Terror Lingers As Tsunami Survivors Rebuild

By David Snyder

Marwani sits on the living room floor, her youngest daughter climbing in her lap. The devastation of December 26, 2004, seems a world away from her present life. But for Marwani, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name, thoughts of the tsunami that struck that day bring the horror back quickly.

"When I looked at the sea it was like a black wall," Marwani says. "Then there was a scream—'Wave! Wave!' "

Marwani was one of the 1,500 villagers of Suak Bidok whose homes sat just yards from the sea in Indonesia's Aceh region. Like all of her neighbors, Marwani was terrified by what she saw coming. With her two oldest children away from the house, and her husband down by the seashore, she did the only thing she could think to do. Grabbing her two youngest children, the 5-year-old and the 13-month-old, she ducked behind her house. The wave approached with a sound she describes as "like a train." It hit with unspeakable force.

"The children held onto my shoulders, but they were torn free when I was knocked over," Marwani says. "I was carried inland [more than a mile]."

Saved eventually when she came to rest atop a pile of debris, Marwani found herself surrounded by neighbors also carried inland. Miraculously, her husband and two oldest children survived the wave. Her two youngest, though, were torn from her grasp by the force of the water. They were never found.

For Marwani and hundreds of thousands of other Indonesians, the road ahead seemed impossibly long.

"The day after the tsunami, my husband came back to look at the house," Marwani remembers. "Just the slab of the house remained."

Few who heard such stories in the months after the Indian Ocean tsunami can forget the scale of that disaster. The tsunami affected 11 countries in all, killing more than 225,000 people across Asia. Aceh, the closest land to the epicenter of the earthquake that caused the tsunami, was particularly hard hit. More than 166,000 people died here.

Rebuilding Inland

As the four-year anniversary of the tsunami approaches, Aceh's story is no longer one of devastation, but one of recovery. For Marwani, her husband and their two surviving children, that recovery began in the weeks after the tsunami. After briefly staying with a sister whose home survived the wave, Marwani and her family moved into a tent shelter provided by Catholic Relief Services as part of the agency's emergency response.

Because the site of their original village was nearly washed away, the government provided the Suak Bidok residents property almost two miles inland on which to rebuild. After one year, CRS provided the materials for Marwani and her family to build a semi-permanent house, complete with metal roofing and wooden walls—still not home, but a far cry from the tents which had housed hundreds of thousands in the aftermath of the disaster. Marwani's was one of the 3,982 homes to be built by CRS in Aceh.

Today, the village of Suak Bidok has been rebuilt. Neatly ordered houses line the streets and residents enjoy electricity and plumbing. For many, the houses offer more space and convenience than they had before the tsunami, with three rooms plus a small kitchen and bathroom attached to the back. In Marwani's yard, a well—also provided by CRS—supplies water for washing and bathing. Working as a laborer on a rubber plantation, Marwani's husband has saved enough over the years to provide the family not only with the essentials they need, but also a few amenities, like a TV and a small stereo. It has not been easy, Marwani says.

"Before, we had our own rubber trees," she explains. "But they were destroyed by the tsunami. So now my husband has to share his profit with the tree owners."

Still, looking back on the dark days after the tsunami, Marwani knows that the scars of that day are slowly healing. She and her husband have had another child, 2-year-old Tuti Dahliani, and while few days go by when she does not think of the children she lost, Marwani says that the new home was also the start of a new life for her and her family.

"When we compare this house to our previous one, we are very happy," Marwani says. "Day by day, month by month, we are trying to get past what happened."

David Snyder is a photojournalist who has traveled to more than 30 countries with CRS.