Interviews
THE TSUNAMI GAME AS A WAY TO BETTER UNDERSTAND WHAT GOES ON IN THE MINDS OF THESE CHILDREN
Testimony of Camille, former volunteer for Adista
I have gone to Indonesia several times but my experience in Aceh during two humanitarian missions after the tsunami stands out in my memories.
Observing children’s games makes you understand many things. For example, the "tsunami game” acted as a trigger for understanding what was happening in the minds of these children, with their smiling faces but with such sadness in their eyes. How could a witness to their games not be astonished to see them acting out the disaster they had lived through a few months earlier?
The game did not start immediately, but only once the children understood the center’s rules and felt free to exteriorize their views of the disaster. This astonishingly spontaneous group game took place as follows: first the children placed dolls, small cars and market stalls in their position in the game. The warning came suddenly: "tsunami!!…", and the children rushed in all directions, carrying as many of their toys as possible. After a moment of general chaos and a simulated evacuation, the children came together to report, and each spread his or her booty, listing everything he or she had managed to save from disaster.
The children repeated this scenario over a fairly long period until it became apparent to them that they had succeeded in mastering this sad game which was so revealing of their inner thoughts. They then turned towards games that involved building things, and with the help of pieces of wood and small figures, they acted out in miniature what their families were trying to rebuild around them – a house, access to roads, or large markets filled with plastic fruits and vegetables and lined with the small chop-bars one sees along Asian roads.
The game area is used to solve past and present problems symbolically: the children progressively find answer and eventually a collective solution, which can allow them to move on.