Maryam Pahang's coffee shop is busy. It's the lunch time rush hour before prayer and there is barely room for all the customers. But it's not just the coffee the locals come here to enjoy. It's her fried chicken, special eggs, curries and vibrant personality. Only 18 months ago, Maryam had lost everything in the tsunami that lashed the coast of Indonesia's Aceh province and the site of her former coffee shop lay under the ocean.

"I remember it was a very still day and there was no wind blowing. We started to head home and, on the way, an earthquake began shaking the ground and then, suddenly, the earth cracked in two in front of me. I'm still traumatised by that memory," she says wide eyed as she recalls the earth dividing and how she ran back home.

"Once I arrived there, I wanted to run away from my house but my neighbour called me to climb up to the second floor of her house. We climbed up with her family but the water was very high and swept us all away. My neighbour died," she says staring at the coffee table in front her.

As the tsunami swept Maryam along like a piece of seaweed, she tried desperately to grab on to passing trees but could not hold her grip in the torrent and found herself being swept four kilometres inland; right into the jungle. Finally, the water washed her up against a rubber tree and floated her up to the top of that tree. One of her neighbours, a policeman, and some other people pulled her to safety with them.

It wasn't until the water receded and she was sliding down the tree, grazing the front of her chest, that Maryam realized she was naked except for her under wear, the tsunami had torn her clothes away.

Although Maryam's husband and children survived (her young son was washed up to the top of a bamboo thicket where he clung for dear life), 21 of her husband's relatives died.

Her coffee shop was sucked under the ocean along with half the family land which had previously been under rice cultivation. The other half of their land was buried under a thick mud dredged and dumped by the ocean. They would never be able to farm it again.

But after her miraculous survival, Maryam proved she was a fighter and certainly wasn't about to give up hope now. When she heard World Vision was offering livelihood support for villagers in Suak Timah, 240 kilometres southwest of the provincial capital Banda Aceh, to restart their businesses, she immediately registered for assistance and requested start up funds to rebuild her coffee shop.

Maryam took out a loan to buy some new land and World Vision built her a small wooden café. It wasn't long before the enterprising Maryam was back in business and her husband, Firdans, who could no longer farm rice, became her business partner.

"World Vision agreed to support me with this coffee shop and provided these chairs, tables, the food cabinet and stock like coffee, soft drinks and sugar," Maryam says. "And from the first profits, we were able to buy more stock as you see here," she adds, gesturing at the shelves filled with local drinks.

Together with her husband, Maryam grew the clientele and, within a year, they were able to pay off the loan for the land, buy a fridge to keep their drinks cool and take out a new loan for the purchase of a motorbike.

Maryam will never forget the trauma of that day on the beach when the ground opened before her, but she will also never forget the kindness of World Vision supporters whose support enabled her family to regain their livelihood so that today they can continue to provide for their children.

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