Looking In The Mirror, But Not For Gaiety

THE Province of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, devastated by an earthquake and tsunami on December 26, 2004, has started to awake. Under the coordination of the Aceh and Nias Reconstruction & Rehabilitation Agency (BRR), supported by the Indonesian people, national and international organizations, and more than 100 NGOs, Aceh is slowly rising. Whats been going on in NAD over the past year? At what stage is the rehabilitation process? Tempo presents a special report on the troubled province and the progress made by the BRR in our 2005 closing edition.

December 27, 2005

A YEAR has passed. How powerless we were on that day. On a Sunday morning, when the sea rose up, death reaped lives. The tsunami devastated everything. Everythinginnumerably.

It was as if history had been extinguished. The words of the poet Chairil Anwar are brought to mind, We were shaken to the foundations. One cut, and we should surely fall.

Then slowly, they rose anew with all their effort. People began to put their affairs in order: bodies we

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