Half day's work

Today is Friday, and the local Indonesian workers, being of the Islamic faith, had to go for their prayers in the afternoon. Therefore, we were only required to work in the morning. We removed the wooden mould at land plot #118 and found that the cement which we had poured in yesterday was already all dry. We then assisted the home-owner to cut even more steel bars, and bent more steel rings to be used as vertical reinforcement columns. The home-owner himself was busy making the wooden moulds for those same vertical columns.

At some point in the late morning - one tended to lose track of time in idyllic Tibang - the village chief came up to me and extended his warmest welcome and thanks for the work Team Pembantuan had been doing in his community. He had not been able to come meet us earlier in the week, as he had been tied up with supervising the reconstruction of a local school and a clinic elsewhere in the village. Many thanks to Adele, who served as our interpretor. :)

Hock Teck and Aan bending steel rods into rings, while in the background, wooden planks were being fixed around the vertical steel reinforcements

The home-owner and a fellow skilled labourer were busy at work, getting the vertical columns ready

No proper goodbyes :-(

As it was going to be our last day working in Tibang, we had hoped to say our proper goodbyes to the villagers, especially to the children with whom we had grown to be close and comfortable. However, there were very, very few people in the streets today. It was almost as eerily quiet as the day we first came to Tibang. Perhaps the villagers were all gathered to the village mosque for morning prayers or for some other community activities.

We did manage to see a few farewells to some of the villagers. Wai Yan also left behind some origami paper, colour markers and stickers for the children. And as we gathered to take a final photo with the family in land plot #184, a massive sandstorm blew its way across Tibang. At around noon, we left Tibang for the last time, with grains of sand in our clothes, hair and faces and with our hearts heavy within us.

Visiting other disaster areas

We headed to the rented house in the city area of Banda Aceh, where Thay, Aan and the other staff of the Indonesian Habitat affiliate were staying. There, we had our lunch, after which we were on the road again to see the damage done by the tsunami in other parts of Banda Aceh.

Photo :- Eventually, we all must die

The grafitti on the walls of this building goes something like "The owner of this house is still alive. Tsunami. 26 December 2004. Eventually, we all must die."

Photo :- Parts of a bridge

A section of a former bridge still remained in the river.

Photo :- Shelter in shambles

Hiew takes shelter from the rain with two other Acehnese, in what's left of a house.

Photo :- Ship aground

This ship used to be in the waters by the coast, generating electricity for the city. Now, it has been washed ashore, and generates electricity on land. According to some reports, some bodies still remain crushed under this ship, unable to be retrieved.

Photo :- Trees uprooted

Huge trees were uprooted and left to rot along the coast. You can tell how big this tree was, by comparing it to the height of the man standing a few metres away from its roots.

Photo :- Vertical zone of death

Along the coast, an originally densely vegetated hill has now been stripped of greenery near its base. The height of the exposed rocky regions shows how high the tsunami waves reached when they struck shore.

Photo :- They came barging in

This massive Singapore-registered coal-carrying barge, together with another smaller vessel, were washed ashore by the tsunami, and now lay right smack across one of the main roads.

Warung Kopi

After our solemn visit around the coastal region of Aceh, Thay and Aan brought us to one of the neighbourhood warung kopi (coffee shop) to sample the famous Acehnese coffee. It was a cosy place, but I personally wasn't in any mood for coffee and relaxation. After what I had seen today, I couldn't help but imagine the tsunami waves rising up over the horizon, sweeping over the land and stripping it of buildings and trees while people screamed and ran in vain for their lives. Few could outrun the water, even fewer could survive. I heard that in some regions of Indonesia, such as Meubolah, the damage was far worse - entire communities were wiped out with almost no survivors.

That night, Team Pembantuan decided to have dinner again at the Banda Aceh Seafood Restaurant. It was our last dinner there. And somewhere else in Aceh on this day, Dutch Red Cross worker Marije Mellegers was hit by two bullets in the leg.