Contributor: Jeff Greenwald

The Sri Lankan village of Jayanagar sits right at the beach. Consequently, it bore the full brunt of last December's Indian Ocean tsunami; the waves claimed 19 lives here. Those who survived fled inland as soon as they heard the screams that followed the first, and mildest, of the three waves. When the water receded, the village was destroyed.

"The beach was a mess, and there was a terrible smell," says Mrs. A. K. Kadidja, an official with Sri Lanka's Society for Socio Economic Development (SSED). "We needed to clean it up, to get the fresh air. There was a smell of death, from dead dogs and other animals, and the wells also were smelling so badly."

As we're speaking, a villager pushing a wheelbarrow dumps a load of broken cement bricks onto one of the roadside piles. He is one of 100 villagers - 10 work groups of 10 people each, men and women - clearing debris along half a kilometer of beach as part of Mercy Corps' cash-for-work program.

"We hired 100 people, based on their relationship to this village, and who had the greatest need," explains Mrs. S. Krishandi, a SSED field officer. "These people no longer have their national identity cards, which are very important - to get jobs, even to withdraw money from a bank account. This man with the wheelbarrow, Mr. J. Hamsa, was a shopkeeper on Pulmoddai Road. When the tsunami attacked, he lost his building. We are employing him for the clean-up work."

The program by SSED, funded by Mercy Corps using U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) grant monies, began on February 8. The first order of business was to clean out the destroyed homes, then break down the building materials. Some of the cinder blocks, bricks, roof tiles and window frames can be used again. The detritus will be carried away by trucks, and used to fill some of the marshlands created by the tsunami. These ponds of stagnant water have become breeding grounds for mosquitoes, an ever-present problem in Sri Lanka.

The workers are on site from 7 am until 3 pm, with two breaks for tea and an hour for lunch. They are paid 300 rupees per day, a fair wage in this developing country.

"So many organizations said they were going to come and work here, and provide cash for labor." A.M. Hassen, the third SSED field officer and a native of Jayanagar, recalls. "But only SSED and Mercy Corps actually came to help us."

The clean-up has psychological value, as well. Although the villagers may not be able to build on the sites of their former homes (a much-contested government directive states that no one can rebuild within 100 meters of the high-tide line), their new homes will overlook the impacted zone. Seeing that area returned to an attractive, debris-free condition will help assuage the trauma shared by Jayanagar's residents in the weeks following the disaster.

Mr. Allabdin, a handsome, bearded man with piercing black eyes, stands with his wife and young daughter on the bare foundation of his former home. Along with his house, the Muslim fisherman lost his boat and engine on December 26. Hopefully, these tools of his trade will be replaced. Meanwhile, the SSED/Mercy Corps cash-for-work project is seeing him through.

"Before the tsunami, I had a good life here with my family," says Allabdin. "After the disaster, it was very painful and shocking to see what our village looked like. We want to get it back to normal - and this is a good beginning."

Read more ▸

A Buddhist vihara isn’t a place one expects to find a carnival atmosphere. But that’s very much the scene at the Sri Sudharmarama Temple in Madiha, during the last weekend in January. A three-day work camp, spearheaded by the Center for Peace Building and Reconciliation (CPBR) and funded by Mercy Corps - under a grant from the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance - turned the usual subdued complex into a hub of high-spirited activity.

Mercy Corps supported CPBR’s “Friends in Need” proposal, which outlined efforts to organize university students willing to serve three-months tours as volunteer relief workers in hard-hit villages across Sri Lanka, and to pull together other services for tsunami survivors.

A group of educators, psychologists and peace activists launched CPBR in 2002. The local non-profit now has six staff members and is led by Jayantha Seneviratne, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Kelaniya.

CPBR’s “Friends in Need” proposal was spearheaded by Project Director Dishani Jayaweera, a dynamic Colombo attorney who left the legal profession to answer a deeper calling. “From the time I was very small,” she says, “my interest has always been people. To be with people, and to be a friend to as many people as I can.”

Jayaweera says the group’s main objective is to create a network between grassroots organizations, regional universities and the community. “We’d like to ultimately give decision-making powers to the village, to empower the people who live here to design their own projects.”

This three-day program, in Madiha village in Matara district, is a pilot project for CPBR’s program.

In one temple building, an engaging American nurse diagnoses and treats, with good humor and infinite patience, a long queue of villagers. Beside her, a Sri Lankan psychologist counsels anxious locals, helping them come to terms with tsunami-related stress and depression. To his left, an eye doctor examines adults for cataracts. Vision tests are conducted across the room; the 101 people in need will receive free eyeglasses. Later, there will be a distribution of non-food items; 411 households will receive new cooking sets, and 25 expectant mothers will take home pillows and foam mattresses as well.

And that’s just the adults. Next door, in the assembly room, scores of children bend intently over drawing paper. Art is powerful therapy, as a glance through their sketches reveals. The majority are cheerful seascapes and sunrises; but in a dozen of the sketches, huge waves engulf homes and trees, while victims bob in fiercely crayoned seas.

These art activities have been arranged by the Tsunami Relief Foundation, a bare-bones NGO under the direction of a tall, slim filmmaker named Timothy Senavirajne. During the course of the day, he and his small cadre of volunteers lead the children in creative activities ranging from drama to sculpture and each child leaves the temple complex with a daypack full of school supplies, candy, and toys. All told, 234 children receive school kits.

Meanwhile, the CPBR work camp – the centerpiece of this project – is in full swing in the nearby village. More than 50 student volunteers from Ruhuna and Kelaniya universities clear the ground around fallen houses, moving broken tiles and fallen bricks into bulldozer-ready heaps. Smaller teams, with more specific skills, repair lightly damaged homes and clean wells contaminated with salt water (both efforts were assisted by Lanka Shakti, a journalists’ and artists’ organization associated with CPBR). The work is slow, but steady. By wrap-up on Sunday afternoon, the joint effort will have cleared more than 20 compounds, repaired five homes, and sweetened 35 wells.

Four faiths are represented among the students and residents working here – Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim – illustrating the core of CPBR’s mission: “To provide emotional and communal harmony, and a Sri Lanka at peace.” This seed is nurtured by the understanding that ongoing rebuilding projects supported by Mercy Corps will continue, well after the long weekend has ended.

Read more ▸

Along the beachfront road in Kinniya, on the corner beside the gutted remains of Kinniya District Hospital, a hand-lettered sign has been nailed to a tree:

TSUNAMI JUNCTION

It may seem presumptuous, even preposterous, to designate this spot as the crux of last December’s disaster. But no one who has wandered through the ruins of the hospital (where 499 of the 500 patients lost their lives) or walked along the main road, where the tsunami’s high-water mark is etched above shattered doorways, will contest the sentiment.

It is impossible to know with certainty how the children of Kinniya and the surrounding villages will be changed by the things they have witnessed, and by the losses they have suffered. One imagines the worst. So it’s an unexpected surprise to approach a play area near a refugee camp in Faizal Nagar, and see 20 children standing in a circle -- imitating their favorite animals.

One by one, encouraged by Mujajeer, a 19-year-old “animator” from the Team of Youth for Development, Understanding, and Progress (TYDUP), the boys and girls enter the circle and perform.

A girl in a red dress drops to her knees, and creeps through the circle mewing like a cat; another dances into the center, scratching and hooting like a monkey. A 9-year-old enters, baa-ing like a sheep. Cows and parrots, dogs and crows, all make their appearance. The moment that exercise is over, the kids – serenaded by Mujajeer – begin a spirited game of “musical crabs.”

“It’s like musical chairs,” explains the theatrical Mujajeer. “But with no music, and no chairs.”

Drama, non-competitive games, role-playing and sports activities are all part of “Project Rapid Response.” The two-month program, designed to benefit more than 600 children and their families, was proposed by TYDUP and funded by Mercy Corps, with funding from the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance.

TYDUP was formed in 2001 to support children affected by Sri Lanka’s decades-long civil war. After the tsunami, Program Manager Philip Murugiah, based in Trincomalee, began to develop a series of programs designed to help children whose lives were derailed by the Tsunami.

“There are nine animators, and two field officers trained by Action Aid India,” says the high-energy Murugiah. They learned basic strategies for working with children: how to start up recreational activities and to go about leading children away from the disaster and back into their normal processes.”

The parents, Murugiah points out, have been overwhelmed with their own concerns, like rebuilding their homes and vocations. But they must also take an active hand in supporting their children.

“The training also enhanced their capacity to work with the families of these children in the welfare centers, and show how the parents can support their children, and help them start afresh,” Murugiah says.

Education is a central component of the TYDUP project. Children’s studies were, of course, interrupted by the tsunami, and some schools in affected areas did not re-open until February. Taking this into account, “Operation Rapid Impact” includes not just theater and sports, but an interactive curriculum to helps kids catch up on their math and language skills.

As I leave the play area at Faizal Nagar, the children interrupt a singing contest and break into a spontaneous chorus of “Nandri! Nandri!” – the Tamil word for “Thanks!” Boys and girls surround me, thrusting out their palms for handshakes and high-fives. The animators grin, and offer the same sentiment. But I’m just a musical crab, darting from one project to the next. Their kudos belong to Mercy Corps, who is helping to bring comfort, encouragement and solidarity to the kids of Tsunami Junction.

Read more ▸

The fish are back.

A scale in his hand and a diving mask hiked up his forehead, M.P. Sahid – a fish trader in Trincomalee – watches as a group of two dozen local fishermen empty a huge coir net on the beach, filling woven baskets with the first good catch since the tsunami. Paraw and barracuda flop on the sand, fins glinting in the morning light of an already hot day. There are at least 350 pounds of fish here, worth several hundred dollars to the trader.

Before the tsunami, there were several ways the residents of Kinniya could buy their fish. One of the most convenient was through fishmongers: members of the Kinniya Fishermen’s Cooperative Society who, equipped with bicycles, fish boxes and scales, peddled as far as 10 kilometers offering nearly 50 varieties of seafood caught in the coastal waters.

“More than 3,000 bicycles were lost to the tsunami, in this district alone.” A. C. Nisardeen sits in Kinniya’s small office at the Eastern Forum for Resources Development (EFFORD), flanked by his two sons. He’s an ever-smiling, contagiously ebullient man of 42, wearing a rugby shirt, with narrow reading glasses balanced on his nose. “The fishmongers lost everything: their cycles, wooden boxes for carrying the fish, knives and weight and balance sets. We asked them if, in addition to these things, there was anything else they wanted; and they asked also for straw hats. These, too, we will give.”

Seventy-five fishmongers will soon be back in action, thanks to a collaboration between EFFORD and Mercy Corps, with funding from the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance. Seventy-five new bikes – sturdy, India-made Lumalas – have been purchased, along with sea-green bike racks. The fish boxes were made in Kinniya by local carpenters. The knives were fashioned by local blacksmiths, who forged the broad steel blades out of recycled automobile leaf springs. Nisardeen hands over one of the tools; it’s more a mini-machete than a dainty fillet knife.

EFFORD was established in 1998 by a group of friends and colleagues discouraged, as Nisardeen put it, “by the inability of our country’s decision-makers to make decisions.” The group included lawyers, surveyors and teachers, united in their desire to provide assistance to Sri Lanka’s war-torn society (Nisardeen himself is a civil engineer). As Kinniya is predominantly Muslim, EFFORD’s initial projects focused on peace-building between the local community and the separatists of the LTTE: The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, whose often violent struggle for an independent Tamil state has claimed 30,000 lives since 1983.

“We sponsored seminars, and held peace-building discussions with other areas,” says Nisardeen. “Our efforts to reach a common understanding have been successful, and some problems between the Muslims and Tamils have been solved.”

Since the tsunami, EFFORD’s projects have had a much more material thrust. The fishmonger’s project is their first partnership with Mercy Corps.

At ten o’clock in the morning, half a dozen bicycle fishmongers arrive at the office, eager to meet a Mercy Corps representative. They’re all excited about the program, and by the prospect of returning to their occupation. Most have families, and plan to use the income to supplement the government rations provided at their refugee camps. Fresh fish will be a big part of that change.

“Peoples’ attitudes have changed,” says Hajji Mohideen, a 44-year-old man in a neatly pressed shirt. “After the tsunami, they were afraid of the sea, and afraid to eat fish. Now, they are eating, the same as before. We, too, are eating fish again.”

A much-younger fishmonger, wearing an O’Neill cap, is clearly relieved by this turn of events. “After the tsunami, I thought I’d have to become a farmer,” says Aboobucker Kadafi. “But it wasn’t possible, because I had no experience. It’s a good thing we are provided these tools and equipments, so I can go back to business, because I really don’t have the ability to do anything else!”

Before I leave the office, Nisardeen – a man of boundless enthusiasm – shows me an unexpected perk: the fishmongers’ custom-made T-shirts. They display the Mercy Corps and EFFORD emblems side by side, within the outline of what might be a tuna. “The shirts themselves, of course, must be brown or maroon.” He explains. “If they are white…” Having cleaned a few trout, I nod sympathetically.

Read more ▸

Staff members at Arumbugal, a Sri Lanka non-governmental organization whose name means “Flower Bud” in the Tamil language, know all too well what a tsunami can do. When the deadly waves struck the northeastern coast of this island on December 26, their office on the beach north of Trincomalee was completely destroyed.

Nonetheless, the small relief organization - which has only seven volunteer staff members - was able to regroup with amazing speed. For the month of February, they set themselves an ambitious task: testing and purifying 600 wells that provide water for 7,067 households in this area's coastal villages. The project was approved and funded by Mercy Corps, with support from U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance.

The process of purifying wells is straightforward but time-consuming. The water is tested for salt and bacteria, then pumped out until the well water is at the source level. The well itself is cleaned, and a small amount of chlorine is added to the remaining water. The wells refill overnight and are checked again the following morning. Up to three cleaning cycles may be needed. When the well passes the purity test, it’s labeled with a bright red sticker. With six pumps in their armada, the group is able to service 20 wells a day.

Ananthi Waram, who lives a bit inland from the beach, stands in her yard beside her husband and their two children. A few meters away, a bright yellow pump ejects a geyser of water, which falls into an overflowing blue tub. “After the tsunami, we had to boil all our water for half an hour, five times a day” she says. “With the well cleaned, we don’t need to boil it at all – unless it’s for the children’s food. We’re very happy about that.”

Less than a kilometer away, another pump hums away on the grounds of the local middle school. Classes are out for the day, but a team of Mercy Corps and Arumbugal staff is on site. A few adolescent boys stand at the well’s rim, peering into its depths. There’s still plenty of water; it takes a hard-working pump about two-and-a-half hours to empty a well.

The ocean is in plain sight, an expanse of shimmering surf beyond the school’s water tower. Crows dart above the sand, picking at trash. This isn’t litter; plastic containers, parts of boats, even trees sucked out to sea by the tsunami’s fierce undercurrent will continue to wash up on these shores for months to come.

It’s the second pumping of the school’s well, which hasn’t yet earned its seal of approval.

“Closer to the beach there’s much more salinization,” observes John Sowinski, Mercy Corps' logistics manager in the Trincomalee region. “Even if the ocean waves didn’t fall directly into the wells, the water table itself was very much affected.”

Overseeing the process is a neatly dressed young man named Krishna, a public-health inspector for Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Health. He will independently test the wells and certify them when they’re safe.

“After the tsunami,' says Krishna, “sea water mixed with our natural water. We immediately supplied the temporary settlement areas with water tanks, and filled them with water brought from wells far inland. This was our first line of protection – but the community was forced to use water buckets. It wasn’t a permanent solution. So I requested to Arumbugal, which made a proposal to Mercy Corps. Soon, the people in the community will be able to return to their houses and working places.”

A clean water supply is at the heart of efforts to repair shattered communities and restore the foundations of people’s lives. In Kuchchaveli, where the fishing boats again line the sands, Mercy Corps’ efforts will let 600 freshwater wells nourish the people once again.

Read more ▸