Hawa
is an enterprising young woman. When we are introduced, she
is busy lighting a charcoal stove. The mid-morning heat seems
not to slow her down as she joyfully goes about her cooking.
A swarm of houseflies hovers noisily over her utensils. She
wards some off, but they return in no time. Soon a big pan is
placed on the stove and the goat meat starts to steam away.
In another pan, she empties packets of spaghetti and starts
breaking them up.
Hawa, 35, cooks outside an unsteady shack, supported by frail
sticks, covered with orange tarpaulins and torn sacks. It is
now a common scene in Hafun.
The Somali town was badly hit by the tsunami on 26 December
2004, forcing many households like Hawa’s to make their
home in these shaky shelters, made from the plastic sheeting
they received from aid agencies. Their houses and all they contained
were washed away by the raging tides. But life has to go on.
Residents of Hafun are still trying to understand why nature
turned on them and their thriving little town in such a violent
manner. Some think it was an act of God, to show that he is
still the almighty. Many believe it is a punishment from Allah,
for their evil ways, while others speculate that an underwater
test went awfully wrong.
Whatever the explanation, one thing is clear: their way of life
was brought to a sudden halt. Picking up the pieces may take
years.
For Hawa, a well-established restaurant business was reduced
to nothing. But she is determined to start it up again. She
is intending to sell the spaghetti and goat to residents in
the new settlement.
But where had she got the money to buy the food for her hovel
of a restaurant? Amid the destruction, Hawa had had a small
stroke of luck.
She had sent some truck drivers to buy her some supplies from
Bossasso. They were due back in Hafun on 26 December, but
were delayed. When the tsunami struck, her investment was saved.
Today, with Unicef tarpaulins, a few salvaged household items
and a life, Hawa has set up the shed she calls a restaurant
and she is surely picking her pieces up.
“If it is Allah’s will,” she says, “I
will one day own a big restaurant like the one that was swept
away.” Today, a meal of spaghetti, goat meat and a blemished
banana costs up to 60,000 Somali shillings (US$ 4 dollars)
Elsewhere in Hafun, residents are trying to re-establish their
small businesses. Small items for sale are on display, from
torches to perfumes, razor blades to biscuits. Maybe these modest
items are the beginnings of the restoration of a once booming
commercial centre.
One “shopkeeper”, Saidi Jamar, stands in front of
his well-organized shack, which contains a colourful array of
torches, perfumes, small radios and ladies’ scarves of
all shades. Like many others, Saidi lost most of his household
items in the tsunami, but he feels lucky that Allah allowed
him to live.
“I think that Allah wanted to give me a second chance
and I am not going to waste it. The tsunami was an act of Allah,
and we must live on after it,” Saidi says. But maybe he
wouldn’t be so upbeat if he hadn’t had time to run
to the mountains taking with him some money and merchandise
from his shop.
Unlike Saidi and Hawa, many people were not able to save anything.
They simply ran for their lives without looking back to see
what they could salvage. Ali Haji, a 45 year old fisherman,
was one of them.
“All the years I have been fishing, I had never seen anything
like the tsunami,” he recollects, a shocked expression
on his face.
Fishing was the mainstay of the local economy. The shark, lobster
and kingfish caught were mostly exported to Yemen. At the height
of the fishing season, fishermen like Ali could make up to 200
dollars on a good day. People came from as far away as Tanzania
to tap into this lucrative business.
That was all before the tsunami, which destroyed both of Ali’s
boats, as well as killing one of his two sons, who was out fishing
that day. The other has been completely traumatized by the disaster.
“He could not bear the loss of the things that he had
lived for,” Ali explains.
The son is not alone. It is clear that post-tsunami rehabilitation
will have to pay much attention to psychological and mental
disorders among the survivors, and this will continue to be
one of the priorities of the Somali Red Crescent, whose volunteers
and staff have been providing a wide range of services - from
psychological support, basic health care, distribution of food
and non-food items to garbage and debris removal – since
the tsunami struck
The SRCS is working closely with the Federation, the International
Committee of the Red Cross, as well as other partners present
in the country, including United Nations agencies such as UNICEF,
WHO and WFP under the coordination of OCHA.
As he points out the destroyed boats and mangled nets strewn
across the sandy coast, Ali laments: “we know no other
job but fishing. If people can help us get new fishing equipment,
we could try to get back on our feet.”
Like Ali Haji, Abdi Khadir, a retired veterinary doctor, lost
his son in the tsunami. The previous month, he had lost another
son in floods. “I still can’t believe that all this
happened to me in just two months, but maybe that is how God
wanted it to be,” Abdi says in a resigned tone, as he
takes me to see his destroyed house, and on to what used to
be his well, now filled with sand and giant crabs.
“I saw the water recede up to 2 kilometers away, and I
also watched it coming back with waves almost 40 feet high.
All I could do was run to the mountains,” he recalls.
What Abdi seems to miss most are his numerous documents, none
of which he was able to save.
Since the disaster, the 60-year-old has put up a shed, which
he now calls home, although he tells me that he spends most
of his time at the ruins of his house, because he feels that
is where he belongs.
While the people of Hafun try to pick up the broken pieces
of their lives, there are those who seek to take advantage of
the situation. Commodity prices are being hiked and conmen are
posing as humanitarian workers. People are now paying up to
80,000 Somali shillings for a 20 litre jerry can of water which
used to sell for just 2,000.
The presence of those who would capitalise on the suffering
of this battered community makes the chance of recovery for
people like Asha Ainab harder.
Asha lays on a mattress in her ramshackle shelter, attempting
to wipe tears from her eyes with one hand and pats her thigh
repeatedly with the other, as if in much agony. She stops crying
when she sees us and attempts to greet us in a language we cannot
speak. “Assalam Aleikum” we chorus in the common
Islam greeting. “Waaleikum Ssalam,” she replies
faintly.
Asha, 60, survived the tsunami only by a miracle. Years before,
she suffered a stroke that paralysed her left hand and leg.
She lived at the mercy of her caretakers, who helped her do
every little thing that required movement.
But on the day of the tsunami, none of them was there for her.
Everyone’s first thought was for their own lives. Asha
was very much an afterthought.
The tsunami found her basking in the midday sun. Most of her
family members were out working or in town. She saw the raging
waves coming, but couldn’t move. Before she knew it, she
was being carried along with oil drums, saucepans and anything
else gushing waters picked up.
“I knew that death had come upon me. I tried to move,
but I couldn’t win the battle,” Asha explains, obviously
suppressing the urge to cry. The waves, though, deposited her
somewhere in the sand, where she remained until her son, Ahmed,
found her late in the evening, sick, shivering and almost buried
in rubble. Her right leg was broken
Ahmed and other family members say Asha always asks them to
leave her to die. She no longer sees a purpose in life and doesn’t
want to be a burden on her family. But they will not give up
looking for solutions. Having lost most of their property and
business, finding money to take her to a hospital in nearby
Bossasso has proved a big challenge. She is still getting treatment
from traditional Somali doctors.
Heartrending stories like Asha’s abound in Hafun.
Restaurant owner Fatmah Saidi recounts how she was unable to
save her disabled five-year-old son. When the ocean receded,
she knew something was wrong. As she cleared the tables, she
watched as excited coastal dwellers rushed to the exposed ocean
bed to pick up fish, lobsters and other treasures. In a flash,
the ocean came raging back, submerging many people.
Fatmah quickly took her youngest child and ran to the mountains.
When she came back, she found her son already dead. He was one
of five children confirmed dead in Hafun. To this day, Fatmah
says, the image of her dead son has not left her.
Everyone in Hafun has a story to tell about their loss. Some
had the comfort of being able to identify the bodies of their
loved ones among the 19 that were recovered. But for others,
their dear ones could be any of the 131 people who, the local
authorities say, are still missing.
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This
Somali woman lost one of her children in the tsunami (p-SOM0001)
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Fisherman
Ali Haji shows the destroyed nets strewn over Hafun’s
beach. Ali lost a son and his livelihood in the disaster
(p-SOM0007)
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Many
people in Hafun are trying to rebuild their businesses.
Saidi Jamar has created a shop in his temporary shelter
(p12592)
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A
Somali Red Crescent volunteer helps out in the clean-up
operation. The Red Crescent has been engaged in a variety
of activities, including psychological support, basic
health care and distribution of relief items (p12594)
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A
woman carries water back to her house from the newly constructed
source. Many people who cannot walk the distance are forced
to buy water at exorbitant rates from vendors (p12591)
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