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Trauma therapy still needed for Sunda Strait natural disaster survivors
Therapy encourages tsunami survivors to open up and deal with the trauma caused by the tsunami in December last year.
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Sebesi Island women make purses in a trauma therapy session for tsunami survivors. The therapy not only teaches the women how to sew but also encourages them to open up and deal with the trauma caused by the tsunami in December last year. (JP/A. Muh. Ibnu Aqil)
B
andriah, 28, stuffs a toy cat with Java cotton, while recalling the day when a tsunami struck her home island of Sebesi on the Sunda Strait, South Lampung. While concentrating intently on what she is doing, she recounts the traumatic experience of the tsunami hitting her neighborhood late last year.
“I loved my parents the most. My father died when I was 5 five years old so I lived with my grandmother here in Tejang,” Bandriah said while continuing with her craftwork.
Sobbing, Bandriah explains that she lived with her grandmother on the island until she finished junior high school and then she moved in with her mother and stepfather.
The woman was doing craftwork as a means to heal the trauma caused by the tsunami
“She no longer has her grandmother, that’s why she is sad,” Salma Indria Rahman said while consoling Bandriah in a one-on-one trauma counseling session specifically for the women of Sebesi Island.
When the area was struck by the tsunami, which was caused by the eruption of Mount Anak Krakatau on Dec. 22, 2018, Bandriah was at home watching TV when she heard neighbors shouting a warning for everyone to flee their houses because large waves were heading their way. The house that she and her husband lived in with their 8-year-old-son was just a few meters from the coast.
“We were shaking and ran here to emak’s [mother] house. After that we went [to the evacuation site],” she said, referring to a designated evacuation site on a hill on the island. They remained there for three days with other villagers, some of whom occasionally returned home to cook fish and rice to take back for everyone to eat.
