31/01/2005

“The grotesque picture of devastation is slowly emerging and haunting us. The real brunt of the tsunami was taken by the eastern part of the island. The principal town, Pottuvil, has seen the worst disaster in its living memory”.

Pictures: Clare Doyle, cwi

Siritunga Jayasuriya, General Secretary United Socialist Party (cwi, Sri Lanka) and Jagadish Chandra, Socialist Alternative (cwi, India).

pictures

These words which began the last article we wrote from Sri Lanka are an all too accurate description. As we arrived again in the eastern part of Sri Lanka, a graveyard silence greeted us – scores of eyes tired of crying for their kith and kin who were taken by the killer Tsunami.

Arugambay early 2005

There are “families” who have lost everybody except one male member who had gone to the town or who was safely fishing in the deep sea. There is not a single household which has not been devastated by death and destruction in the world famous Arugambay surfing village. Now streets of debris are all that is left to see of what was once a booming tourist spot as well as busy fishing community.

No notable help was forthcoming to the poor affected at Ullai (Arugam)

The relief team of the United Socialist Party (USP, CWI in Sri Lanka) visited the Pottuvil area again on the week-end 22 to 24 January and visited all the villages and hamlets where the USP already has a base. Apart from the Pottuvil town, the villages such as Ullai, Sinnaullai and Komari have seen the dancing of death in their own eyes. The team could see the fear of the sea still instilled in the helpless eyes of the villagers of Pottuvil district.

Government lies

Though a lot of claims are being made by the government agencies and the sycophantic electronic media, that fast relief is being meted out to the victims of the tsunami and most of them are rehabilitated, the USP team could see for itself that it was a big white lie concocted to show to the western world and the donor countries.

On the hot sands of Arugambay, there once stood a lively town mostly of Tamil-speaking Muslims. But today the only reminder of that scene is the debris and some concrete floors which had little houses on them with lots of children. The claims of the government that they have set up pukka relief camps is a travesty of justice to these poor people, who have had to build their own thatched shelter with whatever was salvaged from the disaster.

The government is treating the victims of tsunami as some sort of beggars by giving just a weekly ration of rice, lentils, sugar, flour etc. and wash their hands of responsibility for anything else. The paltry sum of five thousand rupees for the funeral of the victims is the only cash that the affected have seen and received from the government.

To rub salt on the wounds of the surviving disaster victims, the government expects them to queue up to register in order to receive the promised five thousand rupees as a start up grant. You cannot imagine the scores of bruised, sick, fearful and dejected people queuing up for this so-called help from the government. Even the distribution of relief material such as temporary shelters and household goods smacks of partiality along ruling coalition lines.

Class Bias

The tsunami has washed away many things such as houses, boats, catamarans, fishing nets and other livelihood articles, but the devil of Class Bias stands firmly rooted in society.

The government has suddenly woken up to the fact that there is a rule that nobody should build anything within 100 metres of the sea. While it wants to apply this rule stringently now, the most adversely affected would be the poor fishermen folk. Some of the rich and foreigners are already flouting the law and building dwellings and businesses

within the stipulated areas.

The communal Janata Vimukthi Perumuna (JVP) is taking advantage of the post-tsunami situation and has set its own agenda. In the Pottuvil area for example it has tried to communalise the whole town by making false claims on a piece of land in a predominantly Muslim area to put up a Buddhist statue.

Socialist crisis management center

The USP district centre at Pottuvil town has become a sort of socialist crisis management centre for the tsunami affected people; it has become an ongoing meeting spot for them to discuss everything that is worrying them. The USP has tried to meet the challenge of organizing its own relief operation to help some of the disaster affected people who are directly linked to the party in one way or the other.

It has distributed some essential items such as cement, bricks, cycles, household utensils and kerosene stoves to some of the comrades who were affected. But doing relief work here is like a cat saying that it would drink all the water in the ocean; it was a daunting task for all the comrades to decide how to manage on the resources available.

The fantastic work done by the comrades in Pottuvil must be saluted. It has stretched the comrades physically to the maximum, but this sacrifice has its own rewards. Most of the adult population have turned up at the meetings when the USP team was there, and most of them said that they are going to join the USP – the only party which came there to help at the hour (if not the minute!) of need.

Further work of USP

This week-end (29 and 30 January) the USP team is going to the south of the country to carry on the party sponsored relief for the comrades and supporters of the USP. A special broadsheet is being planned with the name a??Tsunami Janahandaa?? (Voice of the Tsunami Victims) to expose the government and to put forward a socialist programme for the fight-back. Later, in the month of February, a mass poster campaign is planned.

source:

http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/1549

Reconstruction and invisible scars

From Till Mayer for CNN
Wednesday, January 26, 2005 Posted: 0948 GMT (1748 HKT)

POTTUVIL, Sri Lanka (CNN) — Till Mayer is a journalist working for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Galle, Sri Lanka. He is writing about his experiences as part of the relief effort for CNN.com.

Part 1: Sunday, January 2

Part 2: Monday, January 10

Part 3: Tuesday, January 25

Tuesday, January 25

The crane is straining. The massive fishing boat swings in the air hanging meters above on steel ropes, between golden beach and blue sky.

The tsunami waves tossed heavy wooden vessels ashore on December 26 like paper boats. Now they lie scattered over the whole beach, stranded between palms.

Many of them are only wrecks. Broken wood, where rocks shattered the heavy planks. Maybe one day some of the boats can sail again. The crane starts with the clearing up.

I return to the car and continue the journey south towards Galle. To the left and right are remnants of the disaster.

Sometimes all that remains are heaps of stones, reminding me of the fishing huts that stood there one month ago. The rubble passes me by.

But there is not only destruction to see. Everywhere along the coasts of Sri Lanka people are still clearing up and sometimes even beginning to rebuild.

Fires burn beside the roads: mattresses, splintered timber and broken furniture transformed into ash.

From the debris the tsunami victims collect what is useful for reconstruction: roofing tiles, stones and corrugated sheet. Neighbors help each other.

And the aid workers of the Red Cross lend a hand. At the next stop the sun already beats down from the sky. Sweat runs down of the faces of 25 Red Cross volunteers from Bentota.

“Straight after the tsunami disaster I joined the Red Cross. Now I clear up the rubble with my friends”, says a 23-year old.

In the background a wrecked house rises up into the sky. The tidal wave shattered the timber roofs like matches, tearing away furniture, windows, doors, everything.

Red Cross workers, many young, push squeaking wheelbarrows along the affected coastline.

They provide first aid, clean salted wells, distribute humanitarian goods or transport clean drinking water.

The disaster has tapped into the humanitarian spirit and the number of Red Cross volunteers has increased, a fact Vpali Sirimanne is proud of.

Sirimanne is the honorary Red Cross chairman of the district of Bentota. He used to work as a full-time diving instructor. Before the tsunami he ran his own equipment and boat rental business. The wave destroyed everything.

Not far away a Red Cross truck stands next to the road delivering water. The pump is roaring, filling up a black plastic tank. The village inhabitants line up with cans and buckets. Clean drinking water is essential to avoid the outbreak of diseases and epidemics.

I think of my German Red Cross friends in Pottuvil. They prepare 120,000 liters of drinking water daily, supplying camps for the homeless. Then there are the two basic health care centers run by the Finnish and French Red Cross societies.

The tsunami has brought me back in touch with colleagues from other missions. Dieter Mathes is the German Red Cross ERU team leader, an aid-worker with decades of experience, and Konrad Kerpa, whom I met last year in Bam.

Then an enormous earthquake had transformed the entire Iranian city within seconds into a sea of rubble. Both disasters happened on December 26.

The city of Pottuvil looms — a particularly sad chapter in my Sri Lanka mission. The former paradise for surfers is now only a field of rubble. Thousands died here. I will never forget the sight of numerous corpses floating in the water. It was terrible.

The bridge between the city center and the former tourist area was destroyed. The German Red Cross water team managed to get water over the destroyed bridge using a 728-meter hose.

The German Red Cross is also operating a field hospital in the north of the country and is one of several National Societies working in close cooperation with the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Sri Lanka Red Cross.

My journey continues. The road is hopelessly overcrowded. A railway track runs parallel to the road. Or rather, what remains of it. The waves bent the rails like play dough. Nearby an iron rail hangs over a palm trunk.

I come to the town of Tellwatte. The place looks like it a bomb site. What's left of the train station stands amid the rubble. Walls have been partly washed away. Villagers set up a Buddha statue on a broken roof, lost between the remains.

Behind the station a reddish-brown train appears. Over 1,400 people died when the wave hit the wagons, tearing the carriages apart. Heavy equipment has set the death train again on its track.

The bodies of the dead have been recovered, but still there are sad reminders. In front of the wagon lies a small doll, its legs ripped off. Its painted eyes staring into the sky. The girl, who played with the doll, is dead. The tsunami disaster claimed nearly 40,000 lives in Sri Lanka. An incomprehensible number.

Red Cross and Red Crescent planes and ships have brought tons of goods to the vulnerable. The first new houses are appearing while others are being reconstructed.

“The acute emergency phase is over, reconstruction can start”, says Axel Pawolek, the FACT team leader with the Federation.

One month after, it is still hard for me to comprehend the extent of the disaster.

If it is difficult for me as a visitor to this country, imagine how hard it is for the innocent, bewildered victims such as the children. In a few minutes the world as they knew it, was washed away. Beloved ones will never return again.

There are wounds you cannot see, and they will take a long time to heal. That is a further challenge for the Red Cross/Red Crescent.

Monday, January 10

The clean-up operation has begun in Pottuvil.

POTTUVIL, Sri Lanka — The advertising sign is lost in amid the rubble. On it is written “Tsunami Hotel” in big letters, and a giant wave is breaking over it.

A favorite place to stay for surfers from all over the world — until December 26.

Now the sign rises up in the sky like a monument. In a cruel irony, the tsunami has taken the hotel named after it.

Mohammed Ali passes by the remnants with slow steps. The disaster has made an old man out of the 52-year-old. The wave washed away his house like a sand castle, his brother-in-law will never return with his boat from fishing.

Heavy bruises cover the body of the fisherman. Every breath hurts. Deep inside there is a stronger pain. It will stay for a long time. Mohammed Ali knows it too well.

Along both sides of the road there are long rows of destroyed houses. Not long ago they were guest houses, small pubs and shops. Pottuvil was well known as a paradise for holiday makers. For Mohammed Ali that now seems a lifetime away.

“Sometimes I do not know what I should believe. That this sea of rubble is reality? Or that I am just dreaming? When I wake up, will I see again the bustling city with all the tourists and the owners of the restaurants, who are buying my fresh fish”, he says softly.

The leg of a plastic doll juts out of the rubbish that was swept up by the tsunami. Next to it lies a baby bottle. On a wall nearby a painting depicts a surfer riding a wave.

Mohammed tries to walk faster. He tries to avoid thinking about something which he is unable to find an explanation for.

A young man waves from a roof of a destroyed house. “Is everything okay with you?” he asks.

Mohammed Ali nods and the man continues to throw down the roof tiles that are still unbroken to another man who catches them cheerfully.

In Pottuvil like everywhere else alongside the coast of Sri Lanka people start to clean up, sometimes even to rebuild.

Marie Mauret, a psychologist with the French Red Cross basic health care unit in Pottuvil has been impressed with the coping mechanisms of the local community.

“People are really brave here. And there are so many volunteers to help us. Despite the sorrow everybody is working hard to cope with these terrible times. People are proactive. They do not wait until someone comes to help them, she says.

The Red Cross has erected a basic health care post in a hotel. Plastic sheeting covers holes in walls damaged by the tsunami.

Mohammed Ali takes a seat on a rickety chair. Like so many others he is waiting patiently to get treated. Word of the Red Cross health post is being spread by word of mouth. An island of safety in the sea of rubble.

The Red Cross mobile medical team has also been established to cover scattered temporary shelters south of Pottuvil to provide services to patients who would find it difficult to get to the center.

The psychological impact on the community is something that Mauret says cannot be stressed enough.

“Many of them are deeply traumatized. It is especially hard for children to understand what happened”, she says.

Children are finding it difficult to sleep and their rest is blighted by nightmares. They react by crying after the unbelievable things that happened to them and their families, like the girl who is being treated by a doctor at the center. The Red Cross-worker smiles at the girl, speaking calming words.

Where the town of Pottuvil ends, a green paradise stretches as far as the eye can see. In the sunlight lush green rice fields are shining. Between them palms and huge trees grow.

A road winds through the landscape and next to it are a couple of big blue water tanks. Here the German Red Cross emergency response unit is purifying up to 120,000 liters of drinking water a day for more than 15,000 affected people.

“Without our friends from the Sri Lanka Red Cross we would have had great trouble becoming operational. With a group of young Red Cross members we have been able to install everything fast. It is a good feeling to work in a strong team together with our local colleagues and friends”, says Dieter Matthes, the experienced German Red Cross-team leader.

Then he trudges through the mud to the water pump. Heavy rain is affecting the region. Many centers for displaced people are situated around the water-purification unit. Some of the fisher families who escaped from the beach found shelter here and receive water from the unit.

A few kilometers away there are the big white tents of the basic health care center established by the Finnish Red Cross. The unit also makes home visits and together with the center, providing vital health services to affected communities.

“In addition to delivering basic health care, we are promoting hygiene and health education which is vitally important for people who have lost everything”, says Red Cross doctor Ilkka Mikkonen.

Sunday January 2, 2005

GALLE, Sri Lanka — The waves are beating on gray stones, hiding the rubble in the sand. Between broken bricks and mud sticks a silver-colored lady's shoe. Behind it lies a piece of bent metal.

M.K. Ahula kicks a scratched teapot with his toe. Then he pushes his bicycle over the devastated area between the beach and the road, passing the remnants of a wall and a broken palm tree. This is all that is left of his house.

The wave washed everything away on December 26, together with seven members of his family, among them two babies, his mother and his eldest son.

It is hard to recover from such a disaster. Ahula gives the sea a quick glance. “I hate it,” the 34-year-old fisherman says softly.

He used to enjoy sailing in his boat, far out into the sea until the beach was only a tiny small yellow strip with the palm trees as a gray background. At night, he would see the lights of his hometown, Galle, reflected in the water.

Now, the sea has taken his boat and nets. If he still had his wooden craft, he would sell it for sure.

Ahula pushes his pedals. The rainy season has created large puddles in the bumpy street. Water splashes all around. But Ahula does not care about it. To his left and right, the street looks as if it has been bombarded.

The flood took anything that was not attached to the ground with concrete, flushing the rubble through the narrow alleys with terrible violence. Broken wooden beams and bent steel roofs are all that remain of the fishing huts along the coast.

In the center of the city. the old Portuguese fortress rises up against the sea. On the green lawn in front of it, people are gathering around a small lorry. They keep handkerchiefs against their noses and faces. When the breeze stops, the smell is unbearable.

Ahula stands against his bike. The four dead bodies are so heavenly swollen that relatives hardly recognize them. Today he will not find out anything about his three missing relatives.

The Buddhist Mahagoda temple is at a safe distance from the devastating sea. It seems like an idyllic picture for a postcard: Old walls surrounded by lush greenery. High trees protect against sun and rain. In the shadow stands an old Minor Morris.

The temple offers no clues that the city was struck by the tsunami. At first sight. nothing reminds of the death toll — believed to be 140,000 — among them about 30,000 in Sri Lanka alone.

But the harmony of the temple is misleading. Between its walls, 100 people left bereft of everything by the tsunami are looking for shelter.

A mini van rolls through the temple gate, carrying a team of young Red Cross volunteers. The pebbles crunch under their feet. Like so many other volunteers, these youngsters — aged 18 and 25 — are on the road providing first aid treatment. There are 2,500 volunteers on duty, cleaning wells, distributing goods and searching for the missing.

They also try to dispense some hope, to people like L.P. Seteen. The 72-year-old carpenter clutches his umbrella. There is no handle anymore. But it was the only thing he could get a hold on when he was running out of his house.

He describes in a soft voice to Red Cross leader Nandana Wickamanyake how he was able to save his own life.

“Thanks to God nobody of my family got killed. I am so thankful for this,” says the old man to the volunteer.

Meanwhile, some Red Cross volunteers put on bandages and disinfect wounds. Many of the homeless were injured when they escaped the wave.

Wickamanyake is proud of his group. “We have been on duty for days. Everybody is contributing all their energy. We must set an example. Now is the time for everyone to start cleaning up and rebuilding,” explains the 35-year-old.

Gradually, all traces of the destruction in Galle will disappear. In the lush green hills close to the city, the heavy sound of traffic roars among the palms and trees. Heavy Caterpillar machines are digging mass graves.

About 4,000 people have perished in the district of Galle. The last mass graves have already been filled up. Close by, Buddhist monks pray for the victims.

But the grief is touchable and will remain for a long time, long after the damage from the tsunami has been repaired.

source:

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/01/02/srilanka.redcross/index.html

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Hilflose Helfer
Sri Lanka braucht A?a?zrzte, Reis und Wasser – aber Sri Lanka braucht auch Leute, die wissen, wer und was gerade wo gebraucht wird
ARUGAM BAY, im Januar. Das Zelt ist leer, die beiden Helfer stehen da in ihren blauen Arztkitteln, die Binden und Pflaster und Ampullen, alles ist bereit, nur die Patienten fehlen. Hans Stechele schA?A?ttelt den Kopf, er versteht die Welt nicht recht an diesem Morgen. “Das liegt doch daran, dass die Franzosen vom Roten Kreuz in ihrer Station gerade wieder Curry und Reis verteilen”, vermutet er. Er mag kaum etwas Gutes A?A?ber die franzA?A?sischen Helfer sagen. “Die sitzen den ganzen Tag herum und machen SchA?A?nwettermedizin.” Aber, leider, sie haben mehr Patienten, hier in Arugam Bay.

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For years, this bohemian beach town on scenic Arugam Bay was a colorful stamping ground for surfing fanatics, backpackers and pot-smoking Rastafarians in dreadlocks and Bob Marley T-shirts.

They drank at bars alongside local fishermen and rice farmers. About 60 thatch-roofed resorts and eateries such as the Aloha, Hang Loose Hotel and Cool Spot restaurant a?? run mostly by Sri Lankans a?? lined a busy thoroughfare where motorcycles buzzed past ox carts appearing like holdovers from another time.

Goodwill alive and well after disaster

photo taken 25/Dec./ 2004 -The night before. Showing The Bank of Ceylon branch at the Siam View Hotel.

JOHN M. GLIONNA

ULLE, SRI lANKA, JANUARY 14 For years, this bohemian beach town on scenic Arugam Bay was a colourful stamping ground for surfing fanatics, backpackers and pot-smoking Rastafarians in dreadlocks and Bob Marley T-shirts.
They drank at bars alongside local fishermen and rice farmers. About 60 thatch-roofed resorts and eateries such as the Aloha, Hang Loose Hotel and Cool Spot restaurant a?? run mostly by Sri Lankans a?? lined a busy thoroughfare where motorcycles buzzed past ox carts appearing like holdovers from another time.

Then the tsunami struck, turning this hip little resort into a rubble-strewn wasteland. More than 1,000 of the villagea??s 6,000 residents are dead along with many tourists. A thousand residents are missing a?? a??a??taken by the sea,a??a?? as the locals say.

Only three hotels remain a?? The Ali, Mermaida??s Village, Deana??s Place and Rustling Palms. The ghostly ruins of the Stardust have been left to sink into the sand. Its owner, a Dane named Peer Goodman, drowned in the water. Amid the adversity that would drive away some less determined entrepreneurs, the few hotel owners whose buildings survived have become the towna??s ambassadors of goodwill.

Places such as the Hideaway, a grand turn-of-the-century house surrounded by several thatched cabanas, have turned themselves into free-of-charge headquarters for foreign doctors and relief workers, journalists and Sri Lankan military men.
At the Siam View Hotel, the French Red Cross has set up a clinic and pharmacy at the site of a former Internet cafe, where each night at the second-floor bar, beers are tapped from warm kegs and relief workers, reporters and others anxiously keep up with the developments of the international relief effort on cable TV.

As the relief workers and physicians arrive from around the globe, those Sri Lankans who have the means to do so a?? natives as well as transplants a?? have made the newcomers feel welcome.

At the Hideaway, which has seen its share of damage, two cabanas and acres of gardens were lost to the rush of water. The waves washed up on the grand front porch, turning the once-secluded resort into beachfront property. Now, electricity is scarce and owner Vernon Tissera can afford to run his generator for only a few hours each day.

But rather than gouge visitors, the Hideaway has thrown away the bill. Three times a day, a local chef working for the Tisseras serves up spicy Sri Lankan delicacies and gourmet meals to people who are little more than strangers.

The hotela??s Toyota Land Cruiser is one of the few remaining privately owned vehicles in this town.

Now the vehicle has become a makeshift taxi, and Tissera, his two sons and grandson ferry relief workers and supplies to and from the beachhead. The Tisseras have enlisted a dozen villagers, homeless and unemployed after the tsunami, to help put the hotel back together. a??a??We need to help people a?? you cana??t be material-minded,a??a?? said Marlene Tissera, Vernona??s wife.

Relief workers say such hospitality makes a difficult job more do-able. a??a??It makes it a pleasure to do this,a??a?? said Mark Stinson, a San Francisco-area doctor working with Relief International who is a guest at the Hideaway.

At the Siam View Hotel, which is playing host to the French Red Cross, agency nurse Jean-Michel Pin likens owner Manfred Netzband-Miller to Mother Teresa. a??a??Without him, wea??d be living in tents, or worse,a??a?? Pin said.

Still, Marlene Tissera has a hard time fathoming how the waves that once drew so many tourists here have transformed the tropical paradise. a??a??Wea??re just shattered, all of us,a??a?? she said. When she talks about the destructive wall of water, Angela Mitchella??s eyes widen. Just before 9 am on December 26, the Hideaway manager recalls, she heard people shouting: a??a??The sea is coming! The sea is coming!a??a?? And the tourists and villagers came too, in droves, fleeing the oncoming wave.

More than 100 stood on the roof of the old hotel. Mitchell, a 54-year-old native, moved the crowd and several vehicles behind the building for more protection. Her plan worked: No one at the Hideaway was killed.

Hotel owners such as Vernon Tissera promise to rebuild both their own land and the town.

Down at the Siam View, owner Netzband-Miller embodies the keep-on-partying spirit of the old Ulle. a?? LAT-

http://www.lankalibrary.com/news/arugambay3.htm

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Tsunami + 8 months

Our man in NTU, Raymond, went over to Sri Lanka to check on the progress of post-Tsunami rebuilding efforts. HereA?a??a??s his story, along with some pictures he took A?a??A? – julian

A?a??a??A?a??a??A?a??a??A?a??a??A?a??a??A?a??a??A?a??a??A?a??a??A?a??a??A?a??a??A?a??a??A?a??a??A?a??a??A?a??a??A?a??a??A?a??a??A?a??a??A?a??a??A?a??a??
ItA?a??a??s been eight months since the 26th December tsunami disaster and stories from the affected areas have slowed to a trickle. However, when the stories of destruction and suffering stop, does it mean that the worst is over and that life in the affected areas are back to normal?

I was in Sri Lanka from June 28 to July 3 for the first of two school-sponsored study trips to the socialist republic. The goal of the trips is to produce stories on the post-tsunami reconstruction process for various media.

The following is a personal account of what I saw from day four to seven when we were at the east coast of Sri Lanka, which together with the northeast coast, was worst hit by the disaster.

July 1, 2005, Friday
11am, Kattankudy, Batticaloa

We picked up our four interpreters in the morning as the people from where we were heading spoke mainly Tamil. The first affected area we visited was the beach of Kattankudy in Batticaloa. Despite it was more than six months after the disaster, the sight of the destruction still awed me nonetheless. It was a hot day, probably about 38 degrees Celsius, with nary a cloud in the sky. This weather is typical in the East for this time of the year when the dry season starts to set in. The ocean was a lovely light blue, its beauty was an odd backdrop for the expanse of rubble around us A?a??a?? scarred earth, broken roads, flattened buildings. It was hard to imagine the beachfront lined with fishermenA?a??a??s huts, which we were told was the way things were. Now there is just the vastness of sand.
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2pm, Navalady, Batticaloa

There was a large crowd gathered here, as though a meeting would be taking place. However, it was a communal lunch where food was being given out to people who had been working to clear the debris in the area under one of those NGO (Non-Government Organization) cash-for-work programmes. The people were paid 300 to 400 Sri Lankan rupees (something like eight Singapore dollars) a day. Going by the standard of living in Colombo where it is only slightly cheaper than Singapore, thatA?a??a??s not a lot to get by.

Lunch was being given as a treat today as it was the last day of the debris-clearing work. Which begs the question: WhereA?a??a??s the money going to come from now?

Half a year later, still, tragedies of losing close family continue. Displays of the bodily scars that remind of the injuries sustained continue. Questions of what the future would bring continue. And here, I heard my first complaint about how the NGOs were misguided in their work, unable to find out who the needy were and unable to distribute aid fairly.

I spoke with a man, Sinacheh Antony, who lost a wife and two children to the waves. He said: A?a??A?Such a disaster should not come again, not only to this country but to the whole world.A?a??A?

When I ran into him again later, we were invited to sit with his family and he treated my friends and I to freshly plucked coconuts. It was great hospitality A?a??a?? they were generous despite their plight. I also got to see his two children who survived A?a??a?? two young daughters, Merina and Medona.

July 2, 2005, Saturday

We reached Arugam Bay late morning. The bay was one of the top ten surfing destinations of the world and a popular tourist destination on the East coast. The first thought that struck me about the place – shirtless Caucasians with surfboards milling about. In the distance, people were frolicking in the waters. The whole place had a holiday feel to it, that is, if you could forget the ubiquitous skeletons of buildings and rubble piles characteristic of the East coast. The good thing though, was that tourists were back. There was even a surfing competition here a few days back, organised by the British Surfing Association.

I visited a German guy, Fred, at his hotel, the Siam View Hotel. Fred had been in Sri Lanka for close to 30 years, and he was angry at the NGOs, calling them a waste of money. Coming from a man who once hosted an NGO it was a startling accusation.

According to Fred, the NGOs have not been consulting with the locals on what the latter need. He recounted an incident where a NGO worker, once took a big detour when he saw Fred coming out of his hotel, just to avoid running into Fred. In a place where getting electricity was a problem, Fred said the NGOs were giving out things like fridges and air conditioners, when what were more urgently needed were power generators. Then there were the temporary shelters that did not take into account the hot local climate. Fred said he had taken the temperature inside one of them A?a??a?? it was 126 degrees Fahrenheit. In degree Celsius, thatA?a??a??s 52. Either way, it reads: Very hot! Fred pointed us to a shelter that had a zinc roof A?a??a?? I gathered it was the metal roof that caused the inside of the shelter to heat up so much.

We saw several types of shelters, each with a different combination of materials like wood, zinc, thatched leaves and clay. All had something in common: They were small A?a??a?? one-room structures that were little more than 4m by 3m in size. ItA?a??a??s a squeeze for any family.

Later, we had our lunch at a restaurant called The Fishing Net. When we were done, we gathered around the restaurant owner, Ajith, as he recounted his experiences to us. Midway through, tears came to his eyes, and he told us that we were the first group to talk with him about what he has been through. There are probably many like him who, besides food and shelter, needs also a listening ear. ItA?a??a??s tough: You canA?a??a??t drop a listening ear in the donation box at McDonaldA?a??a??s, or pack it in a relief supply container to be airlifted there. Perhaps that was one reason why all the people I encountered were so forthcoming with their stories. And why large groups of locals gathered every time we spoke to anyone. Perhaps it was more than the novelty of seeing yellow-skinned oddities. Or perhaps they thought we could help make their lives betterA?a??A?

http://youth.sg/blog/2005/09/09/249/

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'Healing waters

Carolyn Fry finds that surfing is helping one Sri Lankan resort to get back on its feet after the tsunami

Tuesday August 2, 2005

Alan Stokes takes on the surf at Arugam Bay. Photograph: Carolyn Fry

On a sweeping stretch of cinnamon sand, a crowd turned its eyes to the rolling ocean surf. Local families, holiday-makers and a throng of photographers, film-makers and journalists were gathering to see the 2005 Champion of Champions surf contest in Arugam Bay, south-east Sri Lanka.
As a new day's sun burned the sand through the fronds of coconut palms, surfers launched themselves into the water to ride the swell in a ballet of curving turns, speeding glides and twists of spray. The Boxing Day tsunami ripped through this sleepy beachside village, but the Indian Ocean's barrelling waves are helping the community get back on its feet.

The legendary 'right-handers' of Arugam Bay have long attracted travelling wave-riders. During the country's 20-year civil war, a dedicated group of Australian surfers regularly risked being bombed, or shot in cross-fire during violent battles between Tamil Tigers and the army. With the end of the conflict in 2002, more adventurers started to make the 10-hour journey along narrow, pitted roads to the famed beach.

Last year, when the British Professional Surfing Association (BPSA) held the first ever Champions surfing competition in the area it seemed things were finally looking up for this dusty, laid-back cluster of low-rise hotels, palm-roofed cabanas and fishermen's shacks.

A message posted on the Siam View Hotel's website at Christmas said: “The 2004 season has been the best the bay has ever seen. Nothing – not even another civil war – can stop the bay's progress now.”

Hours later, the first of eight waves struck, sucking a metre of sand from the base of palms on Arugam Point, plucking cabanas and their inhabitants from the sand and smashing a thickening cargo of debris through the windows of the buses on the main street.

Simon, owner of the unfortunately named Tsunami Hotel, was managing the Siam View that night. He awoke to find himself underwater with his leg trapped. After breaking his ankle to free himself he was swept through several dwellings by the murky, diesel-tainted current before managing to grasp hold of some building blocks. This stopped Simon being swept out to sea as the water receded back to the horizon. Today, his faded superman tattoo has been supplemented by a fresh turquoise inking of a tsunami, along with the date he survived against all odds.

Following the tsunami, the organisers of the surfing contest were in two minds as to whether it should go ahead this year. A third of Arugam Bay's 3,000 inhabitants had been killed in the disaster, money pledged by charities was slow in reaching the village and the bridge carrying the main road into Arugam Bay had been breached by the waves, cutting the community off for a short period.

However, when the bridge reopened in April the organisers decided the competition should take place. They felt that bringing 100 people into the village would serve as an impetus to get hotels rebuilt as soon as possible as well as injecting much-needed cash into the local economy.

“Everyone worked very, very hard to put it in place,” said Ralph Pereira, managing director of Travel and Tours Anywhere, which developed the contest in conjunction with Sri Lankan Airlines and the BPSA. “We didn't know for sure that it would go ahead or whether there would be sufficient hotel rooms until six weeks beforehand.”

Guesthouse owners had certainly been hurrying to rebuild and reopen rooms damaged by the tsunami. At Hideaway Guesthouse, where I was staying, the front part of the garden was still a building site. But the main building, with its colonial tea plantation feel was homely and clean, with plump pink and orange cushions brightening rattan chairs.

Before the tsunami, surfing had been a mainstay of the tourism economy right around Sri Lanka's southern coastline. The island's south-west has the best waves from November to April, the south-east from May to September.

When Arugam Bay's right-handers tailed off with the onset of the monsoon, surfers simply headed west to Hikkaduwa, where plentiful hotels and beach villas stood among lush gardens of banana and bourganvillia.

Recreating this surfers' paradise in the wake of the tsunami has not been easy; with compensation payments from the government yet to materialise, most tourism enterprises have had to rely on their own funds to rebuild their businesses.

“We lost all our watersports equipment,” explained Thilak Weerasinghe, managing director of Lanka Sportreizen. “I didn't get a cent, but luckily we had built up the business and can afford to rebuild.”

The Travel Foundation and Association of Independent Tour Operators (Aito) are working with the Sri Lankan government, local communities and environmental groups to help people affected by the tsunami regain their livelihoods by developing responsible tourism initiatives.

A number of projects have been earmarked for assistance, including a plan to create a sustainable fishing village. Visitors will see fish being brought to shore and sold, enabling fishermen to benefit from tourism while maintaining their traditional role in society.

Another scheme aims to revegetate land affected by the tsunami, using native plant species. This will include research into using mangroves for coastal protection. Funding for the projects will come from money already pledged by Aito members and donations from customers.

Back in Arugam Bay, there are plans to use money raised by the UK surfing fraternity to build a community surf foundation. Tsunami Surf Relief UK (TSRUK) has so far raised A?A?30,000 through charity auctions and events and has allocated a third of this to building a new surf centre. As well as being a focal point where local surfers can meet, the foundation will help generate cash by offering board hire and surfing lessons to visiting tourists.

“We felt the community would benefit from having a centre offering surf-board hire and perhaps swimming lessons and life-guarding,” explained Phil Williams, national director of Christian Surfers UK and a trustee of TSRUK. “The break at Arugam Point is world famous for its waves and surfers from around the world go specifically to that area. In the three or four years after the ceasefire and before the tsunami, more and more surfers were coming to A-Bay; it was a much more prosperous place than before they came.”

As the surfing contest hotted up there was something of a party atmosphere on the beach. Dozens of coloured flags rippled in the tropical wind along the path to Arugam Point where glassy turquoise waves curled invitingly around the reef.

Judges assessed surfers on their turns, style and risk-taking, while waiting competitors nervously flexed their muscles, waxed their boards and contemplated their chances of winning the A?A?2,000 prize money.

For the Sri Lankan surfers, many of whom lost friends and family in the tsunami, preparing for the contest helped them overcome their fear of the ocean. As each entered the water, the 100 or so villagers seated beneath the palm trees lining the shore cheered and whistled their support.

“The contest has been hugely important for morale after the tsunami,” said Phil Williams. “It's sent out the message that, while Arugam Bay isn't quite yet open for business as usual, it's back on the tourist trail.”

Way to go

Getting there: Sri Lankan Airlines (020-8538 2001), offers 11 flights a week from Heathrow to Colombo. Fares start at A?A?450 return plus taxes

Where to stay: Travel and Tours Anywhere Ltd (0208 8136622) offers surfing holidays to Arugam Bay and Hikkaduwa. A 15-day holiday to Arugam Bay including flights, transfers and B&B accommodation in a guest house costs from A?A?699pp. 14 days in Hikkaduwa costs from A?A?599pp. Hire of boards and surfing lessons can be arranged

When to go: The waves at Arugam Bay are best between May and September during the dry season. During the off-season, Sri Lanka's main surf spot on the south-west coast, Hikkaduwa, has good waves

Further information: Sri Lanka Tourist Board (020-7930 2627), arugambay.com'

http://travel.guardian.co.uk/c…..60,00.html

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In Sri Lanka, a Frustrating Limbo
Rules Leave Tsunami Survivors Unable to Rebuild Lives

In the meantime, Thaseem will be waiting in his chair. “My property and my family, everything finished now,” he said matter-of-factly. “I am alone now.”

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