we were hoping to get some pictures of schoolkids or other people hanging around town, but due to the rain, everybody had made themselves scarce. so we regrouped at the hotel then headed to lunch. we ended up at a small restaurant owned and run by a very kind lady and her husband.
after she cooked our noodles and vegetables for us, we invited her to come join us at our table. there was nobody else in the restaurant, so she sat and talked freely with us. she told us about her kids. neither of them live with her because they are making better lives for themselves. she talked to us about old times and how 10 years ago she and her husband were part of a night market. for four years, the lived out of tents, packing up and moving to a new city every 3 weeks. she told us how hard it was to be without her kids during that time. she talked about her life in west java (she’s from central java originally!). she also asked us lots of questions about our lives. a super nice lady. when we first asked for a picture, she declined, saying, “ibu jelek!” (i’m ugly!) but after talking, i again asked, and she let me.
i had heard of a nearby graveyard for victims of the 2006 tsunami (not the christmas eve one that hit aceh, thailand, and cambodia. just for the record.) that hit the area, and i really wanted to try and get some photos there. for some reason, i enjoy photographing graveyards. sharon indulged me, and we headed off down the street. after a bit of walking, we found it tucked away in a stand of coconut trees.
turns out, this was an established graveyard well before the tsunami hit. but sadly, the stone wall around it was destroyed, and then those stones, thrown around in the rushing water, ruined most of the graves there. because muslim headstones are set above the ground, many of them were even picked up and carried away. most people who have a loved one buried there no longer know where their plot is.
in muslim culture, a body can only be dead for 24 hours before it becomes unclean and has to be buried. so after the tsunami, friends and family had only 1 day to identify bodies. all those that weren’t identified in time were buried quickly along one edge of this cemetery.
the green pieces of wood all mark graves of unknown victims.
this grave was for an unknown little boy.
this victim was identified and given a proper headstone.
old graves that were ruined by the tsunami waters.
if you look at the unknown grave markers, you’ll see that each has two numbers labeled NK and NL. i was curious about what those designated, so i went to find someone. i found this man:
he didn’t know what the numbers meant, but he did teach me about something else…
… collecting sap from coconut trees to make gula merah (a kind of brown sugar)!!
twice a day, he climbs 40 coconut trees to collect and replace buckets to gather sap. he then takes it all home to his wife who boils it down into the sugar.
he shared with us his story of the day the tsunami hit. he was up in a tree at the time it happened. he heard people screaming and he looked out toward the ocean. he said all he could see was white. white everywhere. coming toward him. he didn’t know what was happening, but he knew he needed to get out of there. so he got out of the tree and ran. and he and his family were safe.
oh, by the way, i asked him if he’s ever fallen out of a tree in all his years of climbing. and he said, “praise be to allah, NO!”
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