Delegate’s Diary: Personal tragedies
By Howard Arfin
Mr. Arfin is an international delegate for the Canadian Red Cross based in Sumatra. He is working on the front lines of the massive emergency relief operation supplying aid for survivors of the tsunami on the Indonesia island of Sumatra. He reports on his experiences in the third entry of his diary.
January 17, 2005
There is no escape from the grief all around us.
But it's not obvious in the expressions on people's faces, and sometimes I'm shocked to learn details in casual conversations. One particular story comes to mind.
Everywhere we work in disaster situations, our job as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is to support the local Red Cross or Red Crescent national society in their assistance to the victims of disasters.
We also hire local staff on a temporary basis for basic tasks like driving our jeeps and trucks for relief distributions, and assisting us in coping with the administrative load that comes with our accountability to donors.
Yesterday I was driving through the devastated, flattened downtown area here in Banda Aceh towards the remains of the washed-out harbour, where daily we are loading up a fleet of boats with relief supplies for delivery to the many isolated communities down the hard-hit western coast of Aceh Province.
Our newly-hired driver asked me if I would be interested in seeing where his neighbourhood used to be. My heartbeat quickened as I asked him the obvious question: did he lose any family members in the tsunami?
"My wife and daughter," was the whispered reply.
Body bags
It turns out the three of them had been several days at the main hospital, up on higher ground, keeping company with the wife's ailing father.
On Saturday night, December 25, he suggested to his tired wife that she go home with their daughter for some rest. She did. The next morning was December 26.
I sat silent and anguished as we sloshed and bumped along what had been the main downtown thoroughfare.
My own sorrow for him was interrupted by a fellow who stopped our Red Cross vehicle and asked if we happened to be carrying any spare body bags.
We weren't. Our body bags, masks, boots and gloves are being distributed on Indonesian Red Cross trucks from our temporary warehouse.
I conveyed my regrets that we had none to give him, and we continued on our way.
Delegate’s Diary: Aceh's silent children
Delegate’s Diary: Awesome task in Sumatra
