Contributor: David Snyder

Here in the small village of Nusa, hard hit by the tsunami that devastated Indonesia's Aceh province in late 2004, there is a new smell wafting over the modest wood houses along village's dirt streets: it is the smell of fresh baked bread. But for the employees of the Nusa Indah Bakery, and for many of the residents here, it is the smell of a community reborn.

The man behind that spirit is Muchlis Ismail. With a quick smile and a soft-spoken manner, Ismail might seem an unlikely catalyst for change. But as the owner of the Nusa Indah Bakery, and a resident of Nusa, Ismail not only survived the tsunami that devastated this tiny village, but quickly set about to rebuild the small business that the sea had torn from him.

"I was thinking to rebuild," Ismail said of the long months when he, like all of the village's residents, was displaced by the tsunami. "I had the dream, but I didn't know how I would get the money."

The source, it seemed, was closer than he imagined. Working on a variety of Mercy Corps cash-for-work projects after the tsunami, clearing streets and buildings of debris, Ismail met staff members looking to provide assistance to small business owners. The agency's staff told him about a small village bank supported by Mercy Corps with funds and training.

Ismail secured a loan for 24 million Indonesian rupiyah — about US $2,500. With his loan guaranteed by Mercy Corps, it was enough to get him going again.

"I bought a big oven, and pans to bake in," Ismail said. "I thought that kind of oven was exactly what I needed. That's why I spent most of the money on that."

Supported by Mercy Corps staff who helped train him in accounting and marketing, Ismail's investment quickly paid off. With his new oven, he was able to vastly increase his production and set about hiring local workers, disbursing much-needed cash into the local economy. His bakery's staff consisted of only himself, his wife and his father-in-law before the tsunami — today he has 24 workers, and has increased his production from 200 rolls a day before the tsunami to more than 11,000 today.

After paying off the loan in just seven months, Ismail is looking now to expand his business. "Now I distribute to other districts, which increases the market," Ismail said. "I just bought 400 square meters of land to build a factory. I hope to have that built in two years."

Ismail's success has not gone unnoticed. In December 2007 — three years nearly to the day since he lost nearly everything he owned to the tsunami — Ismail beat out more than 5,600 nominees to receive a national award as the best micro-business in Indonesia, offered each year by a major Indonesian corporation.

True to form, Ismail plans to use the cash award — 45 million Indonesian rupiyah, or about $4,800 — to invest in his growing business. And while the financial success of his efforts is part of his motivation, Ismail says, there is much more to the motivation behind his work.

"It's a kind of personal satisfaction that I feel when I can help other people by providing a livelihood," Ismail said.

Read more ▸

I got up early this morning and took a walk around the quiet streets of Meulaboh, here on the south coast of Indonesia's Aceh province. If you experienced the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, as I did working as a photographer for an international humanitarian agency, you cannot walk a stretch of this coastline without remembering what those days were like.

Those living here today will never forgot the horrible drama of that time, and the months of displacement and loss that followed.

In the three years since, news from Indonesia's devastated coastline has largely slipped from the headlines. Traveling with Mercy Corps staff over the past few days, I've had the chance to see again, firsthand, the place I last left in tatters. It is a different place today indeed.

There are the obvious physical differences: homes once torn from their foundations by the force of the sea have risen again along the narrow streets of Meulaboh. The roads, damaged by debris and undercut by the receding waves, have been largely repaved. Shops selling all manner of necessities again thrive among the coastal towns.

But the biggest change I've noticed most these past days has been more subtle. Having transitioned from emergency work to long term development in the years after the tsunami, Mercy Corps has been concentrating on helping those affected by the tsunami to regain their livelihoods — providing grants and guaranteeing loans for people who lost everything to earn their own living again.

In the last days I've met fish traders and coconut vendors, small farmers and bakery owners, fish farmers and midwives. And while they all share similar stories of loss — many lost family members to the tsunami, all lost their homes and livelihoods — they all share another connection as well: they are working again, earning their livelihoods, raising their families and seizing the opportunities presented to them when they needed it most.

It is a change less visible, but no less dramatic, along Indonesia's recovering coastline.

Read more ▸

Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina — Refija Halilovic sits on a small stool bathed in late morning sunlight, her son Maumer resting quietly against her knee. It is a scene of almost bucolic tranquility, but one whose quiet belies the trauma that led these two to a tiny apartment here.

When fighting engulfed her home village of Krizevici at the outset of the Bosnian War in 1992, Refija and her family joined the estimated two million people uprooted by the conflict — nearly half of the entire population of the country. Local officials directed Refija's family to an abandoned home as temporary shelter; they settled in as best they could, making the site home for more than two years.

Though peace returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995, thousands of homes across the country were damaged or destroyed, leaving many like Refija with nothing to return to.

Adrift in the war's aftermath

Despite being displaced, Refija tried to make the best of her situation. She married in 1996, and moved with her husband to yet another abandoned home. Though they had little, the birth of her son Muamer in 1998 seemed to mark a new beginning for Refija — the nightmare years of the war now increasingly distant. But just a few months later, the war came back in an unexpected and shattering way.

"For the first time, I will have my own home,” Refija said. Photo: David Snyder for Mercy Corps

"My husband was killed when he stepped on a mine after returning to check on his family home," Refija said. "So I went back to the house where my parents lived."

She was displaced yet again, this time with an eight-month-old son.

The next years of Refija's life were spent largely adrift, until she finally found a small apartment in the city of Tuzla — one of 220 units built by an international agency and provided free of charge by the local municipality for those still displaced by the war.

"I keep chickens and plant food in the garden," Refija said. "Here, being alone with a child, it's difficult. It's better to have family around."

It was here in Tuzla that Refija first came in contact with Mercy Corps. One of the agency's staff members came through Refija's neighborhood, posting notice about the availability of housing built through Mercy Corps' local office.

She immediately envisioned something better for herself and her now eight-year-old son.

The keys to a new future

Refija applied to the Mercy Corps program, and in November 2006 received the news she and Muamer at first could not believe: they had been chosen to receive a home.

"I was first surprised, and confused, but I was very happy," Refija said. "My boy came to me three times that day to see if the contract had been signed."

In May 2007, Refija received the keys to her new home — one of more than 10,000 that Mercy Corps has built in Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1995. The house, located in her home village of Krizevici, is only a few hundred yards from her family, who were eventually themselves able to resettle.

After more than 15 years of homelessness, much of that time spent in cramped confines amid the tension of war and its aftermath, the move this summer will mark both an end to the stress of these past years and an important new beginning.

"What I'm looking forward to most is the privacy, the peace and quiet," Refija said. "And for the first time, I will have my own home."

Read more ▸