Gail Kenyon - Journal
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The best run relief camp we have seen is run by university students. Sixty-one camps around the coast of Sri Lanka are managed by pairs of Business Management students from the Postgraduate Institute of Management, University of Sri Jayewardenepura. The six in the Matara areas are supervised by Ranjanie Goonetilleke, Senior Consultant at the Institute.
In an innovative response to the December 26 disaster, senior students in the program were assigned to run the relief camps in lieu of their senior research project. Kanchana Karunagama and Gihan Perera work all week in their professional finance positions, and then on weekends they manage a relief camp of 38 military families all of whom have lost their homes to the tsunami.
With the support of Oxfam and LEADS, a Sri Lankan community development NGO, these families live in corrugated metal buildings, four per building. The cooking and sanitary facilities are communal. After three months families have selected from four sites to build their future homes. An architect has donated the plans for the homes and the supporting community, which is to include, community center, nursery school and playground. LEADS will build the buildings.
The students must present their results soon and be graded in their success of their planning, and implementation. All projects must include a sustainable plan for permanent housing, sustainable employment and education.
From the relaxed smiles on the faces of the camp residence and the rows of blooming flowers in front of each unit, I suspect Kanchana and Gihan will be getting A's.
We have had several days of exciting, painful and inspiring experiences. The enormous loss affects us all as we hear story after story of unimaginable tragedy. We hear of the turtle rehabilitation center keeper up to his waist in water trying to rescue his turtles from being washed inland, the man with so many dead in his family, no house and no boat to fish to feed his remaining son, the 16-year-old young woman who is studying for her A levels who has lost her mother. These people greet us with grace and generosity and shake our hands and smile and show us there beautiful surviving children or how they are trying to make a tent a comfortable place to live for now. We have also met the relief workers, some Sri Lankan, some foreign, often young people who have left their work or their travels or their studies to come and help. They are also an inspiration.
And then, last night more terror arrived for these people as the news of the recent earthquake spread across the area. We can barely imagine what they must feel as they are asked to move farther away from the sea and mourn another 1000 dead in Indonesia.
My experience here has affirmed that we must share our wealth not only because of the recent disaster but because we are citizens of the world and are not entitled to the lion's share. It also tells me that these people are strong and wise and with the resources will rebuild their homes and lives.
A day of contrasts and surprises. Colombo (the only place we have been so far) is smoggy and dense. The solid white line in the middle of the street seems to be only a suggestion for drivers as they vie for every inch of roadway they can get. I am sure I saw two cows walking on the sidewalk of the main street although I was pretty sleepy at the time. Naturally dogs are everywhere, some are feral and some are not. The trees are heavy with yellow, red, pink, white blooms. The air smells rich and green.
We visited a refugee camp for 17 families. They have been there for three months now. They now have some cooking equipment and mosquito nets thanks to the volunteer Indoneal, who Roz told you about. The children are exquisitely beautiful. One baby, only four months old, has been in the camp all her life. Her mother and grandmother are there with her. The camp is guarded by a handsome young soldier with a huge gun.
Later today we went to an orphanage that takes care of 17 boys who have been orphaned by the fighting in the north of Sri Lanka and then these same children were displaced from their orphanage by the tsunami. They are filled with questions about the United States and the world. Do we have giant anacondas in the United States? Are boys and girls segregated? Does the war make us scared to live there?
Now I must sleep.
The opportunity to travel half way around the world to Sri Lanka fills me with excitement and trepidation. This journey seemed to have started when I read an email in January about a meeting for anyone interested in tsunami relief. I just knew it was the right thing to do so I went. Now I am eating typhoid pills and packing sun screen.
I cannot imagine what we will see when we arrive. I imagine a beautiful country filled with beautiful and warm people. I expect to see pain and loss but also joy and strength. I imagine I will be changed by this experience but it is impossible to anticipate that change. My hope is that we will make some friends and colleagues and that we will be stronger and better for those connections and that we can give back in kind. Thank you to all the people who have supported and encouraged me to make this life changing trip.
Gail Kenyon
Assistant Professor
Social Work Program
Department of Sociology and Social Work
