The reconstruction of Aceh that began with a drumming up of international goodwill and a buzz of utopian ideas has settled into a comfortable monotony.
But that's not a bad thing, says Monash University's Dr Craig Thorburn, who with Dr Bryan Rochelle has just finished a study of villages that received Australian government assistance after the 2004 tsunami.
With the physical building well under way, a second phase of the aid program called Logica began in 2010 to assist other communities whose social fabric was altered by conflict and disaster.
Thorburn concludes Aceh feels very "normal".
Only, what is normal where a 30-year separatist insurgency had been playing out?
"Normal in Aceh is apparently war," Thorburn tells AAP.
"This is actually a return to mediocrity, and mediocrity is a really good outcome for Aceh."
With the disaster providing the impetus for peace, there were high hopes for the society that would rise from the rubble, as Thorburn says, "a perfect chance to re-build a new utopia".
But after 10 years, that vibrant enthusiasm has dimmed.
The novelty of participating in community meetings and planning events - gatherings not possible during the conflict - has worn off.
Participation of women in decision-making has fallen away, and community leaders who had enjoyed a responsive partnership with NGOs now find themselves tangled in the usual government red tape.
Of particular interest to Thorburn was why communities that received the same level of Australian assistance got different outcomes.
Blang Krueng, on the edge of Banda Aceh, had a bad reputation for crime before the tsunami.
But after the disaster, four young men stepped up to mobilise help for their neighbours.
As donor organisations arrived, they again swung into action, using every offer of help to its fullest potential.
One of those young leaders is Teuku Badlisyah.
He credits Logica training in "capacity building" - essentially the skills of advocacy and lobbying - for getting the village ahead.
"Within 10 years buildings can become damaged," Teuku says.
"On the other hand, with capacity building, knowledge increases.
"If today I understand one thing, tomorrow I can share it with someone else."
Today, Blang Krueng has a large women's savings and loans co-operative, community businesses and an improved school attendance rate.
Its citizens took advantage of spatial planning help to design a village that functions better.
Resident Ismawardi says work goes on to achieve their ideal: "We are definitely more than 50 per cent, maybe 70 to 80 per cent of the way there."
But not all villages that received Australian help managed to "build back better".
Thorburn points to Gampoeng Baru, a community duped by crooked contractors that wound up with a grand "bridge to nowhere".
It connects to no roads, and leads to a swamp.
The island village was swamped by the tsunami, rendering it useless for farming.
With only 175 survivors, they used donor money to relocate to the mainland, says Thorburn, whose 2007 study praised their initiative.
But now they are hemmed in, with no money to buy more land to expand as their population grows, and leaving former fishermen cut off from the sea.
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