One Year On

You don't need me to remind you that today is the anniversary of last year's tsunami. You'll watch it on TV and read about it in your papers

This is how I first reported it:

Boxing Day Blues

A surfeit of good food, a healthy dose of good friends and happy kids to the good and torrential rain, massive leaks and faulty electrics to the bad. That was going to be my post-Xmas story.

Then I heard the news about the earthquake and tsunami.

This makes my musings seem very trivial.
10:30 PM

You may wish to read my December and January archives as I blogged about little else. How could I?

I don't propose to discuss the progress in Aceh since then although if there has been any 'benefit', it is the cessation of hostilities between the Aceh separatist movement (GAM) and the Indonesian government. If you want wider coverage of the redevelopment in Aceh, I suggest that you visit the Guardian's regularly updated page, Rebuilding Nusa and that of the Jakarta Post, Life After The Tsunami.

All praise to those who have given selflessly of their money, time and skills, with one caveat: how come the Acehnese themselves have not been more involved in the decision making?

On a personal note, I wrote on December 30th about the family of a school friend of 'Er Indoors.

Masli, the husband of Ida, a school friend of 'Er Indoors, has rung Ida from Banda Aceh to say that there is no trace of their house or their daughters. Inside were Yuli, 24, wife of Abral, and their year old daughter, Novi, 22, due to graduate as a doctor next year and Cut Nong, 12, awaiting school results in order to enroll in junior high here in Jakarta.

Most of Abral's family is missing as well. He was in Medan on business when the tsunami struck.

Hope has been extinguished.

Today, along with SBY and umpteen dignitaries, Masli, Ida and Abral are in Aceh, for services of remembrance. They have started to rebuild their lives here in Jakarta..

A friend of theirs, widowed in the tsunami, has entrusted Masl and Ida with the care of one of her two daughters. And so a family rebuilds, slowly.

Much like Aceh.
 

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