the foot of Malahayati Hill.
When the homes are built, perhaps as soon as October of this
year, villagers will receive the houses by a lottery system
in order to avoid disputes.
While Sawihya waits, she says life is returning to normal because
she has started cooking again. And she wonders out loud with
a laugh if the Red Cross might help get her some new front teeth.
Widow Warriors
Over a bridge and up another hill is the crumbled, overgrown
seaside fortress of Malahayati and the Widow Warriors. Or so
the story goes.
From this fortress with its long view of the sea, Malahayati
and her Widow Warriors commanded hundreds of ships and ruled
the waves of the Straits of Malacca for years.
Malahayati captured imaginations and gained her enduring place
in Acehnese history when just off the port of Kreung Raya, she
and the 2000 Widow Warriors fought and defeated Dutch marines
on 21 June 1599. Later, it was Malahayati who officially received
the peace envoy from a Dutch prince, returned her captives and
signed a peace treaty.
A widow named Sudarna and her four young sons live in a in a
three-by-three metre shack in an informal camp down the hill
from the fortress. It is close to the provisional school where
Sudarna teaches Grade Three.
Sudarna’s husband used to tend his cows around the ruins
of the fortress. On the morning the of tsunami, he came down
the hill early to go the funeral of a friend.
When Sudarna saw the wave coming, she sent her two older sons
running. Then, carrying the two younger boys under her arms,
she walked steadily to the relative safety of the hill where
the remains of Malahayati’s fortress lie.
Later, she found her husband’s dead body in some bushes.
As Sudarna prayed and washed his body, she whispered her love
and apologies into his ear and told him, “We are all alive,
me and the children.”
Sudarna seems as proud as she is grief-stricken. Like her neighbours
and others all along the tsunami-ravaged coasts of Aceh, she
seems to know that just surviving the tsunami was a feat of
strength. And when the wave was gone, she - like the other survivors
- picked up the remains of her life as best she could and moved
forward.
While tsunami survivors like the women of Kreung Raya try to
move on with their lives, and National Societies like Canadian
Red Cross work with them to plan and build good and permanent
homes and communities, the International Federation of Red Cross
Red Crescent Societies is taking the lead in improving their
temporary living conditions.
Over the next two months, the International Federation relief
department is bringing in 27,000 new family tents and expanding
its role in improving water supply and sanitary conditions in
government-built temporary camps.
This work is done mostly by the tsunami survivors themselves,
with support, materials and guidance of organizations like the
International Federation. It is the survivors who are laying
pipes, planning their new communities and putting nails in boards
and brick-on-brick.
Relief workers here often marvel at the strength, courage and
resiliency of the Acehnese people, especially the women. Some
wonder if it is their faith or some other part of the culture.
Others wonder if it is just in their blood. What ever the reason,
there is no question that the collaboration between affected
populations and the international community is making a positive
contribution to the rebuilding of the lives destroyed by the
tsunami.
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Girl
tsunami survivor rests during "lebana" -drum
song - practice in camp near Kreung Raya on northern tip
of Indonesia's Aceh province. Lebana drum songs encourage
people to "be humble and be good to one another."
Photo: Virgil Grandfield/International Federation (p-IDN0395)
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Tsunami
survivors Mariam (left) and Zulbaida (right) are widows
living in a camp on north coast of Aceh province. Photo:
Virgil Grandfield/International Federation (p-IDN0387)
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Indonesian
businesswoman Lily Kasoem from Soroptimist Jakarta decided
to focus her efforts on a neighbourhood village of Kreung
Raya. Photo: Virgil Grandfield/International Federation
(p13063)
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Sudarna
was made a widow when the tsunami destroyed her village
and killed her husband. Netherlands Red Cross and American
Red Cross have partnered with women's organization Soroptimist
to build 750 houses in Sudarna's village. Photo: Virgil
Grandfield/International Federation (p-IDN0411)
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Sudarna
teaches grade 3 in this tent school in a village on the
north coast of Indonesia's Aceh province. A Netherlands
Red Cross/Soroptimist project is rebuilding schools, libraries
and 750 homes in this area, as well as supporting income
generation projects for women. Photo: Virgil Grandfield/International
Federation (p13060)
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