Aceh works to recover jobs washed away
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But on the job front, Muammar - a freelance artist - is one of thousands of the unemployed who can do little but wait. The tsunami has has destroyed entire livelihoods; farmland has become salty and infertile; fishermen have no boats.
Some agencies, like Mercy Corps, have given out boats to hundreds of fishermen, and started loan programs to help farmers replant. Others, like Oxfam and IOM are helping women start home businesses such as raising ducks or farming mushrooms.
Each project will have its own small effect in bringing incomes to Acehnese families. But the tough reality is that any project likely to have a visible, lasting economic effect will take months to plan, and possibly years to execute.
"Look, we understand that cash-for-work programs are not sustainable in the long term, it's just a stopgap measure," says Kim Tan, spokesman for the British aid agency, Oxfam. So Oxfam has decided to put much of its money into microfinance, allowing local community organizations such as the fishermen's organization to give out loans to local Acehnese who have the best chance of succeeding.
But the process is inevitably slow, Mr. Tan says. "In terms of rebuilding, that is going to take so much work, and we can't hope to kick-start the economy in areas that have been wiped clean. Any of us would be impatient if we were living in tents for six months, so we are working as fast as we can to rebuild livelihoods so that people can live with dignity."
Muammar's first stop at a local government agency, the Department of Social Affairs, is a waste of time. In a back office, Muammar finds a woman, her face painted with lightening cream, who tells him he's come to the right place. Unfortunately, she says, he will have to come back again. To get information on what the government will provide, Muammar first needs to bring a letter from his village chief telling what the village needs, and then the government will say what they can do for the village.
It's a bureaucratic obstacle that would probably be the end of the road for many Acehnese, many of whom have had little or no schooling. Muammar chuckles ruefully, "It's bureaucracy, again and again."
Later, he goes to a local Acehnese aid organization called Yayasan Komunitas Partisipatif, and immediately learns about vocational training, healthcare for women, and microfinance programs.
"If you go to the NGO, they say clearly what they do," Muammar says, a packet of information in hand. "But if you go to the government, they don't even know themselves what they do. They just tell you to come back later."
Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, the head of the government's new agency charged with reconstruction and rehabilitation, has pledged to light a fire under the famously sluggish Indonesian bureaucracy.
"I just force them, because if I try to convince them it will take my energy out and it takes some time," says Mr. Kuntoro, referring to government bureaucrats. "Like this morning, I opened a vocational training center for masonry, for carpentry, welding. I told them let's take a no-nonsense approach for technical vocational training. Just train them enough to go out to get jobs, not too much, and let's be practical."
Muammar also takes a practical approach by working his connections. He drops in daily at his old workplace, a TV station, in the hopes of getting rehired as a handyman and set designer. While there, he fills up jugs with drinking water, since the well water in Tingkeum tastes like seawater.
His visits pay off when the station rehires him. Soon he begins working five days a week, rebuilding an acoustic studio. It's a welcome source of income that helps the family return to the middle class life they had just six months ago, before the wave came.
• More than one third of all settlements in Aceh Province and 66,000 homes were swept away by the Dec. 26 tsunami.
• 460 hospitals and health clinics, 665 school buildings, and 1,110 religious buildings were destroyed, along with 1,000 government offices.
• Approximately 948 miles of roads - roughly equal to the drive between New York City and Chicago - were either completely or partially destroyed. More than 1,880 bridges were destroyed.
SOURCE: IOM.
