Home is where the heart is

"Tarmac is peeled off roads for kilometres down the western coast of Aceh province, on the northern end of Indonesia's Sumatra island, which bore the brunt of the tsunami's force.

Old maps of these parts no longer apply. There is water where once was land, flat earth where once were towns. Plans are now being laid for new towns and new names on maps."

How do you find home when it isn't on the map? is here.

I can remember my mother telling me that when she was working in London during WWII she went home one day and it wasn't there. She spent hours standing in queues and panicking because she knew nothing of what had happened to her family nor whether they were alive or dead. As it had turned out my grandfather had moved the family out and rented a house in Gloucester. No mobile phones, no way of communicating. Just going through the process. My auntie's two daughters were then sent to a family in Wales for the rest of the war so that they could be safe. The adults stayed to continue in the army or my Grandfather's business. When Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin in 1974 we billeted a lot of the people in our homes around Australia while the military cleaned it up. My brother was in the navy at the time and was called back off leave during that Christmas. He speaks very little of it . Just a couple of stories and I don't think he has ever come to terms with what he saw and had to do. When the situation in Kosovo occurred we took people into Australia and housed them and as a community we were aked to provide packages according to certain specifications...hygiene packages or school packages. We all felt useful and we wanted to help. Right now we are giving money. The notion of short term care has been raised and then squashed. Some of the countries are coping and will cope with the extra help going in, but I can't help thinking still that some short term accomodation for some of the people would make it easier to clean up and easier to manage the devastation. Putting them all together in camps is only going to add to hygiene and stress problems. I fully appreciate it is not that easy. I had an Indonesian girl staying here for a year and one thing which became totally apparant was her background and ours were so different.Nothing in my home meant anything to her and it was a real wake up call for me about cultural heritage. The common ground turned out to be my father's clansman heritage. She related to that very quickly. No one has been suggesting taking over someone's cultural heritage or creating problems. It was suggested in a way of just providing shelter and relief for people who have suffered enough. Like my mum and cousins during the war. My grandfather could help his family, but it was safer for my cousins to be out of the way for a while. Yes, they came back with welsh accents and a heartfelt love for the family who took them in, but they went back to their own lives and homes and lived long and well.