The first wave hit at 9.26 that morning. There was no warning, no chance to run, not even a chance to say goodbye. It tore through buildings, trees and lives with equal savagery. The train had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, ripped from the tracks by a ten-metre wall of water that had hit the coast at an estimated 800 kilometres per hour. Nearly 1500 people lost their lives on the train that day. But even more incredible was the fact that some had even survived.
Six months later, on the anniversary of that fateful day, I stood before the mangled wreckage of what had once been the Galle-Colombo express, now a twisted and permanent reminder of the Asian Tsunami that had rocked the world on 26 December 2004. An unstoppable and unquenchable wall of water that was to rip apart the lives of millions, from the western coast of Thailand, to the shores of Somalia in east Africa. The spot I stood on, a small fishing village called Peraliya, on the south-western coast of Sri Lanka, had been one of the worst hit areas, a fact made all too painfully clear by the sense of loss and devastation that still pervaded the place. The authorities claimed that 1,000 people died here, but local aid workers and residents put the figure closer to 2,500, testimony that would seem to be borne out by the black granite monument sitting within the tranquil setting of a copse of palm trees close to the beach. It is said that the dead are buried close by, next to a main road, along which life hurtles along at breakneck speed: overcrowded buses, three-wheeled tuk tuks and even the occasional cow all passing by with a seemingly cavalier disregard for life and limb.
Sri Lanka as an island has long captivated the hearts and minds of visitors to its shores, from the ancient Greeks and Romans to Arab traders and European colonists. Marco Polo declared it the finest island in the world and during its turbulent history It has been known by many names; Serendib, Ceylon, The Resplendent Isle and the Pearl of the Orient to name a few. But its most poignant epithet must surely be that of the Teardrop of India. I had arrived in this island paradise a few days before, to help project manage a rebuilding programme, just one of many being set-up throughout this region by a wealth of international aid agencies and charities. We all knew that these people needed help, but nothing could prepare me for the true scale of the disaster. Before the tsunami Peraliya had been a sizeable community of some 420 houses, within minutes of the tsunami hitting it had been reduced to 10. Many of its survivors still lived in tents or makeshift shelters. Some, like Manjou, were living in small wooden shacks, around which he had gathered his few remaining possessions and his few remaining family.
Manjou could probably be described as one of the lucky ones, he had survived after all, but his story was to become an all too familiar lament during my time here. The first wave had deprived him of his home, his place of work and all his tools; Manjou had been an electrician prior to the disaster. It also took his younger sister. The second wave hit whilst he and his two brothers were out looking for her. That was the last time he ever saw them. Manjou was swept two kilometres inland by the force of the water and by the time he returned to his village everything he had ever known was gone. He spends his days now making small wooden boats to try and get together enough money to get him and his remaining family through the day.
It was people like Manjou I was out here trying to help. Working in conjunction with groups of volunteers, my job was to try and help the process of recovery and regeneration along. Six months had gone by and the international outpouring of grief, money and support had apparently not really materialized into anything concrete, in any literal sense of the word. As I looked around at the job in hand I had to admit to a sense of overwhelming impotence and I wondered just how much I could do in the short time I was due to be out here. I was managing teams of complete strangers, and in some cases complete novices. People who in the world beyond this tragedy and destruction were human resource directors and civil engineers, lawyers and post room boys, all coming together with the same overwhelming wish, to help people who six months ago had been just a page in a travel brochure, but who now, because of the events that fateful day 6 months ago, were very much in the world’s conscience.
The plan was to try and build small basic homes, nothing fancy, just four walls and a roof, but something that would restore some dignity back to these people’s lives, something tangible that would show them that the world hadn’t forgotten. Something they could call home. It was hard and tiring work. The monsoons had arrived a few days before and the normally dry earth was fast becoming a quagmire and with temperatures breaking 100°C and humidity in the high 90s, we were faced with an almost Herculean task. The resident Water Buffalos didn’t seem to mind though and found the new pool, with en suite digger, something of a welcome respite from the oppressive heat. They became something of a regular feature over the coming days, almost as much a part of the site as the rubble and bricks.
Heat or no heat though we were determined, and we were dragged along, kicking and screaming on some days, by the infectious enthusiasm of the local families, who it seems were made of sterner stuff. Their quiet resolve and determination and their cheerful smiles were to become a regular feature of my time here and a constant source of wonder to me. And slowly the impossible began to happen. Foundations were dug and floors laid. Walls were built and rooms began to take shape. Some of the families even took to sleeping inside the houses at night, lying amongst the shovels and trowels as if afraid that the unforgiving darkness might swallow up their new homes. As the days progressed the task, whilst still momentous, did at least start to yield some tangible results. The heat and the exhaustion were replaced by the will to succeed and the desire to help people, who had by now become, if not friends, then at least part of the team. It was no longer us and them, it was us! Over the coming weeks the rains subsided, the ground dried out and the buffalos moved on. Life on site took on a regular routine, much of it invoking blood, sweat and a plentiful supply of tears in even the most hardy of souls.
But it wasn’t all work. The evenings also took on a pattern of their own too, one that gave me, and the others, the opportunity to see a bit more of the surrounding area and interact socially with the locals. I arranged river trips, where water monitors glided like aquatic dragons through the lush jungle waterways and local fishermen plied their trade in the time honoured fashion of generations before them. The provincial capital of Galle was only some 30 minutes drive away, an eclectic mix of colonial Dutch architecture and Sinhalese mayhem, whose solid fortress walls rose up from the now tranquil waters of the Indian Ocean. We watched boys playing cricket next to the destroyed buildings of the test ground and families walking the city walls in the warming glow of sunset. It all seemed a long way from the tented cities that ringed the outskirts. But everywhere we went there was the constant reminder of the tsunami, we couldn’t escape it. It was etched into the very fabric of the buildings and the faces of the people.
My time came to an end all too quickly. In spite of all I had tried to do I couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of frustration that I seemed to have achieved so little. I had helped to build houses for people true and, in my own small way, hopefully given people with no hope something to cling onto. But it was just, for want of a better analogy, a drop in the ocean. The United Nations have claimed that it could take up to ten years to rebuild what nature’s fury destroyed in seconds and the cynic in me couldn't help but wonder just how long the world would continue to help, before another disaster took centre stage and our politicians moved on to another cause. Hurricane Katrina in the United States highlighted only too well our inability to cope with the forces of nature at her worst, not to mention our ability to move from one media sound bite to the next. If the richest country on the planet struggled with rebuilding her shattered coastline, then what hope Sri Lanka?
The Sri Lankans are a resilient and resourceful race and their smiling faces will live on in my memory long after the aches and bruises have passed, but they are only human. They, like the Indonesians and the Indians, the Thais and the Somalis, still need our help, not just to build houses, but also to rebuild lives. I spoke to a local aid worker before I left, a woman who had been there from the beginning, who was almost single handedly trying to nurse Perilaya back to health. Her parting words took on the mantle of an epitaph as I boarded the bus and took one last look back at the wooden shacks and tented villages.
“I need to sleep. Is there anyone out there that can help us?”
© Trevor Gibbs 2009
