This is the house we have been living in.
It is far away from the coast so the tsunami did not damage it.
It has only one crack in the floor tile from the 9.1 magnitude earthquake that caused the tsunmai.

There are a lot of earthquakes here, but we feel pretty safe in this house. We rented it from the owner, who lives with his family in another house he owns.


Just like in the U.S, here, there are big houses and small ones, very expensive
ones and very inexpensive ones.

Because of the heat, wood rots quickly.
Insects are a problem too.

The best homes are made of brick,
which is then covered with cement.

Inside the rooms are large with high ceilings
for air circulation. Ceramic tile covers the
floor, making it easy to sweep the dirt out.

Most people can not afford these homes.
They rent or buy small parcels of land
and build houses out of wood.

They call these temporary, because over
time everyone hopes to build permanent
homes of brick.

Big houses can be next to small wooden
ones. These row houses are right near us.

There are some houses that are built
with a combination of strawmats and wood.
Sometimes these are second homes.

People also have warungs or tokos
(small stores) and live above them.

This is a more traditional wooden house.
On stilts the animals cannot come in,
but they can live underneath. Stilts help
if the rivers overflow too.

About 120, 000 houses were destroyed in
Aceh. They were not all the same type of
house. The Indonesian government and the
NGOs had to decide how to be fair in
rebuilding.

The new houses are all about the same
size. The tsunami destroyed most records.
It was a lot of work to retitle land.

Water resources and roads had to be
rebuilt too. Houses are going up much
faster now.