The Third Wave (16 page)

Bruce managed to secure a grant from Shell Oil, and I collected lots of small donations from my parents and New York friends. This quickly came to an amount sufficient to get several businesses up and running in Sri Lanka. So we set about facilitating the creation of all sorts of small industries: a bakery, a sawmill, a brickmaking factory, a bike repair shop, several sewing shops with weaving spindles and sewing machines, a mask shop, a candy store, a roti shop, a fishing supply store, and a turtle hatchery.

Usually, the head of a family would approach me, saying that he or she needed to start working again to support his or her family. Instead of handing them money, we would sit down with them and discuss a long-term business plan. We would put some numbers on paper and write a little contract of what was expected of them moving forward. We would then call around to
volunteers and friends back home, asking if anyone wanted to help. Once the money changed hands, that was that. Sometimes the villagers would surprise me by naming their shops after me. There was an Alison’s Enterprises and an Alison’s Bike Shop, which was sweet but completely embarrassing.

Sunday was my favorite day of the week because it was swimming day. We had started the tradition by taking the children to the beach in Peraliya, but as the months went by, we borrowed minivans to travel farther up the coast where the surf wasn’t as rough. There were around fifty children who attended the lessons regularly, most from the poorest families in the village. We were part of one big family now and some of the children’s parents came along to keep an eye on them … and on us. We foreigners were accepted but always watched over carefully.

At the beach, we would play games and give swimming lessons. Swimming days were like summer camp, with everyone laughing and jumping all over one another. Sri Lankans don’t usually swim, and learning how was a big treat for them. I noticed that some of the children were getting thinner, so after the lessons we would serve a simple lunch of vegetable fried rice. After lunch, we would sing for hours. My Sinhalese was improving, and I was able to communicate with the children. They loved teaching me new words. When my Sinhalese failed me, I would start counting and repeating the alphabet, which would unfailingly make the children burst into laughter. The other volunteers and I also taught the kids new English words and customs.

Oscar found joy in soccer, which was a way for him to release his aggression. In New York, he had led a physically active life, and whenever he would pass a field of people playing soccer he would join them. In Sri Lanka, he did the same thing. On the nights he came back from an intense soccer game, he was in a much better mood.

Over time, Oscar adopted the nearby Galle village soccer team and began coaching them. His team was talented, so he organized friendly matches with other teams, such as the visiting Canadian team and the Sri Lankan military team. Oscar found sponsors to buy his team jerseys and soccer shoes. Most of his teammates had never worn soccer shoes before, though, and halfway through the match they would kick them off and run without them. Through soccer, Oscar made many Sri Lankan friends and found great fulfillment.

On one of my rounds to the village next to ours, I came across a crippled little boy living in a shed who had a blind father and an autistic mother. The temperature inside must have been over 106 degrees. The little boy lay on a filthy makeshift bed. The infected fourth-degree burns covering his legs were wrapped in bloody bandages that stuck to his wounds. The sight of him broke my heart, and I raced back to Peraliya to find some toys and medicine to give him. I offered him a whistle to call his mother, two balloons, and a large green toy frog that spat water out of its mouth when squeezed. He responded as if all his
Poya
wishes had come true at once, and he gave me the most gleeful smile.

The boy’s injuries were not directly related to the tsunami. He had been playing cricket with his friends some weeks after the
disaster. He was a few miles inland at the time, chasing a ball across a huge cricket field, when he fell into a deep, hidden pit of boiling black oil. Roadworkers were using the oil to tar the roads but had left the pot of burning hot oil unattended. The boy’s friends were far away on the other side of the cricket field when he disappeared from sight. He was in shock, but managed to pull himself out of hell and drag himself in the opposite direction to a nearby river to relieve his pain. There, the skin on his legs peeled right off, and he felt the fish eating away at his flesh. Next, he dragged his body over to the highway, where a bus picked him up and took him to a local hospital. He had been through a devastating experience and was now left to rot in his shed.

The mother asked me for money for food, so I handed them the only ten dollars I had left to my name, and apologized that it was such a small amount. When I inspected their food supply, I wondered where all the billions of donated aid dollars had gone. All they had was one plate of old rice with hundreds of flies hovering over it. I bit my lip and told them I would return with some more food. As I started to leave, the blind father got down on his knees and rapidly kissed my feet. I should have been used to this customary gesture of thanks, but it still embarrassed me intensely. I smiled and turned away from them, walking outside to find fresh air.

It had a ring to it: “The Hawaiians have arrived.” I was out body collecting when along the street came a flock of Hawaiians in light blue scrubs and friendly smiles. They were from New Hope church in Honolulu, and their leaders were named Pastor Wayne Cordeiro and Doug Kennedy.

Timing is everything. The Hawaiians had arrived at a time
when we had nothing left to give. When a disaster strikes, there are often many first responders, but then everyone slowly goes away to work on the next disaster, so the second group of responders is essential. Pastor Wayne and the others had brought with them a donation from their church that helped save Peraliya.

I was sitting on the beach watching a perfect eight-foot barrel peel to the shore when it occurred to me that it was time to leave. I’m not sure how I knew, but I just did. The hospital was still quite busy but most of the initial tsunami infections had healed. We were mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted, and it was time for us to go home to rest. I shared my thoughts with Oscar, Bruce, and Donny, and they agreed with me. We were all squeezed out. Oscar’s and my original return plane tickets both had expired many months before, so our friend Kym Anthony generously booked our flights home. We were set to leave in a few weeks.

Now that we were going, it was time to move the hospital out of the old school library. As it had been one of the only buildings left standing after the tsunami, it had served as the main rebuilding hub of the village. It also had attracted a great deal of aid to Peraliya. But its time was over. Moving the hospital didn’t mean it had to close—we were still seeing over 150 new patients a day—we just needed a more appropriate building. I searched the village for a new and improved location. Meanwhile, Dr. Stein, a German doctor who had spent a few months working at our clinic and shared my vision for creating a permanent hospital in Peraliya, flew home to raise money. Dr. Stein ended up seeing our dreams through to reality. He found not only German investors but also a great Aussie architect named Justin who agreed to build the hospital.

Moving day was bittersweet and rainy, with lightning exploding outside the hospital windows. Everyone pitched in to help
move the medical supplies from the library over to our new temporary medical center. I carefully took down the children’s tsunami drawings and saved them to rehang. They were historical documents just like the ones I had saved from September 11, and they, too, would have their place in history. It took a full day to move, but we felt satisfied when the work was done.

In the afternoon, Oscar and I shared a fun romantic dance in the middle of the freshly cleared old hospital building. Argentine tango had been a passion of mine ever since a beautiful Antonio Banderas look-alike taught me how to dance in an alley in Buenos Aires. At the end of our dance, Oscar plunged me backward until my hair almost touched the floor, and the villagers shrieked as if he were going to drop me. He then whipped me back up with a triple spin and a light kiss. It was a tender moment for us. We hadn’t had time in the past six months for romance, and it had sometimes left me wondering about my feelings for him. The dance reminded me of why I’d fallen in love with Oscar in the first place.

I spent my last days in Peraliya making sure that the Community Tsunami Early-Warning Center could function without me. I knew that if I was leaving town I couldn’t help the villagers individually anymore, but the tsunami center was something I felt everyone could benefit from far into the future. I hoped it would give the villagers of Peraliya, and eventually everyone along the Sri Lankan coast, some peace of mind and help them sleep soundly at night.

Dr. Novil and I hoped to install tsunami warning sirens all along the Sri Lankan coastline. We also wanted to have government-run tsunami-detecting buoys out in the Indian Ocean to record
earthquakes and activity faster. But our main goal in the short term was simply to get the warning messages out to as many villagers in our area as possible, as quickly as possible. The CTEC building consisted of several computers connected to the Internet, which could receive tsunami warning messages from tsunami centers around the world. Our tsunami officers would pick up the signal and alert the villagers via a network of large sirens and loudspeakers strategically placed around the surrounding five villages. We had two recorded tapes to play: One announced that people should stay in their homes, as there was no tsunami danger; the second tape announced that a tsunami warning was in effect and instructed people to move to higher ground at once.

A group of villagers came with us to officially open the center, which was located just outside the entrance to Peraliya. Dr. Novil arranged for us to cut a yellow rope at the opening ceremony. We then sent out our first greeting via computer to other tsunami centers around the world. I had a corny idea to test the new officers, too. I looked out the window, then quickly turned to them and asked in a frightful voice, “Is there a tsunami coming?” They immediately got online and looked at the earthquake activity, then called the Sri Lankan Meterology Department in Colombo for confirmation. They announced there was no tsunami threat, and with that we all burst into laughter and applause. CTEC was up and running, ready to save lives!

We wanted the staff to take their positions seriously and to show up on time, so we made the tsunami officer position a paying job. We interviewed applicants from the entire Galle area and carefully selected the most responsible people. Officers wore new uniforms and followed strict protocol. We asked them to punch-stamp a card every fifteen minutes to make sure they didn’t fall asleep at the computer on their watch. The officers would work
in five-hour shifts 365 days a year, funded by me and any donations I could find. Cronulla Rotary Club in Australia bought us a generator and supplies. Some of the CTEC officers had family members who had been killed during the tsunami, and they all felt proud to be protecting their people from future disasters.

After the CTEC opening ceremony, we walked back over to what used to be the field hospital, which we had converted temporarily into a movie theater. Chandran Rutman, a filmmaker friend of ours from Colombo, had brought by a DVD of
Finding Nemo
for us to screen. For most of the villagers, it was the first time they had ever seen moving images projected on a screen. Hundreds of children and adults sat in a trance as the magic of movieland swept over them.

One day shortly before we left, Oscar and I had just finished work and were feeling down. We were sitting on a rock watching the sunset and venting our frustrations to each other when a small boy whom we had never seen before jumped off a bus and came walking over to us. He said quietly, “I know who you are!” We asked him to join us for a king coconut. He shook our hands and said he had been observing us for a while. He told us that he wanted to thank us on behalf of the president of his country for the important work we had been doing. Dumbfounded at this random act of appreciation from such a young boy, we both spontaneously burst into tears of joy and sat there crying with him. It took a little boy of no more than nine years of age to take away all the pain of the past six months.