CALEB WARNOCK - Daily Herald | Posted: Monday, February 7, 2005 12:00 am
Vicki Nielson of Mothers Without Borders was walking along the tsunami-ravaged beach in Sumatra last week when she saw a man coming toward her, carrying a yellow onesie.
"He held up four fingers to show he had four children and moved his hands to show they were gone," she said. "Then he touched his heart to show his wife was gone, and he pointed to where his home was and motioned that it was gone.
"We looked into each other's eyes and he began to weep, and my whole heart reached out to this man and I put both my arms out and put his head on my shoulder and I felt this is the biggest, the greatest relief effort in the history of the world."
Three members of the Utah County-based, 14-year-old organization Mothers Without Borders returned from the scene of the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster last week. They spent their time -- and local donations -- preparing 400 75-pound kits containing dried fish, rice, a cooking pot, plates, cups, blankets, hygiene kits from the LDS Church, underwear, a tarp and other items meant to sustain a family of five for a month.
Working with Project Concern International, the kits were taken by boat to families stranded along the coastline in areas that cannot be reached by car, helicopter or plane because of a lack of roads or landing areas.
"I was standing on the beach with this man who had lost everything," said Nielson. "He was barefoot, and all I could do was press in him the love of God, which is the greatest gift I could give him as a stranger not speaking his language.
"When I looked down on the ground there was a little sandal and I brought it home and I carry it with me in my car to remind me of the sorrow and suffering there."
Getting to the country to help proved more difficult than expected, said Mothers Without Borders founder and CEO Kathy Headlee. She, Nielson and Carolyn Sharette, all of Utah County, flew to Medan, Sumatra, arriving on Jan. 15. Because their military plane from Medan to the coast was diverted by monsoon rains, they were routed to Thailand, where they spent the next two days before arriving in the coastline city of Banda Aceh on Jan. 18.
For the next several days, they attended coordinating meetings with the United Nations each morning, and spent their days buying huge quantities of rice and noodles from local shops, locating aid organizations to secure other items needed for the 400 kits they were trying to assemble, packing the kits and then hiring locals to help get them onto a boat.
The women also bought supplies for approximately 1,000 more kits before they left, which other volunteers will assemble under the supervision of Project Concern International.
They also made daily visits to some of the 385 makeshift settlements that popped up everywhere after the tsunami destroyed thousands of homes in the area. They were trying to assess the needs of children, reporting back each morning to the U.N. meetings, where aid organizations could take action as necessary and report on what had already been done, and where.
"As far as we were able to see, the situation with the children was quite good," said Headlee. "Many people had absorbed children into their family groups and were taking care of them, and where there were not enough family groups, teachers were caring for the orphans.
"Most of the people we met were in good spirits, although their grief is still there with them."
In one spontaneous settlement, the women happened upon a woman bathing her baby in a bucket, said Headlee. The woman, who they learned had lost her husband and two other children in the tsunami, was smiling as she watched her child splash innocently in the water.
"We gave the people in the camp a little beaded bracelet and you would have thought we were giving out gold," Headlee said, noting the bracelets were made by an LDS ward in Salem. "They were so grateful to have even one thing to be theirs. It's very humbling."
"They are making do," said Sharette. "Mothers are trying to keep the mud floors in the camps clean. They are going on, but it is hard."
Pictures of the missing are everywhere, Headlee said.
"It makes you weep," she said. "These are people who are never going to be seen again. You wonder how they will go on when in six months all of the aid workers are gone and that is still their reality.
"On the Tuesday before I left they were still recovering 2,000 bodies a day."
Mothers Without Borders is planning two expeditions this summer and is looking for volunteers who can pay their own way, said Nielson.
"We are looking for any nurses or any educators or even just those who have heart who want to go to Africa and help with children there," she said. "That is what Mothers Without Borders is all about, helping children."
For information about donating or joining a Mothers Without Borders expedition team, visit www.MothersWithoutBorders.org or call 787-8420.
This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.