A simple world

PATRICIA YAP (Text & Pictures)

THE Dec 26 tsunami may have washed away the tangibles, wrecked once-sturdy structures and separated families, but for the girls at Babussalam pesantren in Meulaboh, Aceh, in Indonesia, it did not shake their faith or will to carry on with life the way it was before the disaster.

Pesantrens, or Islamic boarding schools are considered an important part of society in Islamic countries like Indonesia.

Traditionally, pesantrens have five main components: the cleric, the students or santri, the mosque, a boarding house and the classic books, called kitab kuning— literally yellow books, because they were originally printed on yellow paper.

However, at Babussalam persentren, the boarding house where 300 girls used to stay in is now structurally unsafe due to the tsunami and earthquakes that followed, forcing most of them to move into the main hall area of the school. The rest stay in groups of five to six in little wooden huts dotting the compound but sleep in the hall at night due to security reasons, as the fence which surrounded the school was washed away by the tsunami.

When it rains, all the girls' belongings get wet as the roofs were damaged during the tsunami. The only access they have to clean water is accumulated rainwater.

Despite the squalid and cramped conditions they live in, the lack of facilities and proper sanitation, the girls do not complain.

All they ask for is for their lessons to be resumed to how it was before the diaster struck and live life as it was previously. They used to have three two-hour Islamic studies lessons a day, now they only have two.

"The tsunami was a warning to people that there is a God. Now, we just want to study harder and be closer to God." said Jasmani,22, one of the remaining 190 girls at the pesantren.

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