First I see a baby, and then a beautiful young woman with haunting eyes. “Tsunami,” he whispers, his voice choking as he tries to avoid crying in front of me. I ask our translator if he will translate for me as Mahfoud shares his story with us.
Mahfoud explains that he had his own business and employed several people. He bought land and was moving into a big house next to his brothers. It was close to the beach in the north part of Meulaboh, Indonesia. It was an area busy with life, cafés, and restaurants lining the boardwalk. To have a house in the middle of this was a sign of success.
I ask if it’s possible for us to visit this place, and he agrees to take us there. We drive to the northern part of town and come to an area where it looks as if post-tsunami cleanup has already occurred. There is hardly any rubble or debris, or any sign that this was a thriving area close to the boardwalk. “There hasn’t been any cleanup here,” Mahfoud tells me.
I look around. Surely there can’t have been that many people living here; there is nothing except grazing water buffalo.
I look at Mahfoud, and he leads me to a concrete slab. “This is my house under here, but it’s the floor of my brother’s house,” he says. This sounds a bit cryptic, so I ask him to explain how this is his brother’s floor. He points to another concrete slab and says that his brother’s house was over there, and it was a three-story house. We are standing on the third floor. The first and second floors are lying side by side like dominos.
He takes me back to the 26th of December 2004. It was a cloudy morning, and Mahfoud was hesitant to leave. He needed to go to the Simpat market to sell clothes at one of his many shops. The market was an hour away from his home. He discussed with his wife, Nana Meilina, if he should go. They had been married for more than four years and had an almost two-year-old son, Fakrol Raji. Nana Meilina urged him to go. They had just invested a large sum in new clothes to sell. He looked at her and knew that she was right. They needed the money. He must go to the Simpat market.
He stopped by his shop in Meulaboh to check on things before leaving town. An hour later, he arrived at the Simpat market and felt the large earthquake. Mahfoud quickly got on a motorbike with his friend and headed back toward home. They were close to Meulaboh when the first tsunami wave swept them off their bike. They grabbed a piece of wood and managed to float around for what seemed like 30 minutes. He estimated that the water level was five to six feet deep. Just as suddenly as the wave hit him, it began to pull back. Despite the strong surge, he managed to stay on his feet. He kept walking toward his home until the second wave hit him. This time he could not keep his head above water. He could not breathe; he could not see anything in the black water. He could not swim in the strong current. He was up against forces that were much greater than he was. He thought that these were his last seconds. He was gasping for air when suddenly he felt his friend pulling him up by his hair; he grabbed his friend’s arm and pulled.
At this point, I interrupt and ask the translator if Mahfoud is sure that he was really pulled up by his hair. “Yes,” the translator confirms, “and no, his hair was not longer at that time.”
He must see my surprise, and we both look at Mahfoud. He is balding on top, and where there is hair, it is quite short.
Mahfoud continues his story. After his friend pulled him out of the water by his hair, they both managed to reach a four-story house on the side of the road. They waited—they could not do anything else. When the water went down to chest height, he jumped back in. He waded through the water and all it carried with it. He didn’t seem to sense what was around him; he waded toward his home and prayed that he would find his wife and son.
He got to his house and found several bodies stuck in buildings and trees. His house was gone. He found no sign of his wife or son.
Mahfoud pauses; he looks at us and then looks at the tall coconut trees. “The tsunami,” he says, “was above those coconut trees.”
I look back at him and know why the area is swept clean. Nothing could stand a chance in water levels and waves of such height.
He sighs and tells us that he kept looking around in disbelief. The people, along with the cafés and restaurants, were swept inland toward the city. He now knows that only about three percent of this area’s population survived.
As he looked around for his family, he saw the third wave coming, and he ran to a two-story house that was partly standing. When the third wave had withdrawn to the sea, he continued his search. Not much was left now. Then he recognized some clothes. Yes, this used to belong to his wife, and over there was a piece of his son’s shirt. He roamed around finding some of his own clothes, but no sign of his beloved Nana Meilina or Fakrol Raji.
As Mahfoud talks, tears are running down his face, and I in respect look at the ground. Hearing his pain and sorrow, I feel my eyes swell with tears as well. We silently stand where his house used to be. The place where he saw his wife and son for the last time.
Continuing, Mahfoud tells us that he kept hoping as he kept searching. He wandered through the entire city and helped many people he met on the road. He doesn’t remember how many. He kept walking and searching for days and nights.
He went to the internally displaced persons camp. After a couple of days, he was invited to stay with friends. Mahfoud accepted, but found that his kind friend had many people staying with him. Mahfoud located distant cousins and stayed with them for a time. Since he had lost everything, he could not contribute much to the household and did not want to be a burden. Mahfoud began to spend his nights on the floor in the mosque and looked for work by day.
He owed money from the clothes he had purchased to sell at his shops. His assets were gone. He sold his old car, which was parked where the tsunami didn’t reach, and this enabled him to pay off some debt. It would have been easy for him to claim that he had lost everything and was unable to pay. However, he was convinced that he wanted to pay some of his debt. He also desired to hold a Kenduri (a memorial service) for his wife and son. At this point, Mahfoud felt no need to plan for the future, for what future was there for someone who had lost everything?
Eventually, he found work as a driver in a pickup that belonged to a distant relative. Then Mahfoud became one of ADRA’s Meulaboh drivers. For weeks, he went quietly about his work, always ready to help and assist. One day, his heart spilled over, and he shared his loss with one of the Indonesian ADRA workers. When our ADRA staff heard that Mahfoud had been sleeping in the mosque for several weeks, they invited him to share their living quarters.
The always helpful and smiling Mahfoud. When you get to know him, you see that his smile, though genuine, has sadness to it. His eyes reflect pain and grief, yet he gets up every day and does a great job with ADRA. Friendship has sprung up with several of the ADRA workers from Jakarta, and those of us who are not fluent in Bahasa Indonesian wish we could say something of comfort. All I can do is smile and put my hand on my heart to shown my empathy, and ask the translator to express my sympathy and how his experience has brought tears in my eyes.
Mahfoud is grateful for the opportunity to work with ADRA and shows no bitterness that he now is an employee when he used to be the boss. Those of us who work with him pray that one day he will be able to plan for the future.
