Both hospitals lost many patients and staff, said Dr. Vernon Ansdell, the Kaiser Permanente tropical medicine specialist who led the team. However, he said, there is more volunteer help from charity organizations available to Banda Aceh, which is easier to reach than rural areas on an island, where many bridges were destroyed.

The Lamno hospital is being run by Pakistani military doctors and nurses, he said, but that unit will leave in early March. Therefore, Aloha Medical Mission is proposing to the Indonesian government that it and three other organizations — International Medical Corps, Northwest Medical Teams International Inc. and Humanity First USA — jointly run the hospital at Lamno.

Despite the tragedy, kids in Banda Aceh have shown a great deal of resiliency, the team says. Here, a boy practices flashing the shaka. Hamed Ahmadinia • Aloha Medical Mission

The medical needs that arose were from trauma from traffic accidents and injuries suffered by survivors trying to salvage belongings, he said. Registered nurse Lolita Ching said the Aloha team helped reorganize the emergency room of Banda Aceh to handle these cases. That, she said, was a challenge that the team could meet because of a willingness to be flexible and cooperate.

"It was a neat thing because of our aloha spirit," she said. "It's not a matter of saying, 'Yeah, I know all about this.' We tend to be more accommodating."

The Aloha team included Hamed Ahmadinia, an applicant to the University of Hawai'i medical school, who accompanied the team as an observer, taking photos and offering general help.

He described children who had reclaimed enough joy in life to flock around the doctors, especially when their photos were being taken. These images sharply contrasted with the horror of seeing the body bags, the collapsed buildings, the wrecks of boats that floated inland for miles.

Dr. Ramon Sy, the mission's president, said volunteers pay their own travel expenses. The $16,000 in mission funds spent this time went for medications and supplies, he said.

The donations continue to roll in for what has become Hawai'i's first civilian medical response to the disaster. That, as well as the skills of the volunteers, is a point of pride for Dr. Reynold Feldman, the mission's executive director.

"We were the smallest group there, but the people told us they liked us best," he said. "These other organizations have money, but we have doctors and nurses and lay people who know how to get along with people from Third World countries because we've been there, done that many times."