*** STORY OF MARTONIS CHILDREN RONALDO ***
*** STORY OF MARTONIS CHILDREN RONALDO ***
*** Martunic Story *** Sunday morning, December 26, 2004, Martunis plans playing soccer with his friends on the village soccer field. He has even put on a pirated Portuguese national team costume he bought in Banda Aceh. Suddenly there was a tsunami.
Martunis who just sat in third grade of elementary school with his mother, Salwa; brother, Nurul A'la (12 years) and his sister, Annisa (2 years), trying to save herself by taking a pickup of her neighbors. At that time, his father was working in the pond. When the tsunami waves rolled, the pickup drowned. Martunis, his mother and two siblings were drowned in the car. His mother, brother, and sister were lost in a tsunami so they parted forever. Martunis carried the waves and came to the surface of the water.
Photos of Martunis, a 3-year-old elementary school boy who has been floating around for nine days in the mangrove forests, circulated in cyberspace after the tsunami disaster in 2004. Interestingly, when rescued, Martunis wore a football jersey of the Portuguese national team. Ronaldo took time to meet Martunis in Aceh and gave him a scholarship for the school.