The sickest end up at Banda Aceh's only mental hospital. Since the tsunami, a dozen people have been brought here by relatives who feel unable to care for them on their own, or by volunteers at refugee camps who fear the mentally disturbed will lower morale. Mohammed Jumi, 35, from the town of Meulaboh, watched the waves carry off his wife and 5-year-old son. A bearded man with a sumo wrestler's build, he peers anxiously through the bars of his filthy block as a hospital orderly passes with a tray of powerful drugs—the only kind of treatment here. "Do you have any medicine to make me stop crying?" he asks.

Younger survivors are better cared for. "With most children, their lives will normalize, and they'll go back to just being kids," says Amy Wachtel, the IRC's child-protection coordinator. But a small percentage exhibit depression, withdrawal or other symptoms. Schools provide routine and a familiar environment in which teachers and health-care workers can identify pupils with problems by watching them interact with their peers. "School is the best way to find out who needs more care," says Geoffrey Keele, a UNICEF spokesman in Sri Lanka, where, in most tsunami-hit areas, about 80% of children are back in class.

Encouraging children to express themselves is vital to the healing process. At Bakpauh village on Aceh's western coast, Canadian therapist Mary van Veen from the U.S.-based Northwest Medical Teams has been encouraging kids to make drawings. Two months ago, when first presented with paper and crayons, the children simply sat and stared. Then, one by one, they began to draw. "Not all children are very verbal," says van Veen, "but the moment the paper was in their hand, they just drew and ignored us totally."

With the help of Indonesian interpreter Monet Wambrauw, van Veen gently asked the children to explain their pictures. Ten-year-old Salikhah was comparatively lucky: relatives and friends perished, but not her parents. Yet her first picture, drawn entirely in black, showed people swept away by angry waters or fleeing into the hills. "She wouldn't explain the picture," recalls Wambrauw, "but she didn't have to." Other children drew similarly grim scenes and, like Salikhah, hardly touched the color crayons.

But over the weeks, the pictures gradually grew more hopeful. The children drew ships and helicopters. They began using color. "Now you see many suns shining," says Wambrauw. "You don't need to be an experienced psychologist to know that something more cheerful is creeping into their lives." Today, Salikhah has drawn a yellow sun in a bright blue sky.

For some survivors, help comes from a more traditional source. The tsunami pounded devotees of the great faiths—Buddhists in Thailand, Hindus in Sri Lanka and India, Muslims in Indonesia—and religion helps untold millions endure the unendurable. "Only my faith keeps me strong," says Syahrial, 38, a lecturer at Syiah Kuala University in Banda Aceh, whose wife and three sons died in the waters. He then spent two months as a volunteer for the Indonesian Red Cross, collecting corpses. The activity comforted him. "In Islam, this work is fardu kifayah, a common obligation," he says. "Of course, I'm sad. But I believe everything belongs to God, including my family. He can take it back at any time." Some Acehnese believe the tsunami was God's punishment, others that it was a warning.

Traditional Acehnese singer Rafli takes faith and adds another potent element: music. With his group Kande ("Candle"), Rafli is touring refugee camps to bring strength and hope to his beleaguered people. "It is easy to lift people's spirit with an Acehnese song," says the musician, who has sold more than a million albums in the past five years in his home province alone. "Even when we are children, our mothers sing to us in Acehnese. We hear this music from when we are born." At one refugee camp, many people sing along with tears in their eyes. And in between songs, Rafli preaches. "We cannot dwell in trauma for too long," he tells a rapt audience. "We must think of our future. We must pray to God. We must recite the Koran. Then we will find the answers."

Some answers are closer to earth. In Meulaboh, where three months ago the streets were paved with corpses, MSF psychologist Reine Lebel watches local kids wait excitedly for a relief helicopter to take off. "It's so important for adults to see children play again," she says, as the rotors start turning. "It makes them smile. It restores their hope in the future." Then the helicopter ascends, and in an oft-played game, the kids are blown off their feet and onto the grass, where they lie helpless with laughter.

With reporting by Aravind Adiga/Kalmunai, Maria Bakkalapulo/Banda Aceh, Zamira Loebis/Lamno and Andrew Perrin/Koh Nok

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