Hut Bay (Little Andaman): This is how eight-year-old Divya catches up on schoolwork at home — with help from her parents. Ever since she watched the fury of the tsunami destroy their home and kill her uncle, the little girl refused to leave home or to go to school.

For months, the sound of the raindrops petrified her and the mere sight of water anywhere, reduced her to tears.

She still asks for her uncle, who was swept away in the waves and never returned home. And every other night, she wakes up screaming, scared that the same waves will kill her too.

"When she heard the sound of the waves she would start crying, and she would tell me that we must run to higher ground," says Babul Sarkar, Divya's father.

For more than two months, Divya refused to go to school because she had to cross a tiny canal, the very sight of which would remind her of the angry sea.

When taking her to school became virtually impossible, her parents finally turned to psychosocial counsellors. After weeks of persuasion and counselling, they were successful. The eight-year-old agreed to go to school.

Crossing the canal is still a nightmare for the little girl. But with every little frightened step that she takes clasping her father's hand tightly, she draws courage, to take the next.

Says Dolly Dutta, Divya's counselor: "She took it very badly and got very affected by what happened."

Like hundreds of children in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Divya has been traumatised by her firsthand experience of the tsunami and that will probably take a long time to heal.

The little girl is gradually learning that by taking these tiny steps to school. Hopefully, she'll learn to take bigger ones for herself.