On the Road to Calang [Voices from the Archive]
Posted by Peter Biro on 27 December, 2007
 Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC |
| Earlier this year, Peter Biro returned to Aceh, Indonesia, where he was part of the IRC’s emergency response after the devastating tsunami of December 26, 2004.
(20 March 2007) I join a group of International Rescue Committee colleagues for the six-hour car journey to Calang, further south on the Sumatran coast. The small fishing town was completely wiped off the map by the earthquake and the subsequent tsunami, and when the IRC arrived here as the first international organization, the task to rebuild this community seemed enormous. The trip back then took us 22 hours on board the Farabi, an IRC-chartered fishing boat bringing in badly needed supplies to survivors. Debris from capsized fishing boats was abundant and when darkness fell, our captain slowed down the engine and scanned the water with a searchlight. “Now it is much easier,” laughs Intan, the IRC’s water and sanitation engineer, as I tell the story. “A new road has been built slightly inland from the old coastal road. We should be there in six hours.” After a few hours we stop at a small river, where the IRC has helped the community to get a vital ferry linking two villages cut off by the tsunami. As we make the crossing I ask the operator, Yogi Efendi, what post-tsunami life is like here, in the countryside. Is his village going through the same dramatic changes as the provincial capital? “Yes, things are getting better,” he said just as a huge, prehistoric-looking monitor lizard crawled from the water onto a small islet in the river. “After the tsunami we lost everything. My father and brother died. There were 1,200 people living here. Now only 300 remain.” Yogi Efendi told me that the tsunami also split his village, Kuala Ligan, from their neighbours. “We always traded with people around here,” he said as we pulled up to the shore, letting a group of people onto the vessel. “After the tsunami we felt isolated. This ferry links the people again and business in much better.” “And the money that the community makes from the ferry is reinvested in agricultural projects in the village,” adds Isma, who helps coordinate the project for the IRC. “In the village we have also built a new community center, and football and volleyball pitches so that the young people have something to do. We are also helping small businesses to restart by donating animals and motorcycle taxis.” When our four-wheel drive finally reaches Calang, we pull into a relatively large compound made up of a dozen concrete houses and some prefabricated office modules from which a range of IRC programs are coordinated. It was on this very same spot that IRC’s emergency team set up its first base consisting of two medium sized tents. Back then, the town was frequently rocked by strong and unnerving aftershocks and sleeping on the ground under the canvas was difficult. Today, Calang once again resembles any other small Indonesian fishing town. The entire center has been rebuilt and there are hardly any signs of the enormous disaster that completely flattened the town and killed the majority of its 10,000 people in the process. Near the small harbor, the fishmongers, who have received IRC support to restart their businesses, are packing up for the day. And as the sun sets, the beautifully haunting sound of the call to prayer choruses from a dozen nearby mosques. Tonight, as I fall asleep in my little room, I can hear the roar of the waves breaking onto the sandy beach less than ten meters from my window. And I can’t help but thinking about all the people who died here. Earlier: Banda Aceh Revisited Next: At Sea with Marzuki |
