New Homes and New Lives

By Sean Sprague

When the tsunami of December 26, 2004, rushed in to batter the Indonesian province of Aceh, it changed the landscape forever — from an altered coastline after much of it had been washed away, to the loss in family lines after 150,000 people faced the same fate.

Three years later, the landscape has seen new changes, this time with efforts to make things whole again. Where the province was covered in debris or simply flattened in some areas, thousands of new homes, new communities, are standing. Since the tsunami, Catholic Relief Services has built over 3,000 homes across Aceh province.

What has made the rebuilding effort so remarkable is all that took place leading up to the actual construction. The house is the tail end of what was a long process involving many factors that had never been dealt with before.

After the tsunami, land previously built up with roads and homes was left underwater. People who held titles to plots in such places have had to be moved and resettled elsewhere. The government owns much of the land in the region, and CRS negotiated with authorities for new plots for people who had to be moved. CRS staff also wanted to be sure all of the people who would be moving into new homes were happy with the location, that it still fit their work and lifestyle, that the move wouldn't be yet another traumatic event.

One new settlement is in the village of Seunebok Tuengoh, north of Meulaboh on the road to Banda Aceh. On October 29, 2007, the time of my visit, people had been living in their new houses for about a month.

Driving into the new neighborhood, you see 188 beautiful white houses with blue metal roofs in several rows on modest-sized plots set back from the road. They have electricity and clean water from shallow wells at the back of each house. In the front of each house is a triple-tanked septic system to take care of waste. The houses are cool and spacious, with a total area of over 400 square feet, which includes two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, and small terraces on the front and back of the house. A wooden ceiling and pitched roof keeps the houses well insulated so they don't heat up during the day. They are built to be resilient to earthquakes, with reinforced concrete columns and reinforced concrete-block walls.

Aidun and his wife Ainun live in one of the houses and were full of admiration for the sound design and building quality. He has already started to clear the land around the house in order to plant fruit trees and grow a small crop of chilies and garlic. It was a great relief for them to be rehoused, as they had spent more than a year under canvas in a camp, often getting sick from the damp. They had also spent a similar period of time in a wooden temporary house provided by CRS.

Zaman is a fisherman living with his wife Habibah in Seunebok Tuengoh. He was smoking several kinds of fish on a bamboo rack, which he will sell in the market, over a slow fire. He explained that he is one of the few inhabitants of Seunebok Tuengoh who is still fishing, most of the others having given up when they had to move away from the shore. He owns a motorcycle so he is able to get around easily and travel to the beach where he keeps his boat.

Grateful for 'This Lovely House'

Halimah Idrus is a neighbor, and while very grateful to be rehoused, she describes the problems they now face having lost the land on which they used to grow rice.

"Before the tsunami, when we lived in Suak Bidok, we used to farm on land near the beach. We grew rice paddy, just enough rice to feed ourselves. But now that land is underwater with the river flowing over it, so we cannot use it anymore.

"Things have changed dramatically for us since the tsunami. We are no longer farmers, and my husband must make a living as a driver. Things are far from normal for us.

"But nevertheless we do have this lovely new house provided by CRS, for which we are very grateful. It has a small plot of land surrounding it, on which we can grow some bananas, papayas and chili, although rice must now be purchased from the market."

Photojournalist Sean Sprague has reported on CRS projects around the world, most recently in the tsunami-affected regions of Indonesia.