ASIA

Healing Hands

With the right help, survivors of the Asian tsunami are learning how to move on

By Andrew Marshall

Making Waves, a trauma-therapy program designed to help tsunami victims confront their fear of the ocean, is one of the programs created to confront the shock and grief caused by December's devastating earthquake and tsunami. The World Health Organization estimates that some 500,000 people in Aceh, a province of Indonesia, face mental-health problems. Disaster survivors commonly experience nightmares, guilt, confusion, insomnia and despair. "With most people, these symptoms die down in about six weeks," says Susie Morrison, a trauma expert with International Medical Corps (imc). "But with others, they don't, and this can begin to affect their whole lives." Yet, in many cases, therapy is not a priority. Of more immediate importance to their emotional well-being are physical concerns: health, a home, a job.

That's why the men of the northern Acehnese village of Pante Gurah are hard at work. The tsunami flattened every house in the village and swept in hundreds of dead bodies, along with fishing boats weighing more than 20 tons. Local fishermen—including those who lost wives and children—have propped the boats up with jacks and, with a simple chain-and-pulley system, are dragging them along rollers made from palm trees back toward the water. The International Rescue Committee (IRC), an aid agency, provides the equipment, pays each man a daily wage, and is designing a loan system to help owners fit new engines and make their vessels seaworthy.

Job prospects in Aceh's provincial capital Banda Aceh are bleaker. Scrap collecting and corpse retrieval are the main work in the once-thriving district of Lam Jame, now a dust-choked wasteland of rubble and twisted metal. Amid this desolation, a mobile clinic from Médecins Sans Fronti'res (MSF) is dispensing first aid, tetanus shots, and protective boots and gloves free of charge.

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. "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.

For some survivors, help comes from a more traditional source. The tsunami affected members of three 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 university lecturer in Banda Aceh, whose wife and three sons died in the waters. He spent two months as a volunteer for the 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 answers are closer to earth. In Meulaboh, where three months ago the streets were paved with corpses, 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 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. —from TIME, March 28, 2005

Questions

1. What are some of the symptoms that survivors of disasters commonly suffer?

2. What is the best way to monitor the psychological effects of disasters on children?