Colombo and Aceh Besar - They went back to school on Monday, some with muddied feet, some to wrecked classrooms, some to tearful teachers, all traumatised.
These were the children of the tsunami, in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and India.
And when the rolls were called, they became tolls of death for the many thousands of children killed by the December 26 disaster.
In Colombo, Sri Lanka's school year began with children, many still suffering the trauma of the catastrophe, huddled in groups at schools in the devastated areas, waiting to see who would turn up - or, more importantly, who would not.
Continues Below ↓
| 'I'm determined to build up this place' |
"I'm very sad. I lost my friends and my neighbours. Today my friends are not here. I wish my friends were alive," said 17-year-old Fathima Farha amid the wreckage of Sudhamma College, in the southern Sri Lankan town of Galle.
She knows some are dead, but she's not sure about others.
Teachers at the school expect up to 450 of their 1 200 students to be dead or missing.
At Matara, pupils of Sujatha Vidiyala school trickled into the classrooms. But lessons would never be the same again.
In one room, where an English lesson should have been read out to 40 people, there were just nine. No one knew how many were missing.
| 'We're just teaching them how to pray in these difficult times' |
Two schools in the southern Matara area of Sri Lanka opened on Monday. The other 10 are still being used as refugee centres. But across the country teachers took registers. No one was in the mood for lessons.
MG Gunapala, the principal of Vidyaloka College, tried his best to get things in order.
"I'm determined to build up this place," he said.
"If I don't have a positive attitude, I can't motivate staff and students."
In Aceh Besar, Indonesia, teachers said that before learning could begin, they were focusing on healing.
"Today we're just teaching them how to pray in these difficult times," said one principal.
Uniformed students were joined by bedraggled refugee children chanting verses from the Qur'an, with headscarf-wearing girls joining boys in ties on wooden benches.
United Nations officials believe up to half of the 104 000 dead on Sumatra island are children, and Monday's aftershocks have stoked survivors' fears, undermining government efforts to bring back some sense of normalcy, especially for children.
Teachers think resuming classes may be a good start.
"We're just trying to make the kids happy. They're so depressed," said one.
Relief workers in some areas said schooling in any form was impossible and would need to be postponed by a week or even until the end of the month. - Sapa-AFP, Sapa-AP and Independent
- This article was originally published on page 1 of The Star on January 11, 2005
|
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Digg
Delicious
Newsvine
Facebook
muti
Twitter
