Bakersfield.com

By: Cindy Ramming

What’s it like to survive a tsunami? How can a region obliterated by massive amounts of black water and debris ever recover from such a disaster?

 

Those are the questions I asked myself when I heard about the December 26, 2004 tsunami that killed an estimated 300,000 people. Over 100,000 of those who lost their lives lived in Banda Aceh (pronounced Ah-chay), Indonesia, a city roughly three times the size of Bakersfield, and the closest land mass to the 9.0 earthquake which caused the killer wave.

 

Little did I know that 2-1/2 years later I would have the opportunity to go to Banda Aceh with a volunteer team from my church and meet some of the survivors. We spoke with people who lost family members, friends, homes, possessions and jobs. We walked the shore where a 50-foot wave had crashed onto land, obliterating everything and everyone in its path. We visited schools that have been rebuilt because they were destroyed that day. We saw boats that had been swept inland and deposited in the middle of neighborhoods, crushing houses and cars beneath them.

 

But I still cannot tell you what it is like to survive a tsunami. Even standing next to the giant barge, the length of a football field, that had ridden the wave three miles inland, I couldn’t wrap my mind around what it must have been like. I can only understand the way life is today in Banda Aceh.

 

Of the 400,000 people who lost their homes, 40% still live in emergency shelters. Schools affected by the disaster measure their population by “before tsunami/after tsunami” benchmarks (i.e., before, 1500 students; after, 800.) Indonesians walking down the street notice I’m a foreigner and ask, “Where from?” And many, when I answer, “America,” smile and say, “Thank you.”   In the schools, where the volunteer team I traveled with did most of our work, I see well behaved students trying to learn without enough books. In neighborhoods nearest the sea where there used to be a variety of one and two-story homes, there now stands tiny house after identical tiny house. Mostly, Banda Aceh is filled with generous, kind and devout people, people who do know what it is like to survive a tsunami, because they did. 

 

I also understand that the tsunami ended a 30 year civil war in the Aceh Province. The region, once closed to the outside world, is now open to anyone from around the world who is willing to come and help the Acehnese people rebuild their community and their lives. Our team had a small job—practicing English in Junior High Schools with students and teachers—yet, somehow, I feel we accomplished something more. Because now I understand that part of surviving a tsunami is building bridges of kindness and respect between people.

 

 

BOOKS FOR BANDA ACEH

The students in Banda Aceh need books to help them learn English. Can you help? Send tax-deductible donations to Lutheran Church of Prayer, 8001 Panorama Dr., Bakersfield 93306, marked “Books for Banda Aceh”.