Clay Aiken is going to hell.
He is a kind and loving man who is leading a good life, but that is his destination nevertheless.
Aceh.
Map of Indonesia
Following the December tsunami, the Aceh province of Indonesia suffered the highest number of casualties of any region. There are streets, where they can be identified as such, that remain strewn with mud and rubble and waste. This is not a surprise: we have seen the pictures of roads turned to rivers, of shocked faces peering from balconies while houses and cars and far too many people swept by.
The ground shuddered and then shook with a violent spasm. That took the first lives. Then the sea, as high as a hillside, washed over the land, and took hundreds of thousands more. There are over 221,000 believed to be dead: more than 166,000 of those lost are from Indonesia.*
Half of them were children.
One half of their generation was wiped from the earth.
Where a school stood is a mountain of debris.
Neighborhoods are nightmares.
Ground Zero --- the epicenter of the earthquake which triggered the tsunami --- is only 50 miles away from the shattered coastline, under the Indian Ocean which will forever hide thousands of dead.
The waves were relentless.
Images of Aceh, Before… and After
-Images by DigitalGlobe
A month after the disaster, one in eight children in the tsunami affected areas of Indonesia was suffering from acute malnutrition.**
One out of every 10 school staffers is dead.***
The rooms of the schools that remain standing --- and so many were leveled to their foundations --- are clogged with mud and debris and the filth of broken latrines.****
Four hundred thousand are displaced, living in makeshift tents or, if lucky, newly constructed wooden barracks.*****
There is no sense in comparing this to any other scene of devastation, natural or caused by man. Each of these instances carries its own unique grief.
Presidents and actors and athletes have traveled to Aceh to call public attention to the tragedy, alongside countless aid workers whose names we do not know who will stay for months and years to help restore an area already under siege by endless years of civil war.
Another high profile figure has embarked upon his journey. He is the U.S. Fund for UNICEF National Ambassador for Education.
In just a few days, he will arrive with a new group of aid workers. Those who struggle to rebuild their lives have seen these groups before: the blue and white logo, a man with a camera, a woman with a microphone, a medical team, a crew unloading a truck. Among the visitors will be a tall man with kind eyes and a thoughtful expression. He is the ambassador, the singer, the teacher, and the advocate.
The children will not know the tall man, but they will be drawn to him, as they always are, and language will not prove to be a barrier. He will be the teacher here --- and he will be the student. He’ll be the goofball who will try to make them laugh, he will be a quiet comfort to some who have seen a nightmare come to life. Perhaps he will sing to them, with words that are unfamiliar but with a tone that is a healing balm.
Perhaps he will give them their school back, because he will know how important stability and routine are to all children --- and none more so than those struggling with shock and loss and grief.****
And after a while, right there in hell, will come a most remarkable sound.
Laughter.
How is this possible, with what they have seen, with the bare essentials by which they now live? It takes nothing from what they have lost to say that children are the most resilient of creatures. The sea will sweep through their dreams for a long time, perhaps for all of their lives, but they will play with the tall man, they will giggle when he tries to say a few words to them in a language that will not fit his tongue, they will cluster around him as he looks about and tries to comprehend how they live. There might be tears. There will be questions and wonder and awe. And then will come a revelation.
As the tall man looks deeper, he will see that he is not really in hell at all. In the midst of all the chaos and destruction, there is, in a million small acts of caring and compassion, the abiding presence of love. There is, despite all odds, hope, as they work to rebuild their lives. And though they call G-d by a different name than he does, there is faith.
(“And the greatest is love.”)
I will not speculate about what he will think or feel, but I have seen others who have returned speak of being moved profoundly and changed at their cores. I do not doubt that his trip will bring a bit of healing to some young lives. For a man who means to make a difference, the biggest difference this trip could make could occur within the man who is going to serve.
After just a few short days, Clay will return from “hell” and come back to his world, but he will not return to the life he had before. The journey to hell will not be easily forgotten.
The children he sees will remain when he is gone, rebuilding their lives a day at a time.
Yes, I feel for Clay, but there is one thing that I hope will remain foremost in my mind: Clay Aiken is not the victim here. He is not the one whose suffering and pain will endure for years. He is not the one to have lost family and friends and home --- and almost every trace of what “normal” was. He is not the hero of this story, but he will have done something. That alone is a small victory over the waves of apathy which destroy lives in their own way.
Clay is one of the people who will serve to bring attention back to an already fading headline.
He will be one of the antidotes to “compassion fatigue.”
He will not be just a “useless celebrity.”
In the end, Clay’s trip to Aceh will not be a journey through a charnel house, but a life-affirming process. Isn’t it amazing, when you think about it, the unexpected places where a bit of heaven can be found?
Safe journey, Clay Aiken. Go with God.
Here are a few ways to ADVANCE HUMANITY.
American celebrities have an amazing amount of influence on the way America thinks, feels and acts. I think that such an influence should be used in the most positive way possible. --- Clay Aiken
Postscript:
Monday, March 14, 2005
In going full circle, he has traveled light-years from where he began.
He is becoming the teacher he longed to be --- and the father he should have had.
In the midst of such devastation and loss, Clay sits looking upward, and the look on his face, and on the faces of the children he meets, is one of utter, ineffable... joy.
The bright blue band on his arm is the symbol of his mission. The slim black band that circles his wrist is a reminder of his faith. His clothes are simple, his hair unstyled, his glasses serviceable.
Half a world away, he plays with children on a beach. Echoes of laughter drift out across an ocean which is calm and lovely today. The children have greeted him with song and with dance, and now he raises his voice to sing to them.
Listen. You can hear it. The ear cannot capture words, but their meaning is clear. The tune is ancient and universal. We know this song as well as they.
The buildings crumbled.
Their schools disappeared.
Their homes were destroyed.
Their loved ones vanished.
They make a place in temporary shelters.
But the tall man has come to visit, and they greet him with smiling faces brimming with affection.
Welcome, they tell him, make yourself at home.
Love lives here.
And now love is the wave that envelopes them, one and all.
Clay Aiken in Indonesia photos (c) U.S. Fund for UNICEF
Sources:
* = Washington Post, Tsunami Death Tolls
** = UNICEF, via acehtsunami.org, Aceh’s "Tsunami Generation"
*** = Daily News, Two months after tsunami
**** and ***** = World Relief, Getting Back to Normal: School Rises From the Ashes and State of Relief in Aceh
Source for child death toll: Save the Children
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