CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARBULLETIN.COM
Cindy Bauer from Surfing the Nations spoke Saturday about the conditions at Sri Lanka after the tsunami as her husband, Tom, listened.
|
|
Tsunami’s wounds remain raw
Hawaii residents who have visited the region still struggle with their emotions a year later
Whenever Cindy Bauer would listen to their stories -- so many mothers who had lost children, husbands who had lost wives, children who had lost parents and families who had lost their homes, their livelihoods and their hope -- all the overused, well-meaning phrases of compassion would stick in her throat, choked back by tears, desperation and shock.
Then, not quite knowing what else to do, the Hawaii co-founder of the Christian aid group Surfing the Nations would extend her arms and offer the victim, the refugee, the orphan, a hug.
"You can't imagine the pain," said Bauer, who traveled to a small Sri Lankan town with her nonprofit 45 days after the Indian Ocean tsunami hit one year ago today, killing more than 216,000 people in 12 countries and leaving thousands homeless. "They're going to have to live with it."
Bauer, of Kalihi, is one of so many people in the islands who were deeply touched -- whose lives were changed -- by the tsunami, the deadliest natural disaster in modern history. And on this first anniversary, the aid workers, the survivors, those who lost family members and others are looking back at the last 12 months -- at what has been done to rebuild and what is lost forever.
GARY DERKS still doesn't sleep well. Loud noises make him jump. And the horrific images of a tsunami-ravaged Patong Beach -- bodies littered everywhere, homes toppled, buses crumpled as if they were made of paper -- regularly slip into his mind without notice, throwing his concentration and forcing him to relive and relive his amazing story of survival.
Derks almost died one year ago in a cabana just feet from Thailand's popular Patong Beach. The tsunami's angry rumble and shouts of awe from beachgoers woke him up that morning, on the day after Christmas. To escape the water, he and his girlfriend jumped from rooftop to rooftop, then walked through muddy waters, cutting their feet on broken glass and metal parts.
When he got to high ground, he sat on a street corner, dropped his head and cried.
"I think it's something that sticks with you forever," said Derks, who owns a nightclub in Waikiki. "It's like the experience of a war veteran. It's in the back of your mind, and all of a sudden, it's reawakened."
If the tsunami has taken away Derks' peace of mind, it has also given him a new purpose. With fundraisers at his club, he has raised thousands of dollars for tsunami relief. And he has formed a special bond with so many fellow Phuket tsunami survivors, natives and non-natives alike.
Derks flew into the resort city, where he owns a business and traveled for 20 years before the tsunami hit, for the Christmas weekend to commemorate the anniversary of the catastrophe in the place where he experienced it. In a phone interview from a bungalow within sight of the (rebuilt) one where he escaped the seismic wave, he said he is still seeking "closure."
He said he expects to find it at Patong Beach.
What has most helped Derks on his trip, he said, is hearing Thai tsunami victims -- over and over again -- make small jokes about the tsunami, poking fun at the reconstruction or the disaster. Derks has not laughed at one yet, but sees the ability to make a joke among those the catastrophe most affected as the start of a people moving on.
COURTESY MARCO GARCIA
Photographer Marco Garcia, who lives in the islands, poses in front of a tsunami-devastated section of Banda Aceh, Indonesia, where he flew two weeks after the tsunami as a freelance photographer.
|
|
WHEN MARCO GARCIA arrived in Banda Aceh three weeks after the tsunami hit, there were still bodies decomposing on street corners, in homes and bushes. Body bags were everywhere, he said, as was the stench of death. It was beyond gruesome, he said, "it was frightening."
The Hawaii freelance photographer decided that he had to see the tsunami's destruction firsthand after watching television news coverage of whole towns and cities decimated. He got to Banda Aceh, one of Indonesia's hardest-hit cities, on a U.S. military flight that was delivering aid, and stayed for a week.
When he got back to Hawaii, he said, he was a mess.
And what haunted him more than the images were the stories he had been told by so many refugees -- of surviving only to lose children or parents, of making it only to be left with nothing.
One man he spoke to had been away when the tsunami hit and returned to find his home decimated and his family dead. The man, Garcia said, did not even have a photo of his children and wife so he could remember their faces.
What drove Garcia when he got back from Banda Aceh was the need for those stories to be told. He wanted to tell them the only way he knew how: with his photos.
So he went to the East-West Center and asked for anything -- a book, an exhibition, a spot on the wall. They were interested, they said, but they wanted him to go back. And so he did, six months later. In October his book of photography, "Hope for Renewal," was published.
In it, he said, he was able to show the devastation shortly after the tsunami along with small signs, half a year later, that vitality was returning to Banda Aceh -- though there was, and is, so much more to be done. Garcia said he wants the book to help keep the tragedies of the tsunami at the forefront of public consciousness. But he fears, on this first anniversary, that the catastrophe has already slipped into irrelevance for too many Americans.
FOR SIX YEARS before the tsunami hit, Bauer, of Surfing the Nations, and her husband had been going to Arugam Bay in Sri Lanka with groups of volunteers to hand out clothes, toys and supplies.
And a big part of their mission, besides the charity, was teaching villagers to surf. They did not want the small town's world-renowned surf break to be exploited by outsiders or big corporations. They wanted residents to take ownership of what was rightfully theirs.
Less than two months after the tsunami, the nonprofit was back. They were shocked at what they saw -- at how this town they had struck up a special relationship with had been destroyed.
"Pretty much everything was wiped out," said Tom Bauer, co-founder of the group, as he sat in his living room this weekend with his wife and colleagues. "People we had known had died."
After they got past the devastation, the Bauers and their group set out to help the town rebuild. Cindy Bauer also wanted to help counsel refugees, and started talking to them and listening to their stories. Tom Bauer, meanwhile, was determined to get villagers back into the water, which no one had dared enter after the tsunami hit.
Slowly, the Bauers made progress.
Villagers came to Cindy Bauer and other group members to talk about what they had gone through. Many just needed an understanding embrace. And Tom Bauer and other surfers with the nonprofit got into the water and encouraged residents to join them. Day by day, more surfers came.
In the year since the tsunami, the group has made it back twice. And they plan to return to the town in February, bringing aid, toys and surfboards. In fact, Surfing the Nations has pledged to go back at least once a year for six years to help rebuild homes and teach people to surf.
"Our commitment is, we're not going to forget," Cindy Bauer said. "This can't just be forgotten."