Soul Searching

it is amazing the resiliency that some people have. after some of the heart wrenching stories i’ve heard, that most of these people can even smile is mind boggling.

they show up to the clinic wanting chinese medicine treatment for ailments that have not responded to western medicine. they show up with friends smiling, and laughing, and joking around. picking up their lives and starting over. it helps me to put things into perspective in terms of my life.

can you imagine losing ALL your relatives in a couple of hours? small children playing in the street? or ripped out of your arms by the unstoppable wave? one guy at the place i worked, swam desperately with his mother in his arms and got to the roof of a mosque (usually 25′ above ground) and as he was pushing her up she was taken out of his hands by the current. he swam after her as hard as he could, but couldn’t find her. he was saved by other hands that pulled him to the mosque when he could swim no more and had given up on his mother and himself.

the guy in the photo is hendra, his story is above. the girl’s name is nia, she comes from a town further north that wasn’t hit so badly. she wanted to help, so she got a job at this clinic.

another little girl was running from the giant wave with her two small sisters, one in her arms (a baby), and the other gripping her hand tightly as the enormous wave struck them and tore them from each other. only she survived.

there are many more stories like this. some worse.

that’s nia sitting with robyn. robyn has saved countless lives in this area.

one story of some of the surviving kids is that when asked for months after the tsunami what their dreams were for the future was a blank stare and silence. in their minds there was no future.