After the Tsunami

The Soul of Sri Lanka

By Rienzzie Kern, Director of Planning and Evaluation

In Sri Lanka, we greet each other with the word ayubowan, meaning we wish you a long life, a prosperous life and happiness. 

On Dec. 26, more than 40,000 people lost their lives, doomed by a wall of water so powerful that entire cities were destroyed. The ocean, once so friendly and life-giving, washed away the hopes of a prosperous future for more than one million people. The signature smiles of my people, so hospitable, faded like a flower at sundown.

News reports describe a man screaming, "Sir, sir, wave coming, wave coming. Run, run please!" This man, running away from the ocean, most likely had lost his home and loved ones, yet he sought to warn the tourists and others relaxing or jogging on the beach, calling out in a smattering of English, the legacy of British colonialism.

Matara, the city where I held my first job, is gone. The survivors are moving six miles further inland. Roads whose every pothole I knew were erased. As if it were a toy, the famous train "The Queen of the Ocean," which my family had taken so many times to Colombo, was tossed off its tracks and a thousand people died.

The eastern part of the country of my birth, the "Pearl of the Indian Ocean," the site of some of the most beautiful beaches on Earth, is in shambles.

Parents saw their children dragged away from them. Children woke up in hospitals only to learn that their parents were dead. A mother, daughter and grandmother of one family riding a southbound train died. The father survived.

Why did some go and others remain? Why did I not go with her? Why did I not join my parents? These are the questions the survivors ask themselves.

Is God to blame? "Or was it karma," as the Buddhists in Sri Lanka might say. At the end of the day, most people hold on to their faith.

Those who survived face great loss - loss of loved ones, of property, of place. Many now live in strange surroundings with hundreds or even thousands of strangers, sharing shelter and sadness.

Tired of living overcrowded camps, women and men, workers who earned a living fishing, trading or making handicrafts are picking up the pieces of whatever remains of their lives. They are staggering back to where they think their homes were only to find miles and miles of bare land.

But as the sun rises in the east of this beautiful tropical island, so does hope in the hearts of those enduring this disaster. The world community embraced Sri Lanka, whose population of 19 million represents every major religion in the world.

Many countries have offered relief aid, others are ready to rebuild roads and bridges, and others are helping people reestablish their livelihoods with the focus on long-term development.

What might have saved the lives of those 40,000 people? Time? Thirty minutes? An alarm that would have warned of the disastrous tsunami? Technology?

In a world of such technological advancement that we can reach and research Mars, what will it take to install a tsunami warning system? Was it technological ignorance or was it simply not on the priority list? Should technology be considered a fundamental human right?

In Sri Lanka, my country of smiles, I see the flowers of hope bloom. I see hard work, determination and entrepreneurship remaking the country. This nation lost thousands of people and millions, perhaps billions, of dollars in property. But it didn't lose its soul. And I have faith that the smiles will return.