TARA SOSROWARDOYO FOR TIME

Offerings: Latif found a calling in assisting Bali victims

The Samaritan
	Out of evil, a measure of good
	By Andrew Perrin | Denpasar

Posted Monday, October 6, 2003; 21:00 HKT

		A Time for Healing For many, life will never be the same after the tragedy of Oct. 12. One year on, TIME meets five people who were dramatically affected by the Bali bombings—from a grieving brother to a woman who found love in the least likely of circumstances: The Brother Showing the heart of a fighter The Caregiver "I'm one of the very, very lucky ones" The Cop His work is just beginning The Survivor The man who cheated death The Samaritan Out of evil, a measure of good

If Wanda Latif hadn't felt unwell on the night of Oct. 12 last year, she would have been partying inside Paddy's Irish Pub when the bombs went off. If, two days later, chance had not taken her to Denpasar's Sanglah Hospital, where victims of the blast were treated, she would never have become a friend upon whom Indonesian victims and their relatives came to depend. If not for the horror of the Bali bombings, she might never have met her husband—and she would not now be pregnant with their first child.

This unlikely sequence of events was set in motion when Latif, a Javanese Muslim, escorted to Sanglah Hospital an Australian guest of the luxury resort in Bali where she works as a senior manager. He wanted to donate blood; she was there to make sure he didn't get lost. They arrived at the hospital to find a long queue of mostly Australian donors standing in the hot sun outside the clinic. "My guest was No. 186 in the line," she says. "I was amazed. It was Australians who were giving blood and very few Indonesians. I was standing in line thinking, 'this is my country; I should be helping.'"

So Latif began talking to relatives of the Indonesian victims gathered outside the wards. She learned that many of them—poor villagers who had rushed to Bali from other islands in Indonesia—could not even afford to buy food. She started soliciting help from her hotel-industry contacts; some donated food and blankets, others money. "The families came to rely on the handouts," she says. Soon she was visiting the hospital every day, sometimes staying long past midnight. As her relationship with victims and their relatives developed, so did the role she performed. She convinced overworked doctors not to discharge patients who had not fully recovered. She cajoled morgue attendants to release the results of DNA tests to allow relatives to grieve. For those whose injuries were beyond the capabilities of local hospitals, she arranged through an Australian foundation trips to a specialist burn unit in Perth. Soon her four-bedroom house became a rehabilitation center for victims with no one to care for them.

When the pain she witnessed became too much, she reflected on the words of her late father, a Muslim cleric, counseling her as a child that "out of disaster come blessings." Her blessing came in the form of a 30-year-old man from Jakarta, the brother of one of the victims. She had met him on the first day she visited Sanglah, had given him food and blankets—and had forgotten him. But he didn't forget her act of charity. Over the next few months, Latif's mobile phone ran hot with text messages from her admirer. When he suddenly proposed in March, she tried to convince him that he was making a mistake. She felt that, at 37, she was too old. "He told me the Prophet Muhammad was married to an older woman." In July, a month after her wedding, she discovered she was pregnant. "I felt guilty to be so happy," she says. "But this baby gave my husband's relatives hope: they said, 'now we have another member of the family.'"

Despite her Muslim faith there is no ill will expressed toward her by the Hindu Balinese. "People here respect you for who you are and not because of the color of your skin or your religion," she says. It is a lesson she will teach her unborn child—a son, she's certain—when he's old enough to understand. And she will tell him one more thing: that in life, a person can be blessed even amid the worst suffering. Then, she says, she will pull him close and whisper in his ear, "And I thank God for this."

	A New Wave Of Terror? [August 22, 2003] A deadly Jakarta bombing raises questions about the effectiveness of Indonesia's antiterror measures Poisonous Minds [June 25, 2003] As Asian governments crack down, terrorists may be adopting frightening new tactics Al-Qaeda's Asian Web of Terror [December 4, 2002] By using regional affiliates, the terrorist organization returns to an old tactic Where Will They Strike Next? [November 25, 2002] Police have netted the mastermind of the deadly Bali bombings. But more terrorists are out there—and they're making plans More Related Items | Search all issues of TIME Magazine