Along the Galle Road

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In some places the waves were mysteriously selective. Two houses stand while the one between is gone. In other places entire neighborhoods have been erased. A wall stands here, a kitchen sink over there; a spiral staircase leads nowhere. And where have the former occupants gone? In Sri Lanka alone 40,000 stories ended terribly that day. In many cases even the people who might have been left behind to remember those stories were washed away too. Total erasure. The survivors occupy tents and temporary huts provided by Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, UNICEF, and others.

What would it have been like to be one of the first people to arrive on the scene? It must have been an unthinkable landscape of death and misery. Even now there are white flags along the road indicating that people need urgent help. A sign reads, "Please survive us". I stopped at one refugee camp to see what I could do. While I was there I saw a few badly damaged railway cars. I was told 2500 people died here when the wave hit the train and rolled it over again and again and again. People begging for money mobbed me. I handed out my 500 rupee notes, then my 100 rupee notes, and so on until my pockets were empty. Still more people ran up to me with their hands out.

Everyone has a harrowing story. A security guard from Galle told me how he lost three family members. A student and his two friends climbed coconut palms to escape the water. When it was over one friend was missing. I stopped for lunch in Hikkaduwa where the waiter told me how he rescued his wife. The owner of the restaurant told me that every evening at six you can hear ghosts sobbing.

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But between the damaged homes I saw sandlot cricket games being played. A new billboard for Coke sprouted in a tent city. Businesses are open, although a few are ominously closed. And the little beach town of Unawatuna hasn't lost its magic. Protected by a reef, there are still halves of functioning hotels and restaurants. This morning I sat at a plastic table in the ruins of a beachfront cafe and drank a cup of coffee. My view was of a crescent shape white sand beach backed by a dense grove of coconut palms. A stupa was perched on a hilltop at the other end of the bay. Next to my table a stray dog and a monitor lizard faced off. The dog won.

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Photos

Unawatuna 1
Ahhhhh!