Faces of the tsunami

Editor's note: KSL Newsradio Managing Editor Russ Hill spent 10 days in the areas hit hardest by the recent tsunamis in Southeast Asia, reporting on the relief efforts of the Utah-based group Mothers Without Borders.

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — From a distance he looked suspicious.

A man wearing a loose buttoned-up white shirt and no pants struggled to pull himself up a steep sandy embankment. After conquering the small hill, he leaned over to pick up the pants he had apparently shed earlier before venturing out into the ocean.

Now dressed but without shoes, the man set his sights on two visitors from Utah walking toward the beach. As he quickly approached, the visitors became anxious. What did he want and what was he doing here?

"House," he said as he pointed to the broken concrete a few feet away. "Sea. Finished. Babies," he said in a mixture of broken English and some form of the local language. His words were difficult to understand as he spoke while struggling to breathe.

"Oh, no. He came back and his house was finished," said Vicki Nielsen, one of three Utah women from the Utah-based group Mothers Without Borders who had come here to help in the world's largest-ever relief effort and to learn and prepare for future disasters. Between trips to survivor camps and assembling relief kits, she decided to hike down to the sandy beach where a few weeks before a deadly tsunami roared ashore, wiping out half of this city.

"Those are baby clothes," she said to the dark haired man, who was drenched and exhausted. After looking down at his hands and seeing one of them was clutching a dirty, yellow baby onesy, the man's situation became clearer.

"You were out at the sea when the tsunami came, and you came back and there was nothing?" Nielsen asked while struggling to interpret his words. "Yes, yes," he repeated over and over.

This man, who appeared to be in his 30s, held out his hand and pointed one by one at four of his fingers. "My babies," he said. Then he extended his thumb and using his other hand pointed at his thumb and then at his heart. "Your wife?" Nielsen asked. "Yes," the man replied. He had lost them all.

Nielsen put her arms around the man, hugging him, and softly told him, "I'm sorry. So sorry." As the two strangers wept, memories of the three days of uncomfortable travel and seemingly endless delays in reaching this remote area of the world vanished for Nielsen. Thoughts of her discomfort and fatigue were replaced by an insatiable desire to somehow comfort a victim of one of the worst international disasters in modern times.