Shaista Aziz, an aid worker with Oxfam, describes how those who survived the tsunami are now trying to prepare for Eid al-Adha in Aceh's provincial capital.
Eid al-Adha is the second most important date in the Islamic calendar. It marks the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca known as the Hajj.
People would be busy phoning family and friends making plans to meet up and celebrate the three-day festival.
Instead, three weeks on from the tsunami, 100,000 people find themselves displaced, many living in tents and unsure of their future.
Scattered lives
Others are busy cleaning the streets of debris, burying the dead and trying to return some sense of normality to their shattered lives.
It is a difficult task when everything around you is anything but normal.
Nothing can prepare you for the scale of devastation in Banda Aceh.
You can drive for miles around the coastal areas and not see a single living thing that managed to absorb the awesome power of the tsunami.
Trees have been violently pulled out of the ground and snapped in half, the contents of peoples homes scattered for miles.
It is heartbreaking to see signs of life now buried in the mud and debris of the tsunami - a child's shoe, a hairbrush, a mattress, a sewing machine.
So, it is with a heavy heart that my friends and fellow Oxfam colleagues from Banda Aceh will be marking the day of Eid al-Adha.
Debris and bodies
On previous Eids it was a tradition for many families to congregate in the Blangpadang Park in the centre of Aceh, greet by wishing each other a Happy Eid and embrace, before performing the special Eid prayers in the park.
A woman washes amid the ruins (Photo: Jim Holmes/Oxfam) Tsunami animated guide
Around Aceh thousands would congregate in open fields and offer the special Eid prayer - a spectacular sight.
This Eid many of the fields are still full of dead bodies buried under rubble.
This Eid the park is in ruins - a vast empty ground in the centre of a former residential area where debris is still floating in the shallow pools of water - a mixture of seawater from the tsunami and rainwater.
The survivors told me that on the morning of the disaster many children were playing in Blangpadang, others jogging or taking their morning exercise.
They stood very little chance of surviving what was to come.
On the morning of Eid my friends and I will go to the mosque to perform the special Eid prayer and then visit some of the settlements scattered around Banda Aceh that now house those who have lost their homes.
Eid in Aceh will be a day of mixed emotions - a chance for the survivors and those who lost their loved ones, homes and livelihoods to once again share their collective grief, to heal some of the wounds and show solidarity.
Oxfam works with others to find lasting solutions to poverty and suffering. Following the devastating earthquake and tsunami, the organisation is providing emergency relief and helping people to rebuild their lives across Asia.
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