Aquatic

It was fun being invited by one of our partner organisations to eat grilled fish and have a beer out of sight of the sharia police, as alcohol is prohibited here.
 
In this type of situation though, where in the eyes of most Asian colleagues I have worked with, European culture is inextricably linked with alcohol consumption, it's easier just to go with the flow and drink it rather than cause consternation by explaining that I am perfectly happen to go without alcohol for months on end. I wouldn't want to to end the British stereotype of being beer-soaked hooligans.
 
Over dinner with a colleague's family and one of his friends, a hard-hitting tale of tsunami survival was told. There must be thousands of similar stories in Aceh, but an amazing testament to coming through in dire circumstances.
 
His story involved running from a wave taller than houses he could see being smashed down 100 metres away, grabbing a six-year old girl and saving her life as her mother was washed away, sheltering in their mosque in a tiny airhole as the water rushed through it, peeling back the hijabs of dead women in the street to search for his mother (she survived), returning to his destroyed home which was a twisted mass of debris and bodies he had to climb over, being sent away from salvaging anything by looters and seeing such desperate awful behaviour as fingers being cut off the dead to remove their jewellery.
 
Sincerely humbling.