Mohammed Yassin has trouble falling asleep at night. But his insomnia is not caused by haunting dreams of a second tsunami — the sound of construction work until late at night is what keeps him, and other Nusa residents, awake.
”Sometimes it goes on until 11pm or midnight,” he said. ”Bang, bang, bang. All the time. Every day. And then they start again at 8am.”
But few people in the Indonesian village, about 9km south-west of the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, are complaining, because the work is for a good cause.
”It’s barracks for the refugees,” Yassin said. ”They will no longer have to live in tents or with their relatives but will have somewhere more permanent to live.”
The five barracks — as the temporary accommodation designed and built by the government for the hundreds of thousands of refugees across Aceh has been dubbed — dominate the village skyline.
Divided into 12 4m-by-5m rooms, with a balcony along one side, the raised wooden buildings with corrugated iron roofs look like modern versions of traditional Indonesian longhouses. Each room has an electric socket and light fitting, and rudimentary bathroom and kitchen blocks are at the back. Five people will be allocated to each room. A mosque is also being built.
Residents of this village of 149 families support the barracks as a stopgap measure to get refugees out of tents and the 70 overcrowded houses that are still habitable. But there are fears that people will be stuck in them for much longer than the two years planned by the government.
”What we really want is to rebuild our houses,” said Nurul Huda (17), who is living in a tent with her family. She is struggling to come to terms with the loss of her younger sister and boyfriend and is resigned to living in a longhouse. ”We want the money given to us to rebuild, not spent on barracks.”
The dilemma for many of the 350 refugees from Nusa and 360 from surrounding villages who are now living in the village is where to rebuild.
”We want to rebuild on safer land,” said Abdul Kadir, the village secretary, whose house is one of 40 still standing but too badly damaged to live in. ”But the land our homes were on has been in our families for decades. That land is like blood to us.”
Food is in short supply, according to the village chief, Mafudz Din, although no one is starving.
”There’s a serious food shortage in Nusa,” he said. ”At the outset there was plenty but now we are not receiving nearly so much. The military sent 93 sacks of rice the other day but it’s not a regular supply, and we only have enough supplies for about a week.”
A soup kitchen, financed by the Istanbul municipal authority, provides two meals a day.
”Every three days we go to the Turks in Banda Aceh,” said Syamsul Fuadi, one of the village religious leaders who is coordinating the kitchen. ”We give them our receipts from the last three days and they give us more money. Sometimes they come shopping with us but usually we do it ourselves.”
New teachers
The village primary school, which caters for children aged six to 12, has three teachers to replace those, including the headteacher, who were killed in the tsunami. The new teachers are from nearby villages whose schools were destroyed. But there has been little other support; chairs and tables damaged by refugees who fled to the school immediately after the disaster have not been repaired or replaced, for example.
One classroom has been requisitioned as a store for food and other supplies for the refugees, leaving a shortage of suitable accommodation.
”It is lucky we have received help from Unicef [the United Nations Children’s Fund],” said Salawati Husein, a teacher promoted to headteacher. ”They have provided the children with education kits and the teachers with new teaching and recreation resources.”
The pupils have also received books, bags and T-shirts from private donors, including a local television station and an American charity.
Of the 115 pupils who attended the school before the disaster, all but two survived. They have been joined by 19 refugees, while four of the original roll have moved to the Islamic school on the edge of the village run by Hidayatullah, an orthodox Islamic organisation from the Indonesian half of Borneo.
”We’ve taken in an extra 15 students,” said Mr Usman, the teacher of the Islamic school, who has lived in Nusa for 18 months and is now helping to look after the refugees camped in his grounds as well as teaching.
”We’ve had tents from Taiwan, the Red Cross, Germany and Switzerland, which have made all the difference,” he said.
Few health problems
As in the rest of the village, there are few health problems, thanks to periodic visits from Turkish, Australian, Japanese and Chinese doctors.
”The only problems are some diarrhoea and the mosquitoes,” according to Mr Usman. ”Some Malaysians came about a month ago to spray the mosquitoes, but since then they have been 10 times as bad.”
The water main has also been reconnected and several standpipes have been erected, although the village chief, Mafudz, is hoping to have two wells dug as a back-up. There is electricity for only three hours each night to a few of the houses still standing, thanks to a couple of generators donated by the Japanese government.
”Each person who wants power has to pay 5 000 rupiah a day and then we connect them,” said Yassin.
The villagers’ priority is to find work. The rice fields are still unusable and, if a UN study released last week is correct, will probably remain so for months. Most of the 70% of villagers who made their living from farming have small plots in the hills where they tend crops such as cassava, chilli and other vegetables.
”It is something, but not enough to make a decent living,” said Mafudz.
Of the remaining 30%, many worked at the local furniture factory, which was destroyed.
”We all helped do some tidying up but we are still waiting for our December wages,” said one employee, Muliyadi. ”Like many of the men, I spent the first few weeks collecting scrap metal from the fields and selling it to dealers, but there is none left. We do not know what to do now.”
Some people have been employed to help with building the barracks and a few have set up small businesses, but many still seem too traumatised.
”People want to work so they can earn money, look after their families and not feel dependent,” said Mafudz. ”But many of us are still too confused to think straight.” — Guardian Unlimited Â