Part 1 of three

Yishak Hasbi stands on a small bridge that divides the beach sand of Banda Aceh from a flatland of carnage that stretches inland as far as his eyes can see. Gone is the familiar patchwork of homes, rice paddies, and fishing shanties.

On Dec. 26, says Mr. Hasbi, the sea emptied the basin of this city like an overturned soup bowl, washing all he has known and loved - including 60 family members - into the sea or into the foothills.

Yet Hasbi, still fresh with heartbreak and the challenge of life in a makeshift camp, refuses to succumb to the destruction that has transfixed the globe: "You can tell the world," he says with a steely glare, "the Acehnese know the difference between what is timeless and what is temporary. We don't say this is from God, or Allah, or even from nature."

As dusk falls and a balmy wind lifts the smoke of garbage fires dampened by a light rain, he presses his point. "With God's help," says the fisherman, "we will rebuild."

One month after a devastating wall of water swept through this city on the northern tip of Indonesia, the area hardest hit in the region, the prevailing mood is a gritty determination to rebuild amid widespread signs that progress has been steady. The backdrop, however, remains grim: Bodies continue to be pulled from the mud, and debris looms high over streets once framed by houses and shops. Information centers still display the pictures that family members have posted, hoping for clues about loved ones. More than 103,000 people have been buried in the province, with upwards of 127,000 missing and, by now, presumed dead.

Not far up the road from where Hasbi stands, though, children play badminton on grassy front yards untouched by the disaster. The thump of helicopters - their rotor wash bending treetops to the ground - underscores an unprecedented global response. While most businesses remain shuttered, a few have pushed the mud out of their shops and reopened. Even as the US military starts its pullback, some relief groups are drawing up plans for a multiyear aid effort.

For some here, the activity is enough to lay the groundwork for hope - to counter the frustration of heavy daily rains and worries about how to start over. "A portion of this town remains," says one man, wearing a traditional peci hat, "and with it, the heart and soul of what has been built here over the centuries can sprout again."

Still, a drive through town, westward from where Hasbi is trying to reconstruct his life, offers a kaleidoscopic view on a city struggling to find its footing as a disparate legion of international aid workers, military, and local volunteers labors - with unparalleled efficiency, say many relief experts - to help amid the heat and confusion.

Dotting Banda Aceh (ah-chay), the provincial capital that was home to between 260,000 and 300,000 people before the tsunami, are temporary encampments that are the hallmark of any natural disaster. They range from one or two tents in a roadside ditch to dozens of larger shelters in ordered rows.

Some groups, like the World Food Program and the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, are pitching tents and occupying buildings near the center of town. Others work close to the small airport, where US, German, British, and French helicopter units rotate in and out, part of a rhythmic operation to drop supplies to the remotest villages along the Sumatran coast. Fleets of gasoline generators provide electricity, satellite dishes and aerials sprout from rooftops, and skeins of electrical cords drape the ground. Cartons of water, medicine, and protein bars are stacked everywhere. Inside the tents, workers drenched by perspiration and rain scurry between makeshift desks and chairs. Scores of cots are surrounded in mosquito netting.

The scene is testament to the ability of many organizations' to mobilize quickly. But out on the streets, amid acres of debris, recovery is a painstaking process.

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