Parting after evening prayers at the seaside mosque, Kuntoro agreed to meet early next morning at the military airport for a run down to Calang (pronounced Cha-LANG). So the next day, 20 of us—commuting nurses, BRR and other officials, and Tuti, Kuntoro's wife—climbed into the Russian Mil Mi-8 with its all-white United Nations livery.
“Helicopter made in Russia, but very reliable,” one of the crew cheerfully told us before running through the seatbelt drill. Some of us wondered. The beast heaved and sank several times before it finally got up the gumption to lift off with a head-splitting roar. But soon enough, we were hopping over mountains and bays, and across miles and miles of fabulous sandy beaches.
Looking inland, in bay after bay we saw what seemed like garden plots, as if the patterns marked off different crops. But closer up you could see the patterns were foundations, remnants of vanished villages—and huddled farther inland, where the hills climbed up to the mountains, were the tattered tent encampments housing survivors.
Eventually, we circled in the rain over a bay on the edge of the tent city Calang had become. We put down on a sodden patch of ground, and squished our way to awaiting vans. We were here to cut the ribbon opening a new medical clinic, just a couple of minutes' drive away.
There were speeches, prayers, songs and more speeches. Men, under the spell of soaring chants and the pounding of drums, performed a traditional dance, Rapai Debus, each one repeatedly stabbing an implement into his inner thighs, proof that pain could be conquered. Later, tables were brought out, listing under all the food—which everyone tucked into, but only after touring the clinic.
This was a sight: it was made of crudely cut whitewashed timber, with enormous shuttered glassless windows. Inside, plant life sprang up from the ground through two wells in the linoleum-covered floor. It was really more like an open-air garden with surgeries, lab, pharmacy, wards and registry office ringing it.
Everyone beamed: clinic staff, townsfolk who built it, Spanish and other NGO workers who helped, BRR reps and assorted others. Outside, with paint-soaked hands, we all slapped our imprints on one wall, personal proof that we had witnessed history.
It was historic all right, but Calang's sea of proud, smiling faces made it more than that. If they could wear smiles this big after what they had been through only months before, renewal really was possible.
Eventually we drove back to our makeshift heliport for the return trip to Banda Aceh. And again the big Russian bird heaved, groaned and roared louder and louder till we were airborne once more and starting back up the rainy coast—for a stop first at Lamno. There, we sank our landing gear into a sodden sports field and climbed into vans for the ride into town. We were headed for the central mosque to feast on lamb, vegetables and fruit, for we were here to raise money and remember the orphans.
By the time December 26 came and went, their number had spiked by more than 1,400.
You couldn't talk to your neighbor, even if you wanted to, on the journey back to Banda Aceh. But everyone looked like they wanted to be alone with their own thoughts. The day had given us all plenty to think about.
