The Boat

The boat in my headline provides a background to an interesting story, an inspirational story in fact. In 2005 I went to Aceh to help clear away the mess left by the tsunami. This was one of the wrecked fishing craft washed up near the town of Sigli around on the East coastline. In the same location there were a dozen others similarly bashed and ruined craft left in that half hour of destruction that nature can provide us.

I was working with the UN and had a project to start people working as a means of clearing away the debris but also to offer them an immediate income stream and some dignity in being able to say that they had earned it and not just received it. In some ways it was also meant to be cathartic in view of their great losses.

We had one young Acehnese man who was appointed as a supervisor of the team cleaning the hospital at the time. He was always smiling and always eager to please and although he spoke no English I found him to be industrious and concerned about his people. He did however have a habit of disappearing for a day or two without warning and I asked his story.

As it turned out he had owned two boats similar to the one in the photo that employed more than twenty fishermen on each. Both were destroyed when his village on the west coast of Aceh was obliterated along with fifty-two members of his family while he was doing something else up on high ground above the water.

The fact that he could come to work most days and lead his people in doing an excellent job with all that had occurred to him and in his life and the enormous losses he had incurred made me realize that what ever small inconveniences I go through are insignificant by comparison. I find his story immensely inspiring and this photo serves to remind me that no matter how hard I think things are at different times, others have it harder and can pull through.