When Haiti’s capital, Port Au Prince was decimated by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake in 2010, “A number of large institutions with experience in such settings – including the International Organization for Migration, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and Red Cross affiliates – were charged with tending to the displaced….” writes Dr. Paul Farmer. He is an American doctor and anthropologist living in Haiti, and the co-founder of Partners in Health, an organization delivering high quality health care to poor rural Haitians. Since the disaster, Dr. Farmer has also been serving as the UN Deputy Special Envoy for Haiti, under Special Envoy, Bill Clinton.
The quake killed 316,000 people, injured some 300,000, and displaced about 100,0000 people and Farmer notes that under the UN’s ‘cluster strategy’ the World Food Program (WFP) was charged with food aid to Haitian refugees, and that hundreds of other international non-governmental organizations also rushed to their aid. But days after the disaster, many news channels showed the stunning sights of hungry survivors looting partially destroyed shops, looking for food and in an interview with Charlie Rose, North America’s ABC television channel’s newscaster, Katie Courec, who visited Haiti, said that despite the arrival of many planes carrying relief items, no food and drink had reached the thirsty and hungry survivors. With so many humanitarian workers in the country, what had prevented even the most basic aid items reaching the IDPs?
An internal memo written by John Holmes, the head of Refugee Assistance (OCHA,) which was leaked to the press, and from which Farmer quotes extensively in his book, shows that Holmes believes part of the problem relates to their overall operations capacity and asks that all major organizations deploy their most experienced disaster response staff, and to make sure they procure, deliver, and distribute what is needed as quickly as possible. But Courec believes that while the single runway at the air port complicated matters, the bigger problem was a lack of leadership, cooperation, and communication, and an inflated sense of ego among relief agencies. Each country who sent relief items thought their supplies were more important than the other countries’ aid, she said. She also recalled a story she had read before her trip which points to a lack of communication between big bureaucracies like the UN and the US Aid and local organizations who could have helped to coordinate relief efforts. Courec also notes that confusion emerged due to a lack of leadership – international organizations did not know if they or the Haitian government were in charge of the operations. [1]
In Sri Lanka too a similar situation could have easily emerged because with no plan to manage a complex disaster, the government appeared paralyzed the first three or four days following the tsunami. But no incidents of looting or reports of survivors going hungry were reported in my research site or in other affected places because instead of waiting for help from GoSL or global relief agencies, because the country came together to help the IDPs, the vast majority of who ran to the institutions they traditionally turn to for help, the village temples.
As mentioned in the previous chapter, the British had attempted to disempower the monks, but they remain de facto community leaders even today. And living in their own quarters in temple compounds, monks continue to help those in need free of charge, even if the needs are not spiritual. With close connections to the people, they also have the capacity to reach out to the wider community when help is needed. So, the villagers with who Ciranthi and her children fled as the second wall of water rushed ashore had stopped only when they reached the temple in Galduwe village.
Temples are not normally crowded because lay people go there in the mornings or evenings as and when they need or can. But the tsunami hit on a full moon poya day, when all temples conduct special programs for the many men, women, and children who observe Ata Sil or the Eight Precepts. [2] When people observe Ata Sil they renounce the lay life for the day and most spend the day at the temple since it provides the right environment to observe the precepts without hindrance. So word of the tragedy spread quickly among the villagers and Ciranthi said relief efforts started immediately under the monks’ directions.
Amid all the bustle, however, Ciranthi and Nadi simply sat in a corner in shock, until someone informed the family they will be taken to Batapola, a town about 30 kilometers inland. They did not know where the place was and nor did they care. What mattered just then was that they were safe, and were together. Ciranthi writes, “We got onto a truck – beats me how I managed all this when from all sides, people were trying to climb into it to escape. We drove through narrow inland roads, now gone completely mad with people grief-stricken, misplaced, destroyed, devastated, injured, bleeding, and running for dear life.”
In Batapola, everyone was taken to another temple. The number of refugees had grown to hundreds and Ciranthi recalls, “Amidst the serenity and the calmness of the hallowed place of worship, the whole scenario of death, tragedy, and devastation unfolded in front of our eyes – A woman carrying her infant, wailing for her husband who got washed away, little realizing the infant in her arms was already dead...A husband moaning in the agony of not being able to rescue his wife as she got washed away whilst holding onto him…Numb, hollow-eyed children, abandoned, left alone among strangers, unable to cry anymore for the unbelievable horror of it all…All I could see, feel, and hear were the mournful cries, the sobbing, the wailing, like a crescendo inside my head. Some, like us, were too horrified, struck dumb – deathly silent.”
But in Batapola, their luck turned. Kamal Nishantha, “a businessman and a rare and wonderful human being” took pity on the family and took them to his home where his wife, Sandya, was ready with hugs and comforting words. She gave them fresh clothes that belonged to her family and it was only then that Ciranthi realized that she was “soaked to the bone.”
Their hosts’ home had become a haven for the destitute. They were cooking on a mass scale for the hundreds of refugees in the temple and also gave their vehicles to transport the injured to hospital. Reflecting the Buddhist belief in rebirth and multiple realms of existence (see Chapter Three) Ciranthi writes gratefully, “Kamal Nishantha gave us more than food and shelter in our darkest hour, and for this we will be in his debt for many lives to come. I’ve often heard the saying that ‘Gods walk among us mere mortals.’ That day, I was witness to the soaring greatness of humanity’s compassion towards fellow beings in the face of a tragedy of unprecedented magnitude. I felt greatly humbled in this knowledge. This thought was the only ray of hope in this dark hour.”
Finally, about 10 p.m., Malla managed to reach his father, Ciranthi’s ex-husband, on a visitor’s mobile phone. Traveling on circuitous inland routes, he reached the exhausted family around 4 a.m. “Deep gratitude swelled my heart when I saw him” she writes. “It was only when we were safely in our own home and turned on the TV did we slowly come to realize what we had escaped from. The enormity of our escape, as well as the colossal destruction to life and property here and in other countries hit by this tsunami, was unimaginable! With tears pouring down our cheeks, the three of us watched the horrendous pictures flashing on the screen.”
***
In the meantime, what had happened to Nihal and his family and other survivors of the train tragedy? As the water in the Peraliya area started to recede, said Sreenika, “People started leaving the train for the nearby temple. But my aunt was crying desperately, and refusing to go. She wanted to find her daughter. Others, however, urged her to leave; there was no way to know if more waves would come. Finally, she consented and they too went to the temple, but the monks sent everyone inland to Metiwela, the next village, saying it was not safe to linger in Peraliya.
In Metiwela, villagers transported injured victims to the Batapola hospital, and others to a refugee center set up in a school. Nihal left his family there and went back to Peraliya to look for his missing daughter and niece, but came back alone. Then he took his family to the home of a friend in the area, called his older brother, and left again with his friend to resume the search. But they returned late in the night without success.
Nihal’s brother arrived long past midnight and took the family back to Colombo. They reached home around 5 a.m. and an hour later, Nihal left again with a group of people. “We went back on the 28th also and searched,” he sobbed. “In one place rescue workers had laid the corpses retrieved from the train in a long line and we found my niece’s body, but not my daughter’s. In the place our compartment fell, about 50 bodies were laid in a line, but my daughter was not there either. So, I got inside the compartment in which we traveled and searched. But I did not see her.”
Nihal then printed 2000 fliers with Hiruni’s picture and posted them in Peraliya and neighboring villages. The next day, he got a call from a man named Siritunga. “I rescued this child,” Siritunga told him. Nihal was stunned. “How do you know it was my child?” he asked. The caller accurately described the clothes Hiruni wore; but then said he no longer knew her whereabouts. When they took refuge at a temple, she got separated from him and his two children. With his own wife missing in the train tragedy, Siritunga was too distraught to notice.
Nihal went with Siritunga to Peraliya. The train cars were still lying on the ground. Pointing to a huge branch of a mango tree that had fallen about 30 yards ahead of the car in which Nihal and Latha traveled Siritunga said, “Your daughter was hanging onto that branch and shouting, ‘Uncle, save me, save me!’ ” Nihal believed him because that branch was spread around like a net. Still, he wanted further evidence and the two men walked to up to a house that stood about 15 yards away from the tree. Two youths were cleaning it and one of them told Nihal they survived by climbing another mango tree near their house. Nihal showed him Hiruni’s photo and asked, “Have you ever seen this child?” The man stared at it and then pointed to the very branch Siritunga showed. “This child was hanging onto that branch shouting, ‘Uncle, save me, save me.’ I cannot swim so I did not do anything, but someone saved her,” he said. Nihal had all the evidence he needed; but he went back again when officials lifted the train to make sure Hiruni was not buried under it.
Nihal again published Hiruni’s picture in the papers and got another call from a man called Sumith. But this time the news was terribly disturbing. Sumith had gone to Peraliya about 4.00 p.m. on the day of the disaster to look for his father-in-law who had lived in the area and he saw two men taking Hiruni in a canoe. Nihal met Sumith, and when he saw Hiruni’s photograph Sumith was sure she was the child he saw. “There was nobody else in the vicinity except the boatmen and the little girl, and she looked very frightened,” Sumith told Nihal. “I noticed she did not resemble either man, and I heard one man asking the other whose child it was. ‘I don’t know. The child says she is from Colombo’ his companion replied. Realizing that she was being stolen, I studied her face until I committed it to my memory” Sumith told the father.
To most of us, kidnapping helpless children, especially in the midst of a catastrophic disaster is unthinkable. But the insidious crime of human trafficking knows no geographical, national, or ideological boundaries. As Nancy Ely-Raphel observes, the problem is often caused by the destruction of social, cultural, and familial protections and traffickers target victims of any age, race, ethnicity and gender.
After he heard his daughter might have suffered this fate, Nihal, a government employee, could not return to work. He and Latha spent the next six weeks seeking help from the police, the Criminal Investigation Division, and from various astrologers, seers, and fortune-tellers – sources that he had not paid much attention to before – to find their little girl, but without success. Even after he returned to work, he and Latha dedicated all their evenings and week-ends to finding Hiruni, but when I met Nihal and Latha a year after the tsunami, they were still searching. They were not alone. On March 14, 2005 the Police Public Relations Media Co-ordination Division released the pictures of nineteen children and young people who were missing since the tsunami. [3] Like Nihal and Latha, many families continued to appeal for help in finding them for months after. (Chapter Eight provides an update of Nihal’s family and of Ciranthi a year after the disaster.)
Knowing disasters bring out the best as well as the worst in humans, Major Hewawitharana of the Sri Lankan army told me that in Galle, the first things the soldiers in the immediate aftermath of the disaster was to move the injured and the dead to hospitals, and close main entrances to the city to prevent looting. Other affected towns also increased police presence to protect victims and their homes, but unscrupulous people still found ways around them. In Galle, a journalist photographed two youths fighting over the gold jewelry of a woman two other youths had pulled from the sea. I also heard how incensed villagers nearly beat another man to death when he was caught trying to steal from victims.
In Sri Lanka, some people seemed incapable of feeling any empathy for the victims in other ways too. A couple who were separated from their daughter, their only child, as they fled said that when they went from house to house searching for her, “Many people were extremely sympathetic, but two families shouted at us saying, ‘No, no, your daughter didn’t come here.’ It seemed they were afraid we would ask to stay in their homes and wanted to get rid of us quickly.”
Fortunately however, disasters mostly generate the better qualities of humanity and the incumbent monk of the temple where I initiated this research project spoke gratefully of the help he received from inland villagers as over two thousand frightened, bewildered, and grief stricken people, including some 40 foreign tourists, sought refuge in the temple, located on an 80 foot high mountain. He said he also got a huge boost when Gnanaweera Thero arrived with a van full of donated items early next morning.
In her three-stage model of cultural response to disasters, Susanna Hoffman notes that in the primary recovery phase, the initial aid-givers are the peripheral communities living next to or close to the affected areas, but were not affected by the catastrophe. As shown above, this was generally the case in Sri Lanka and the fact that leadership, communication, and cooperation were not divisive issues like in Haiti ensured that help reached those in need relatively fast. The country’s traditional culture based on fundamental Buddhist values such as generosity, compassion, and social service also means hospitality is highly valued among the people even in normal times and post-tsunami, and the expression of those values reached a zenith among those who were vicariously traumatized.
The enormity of the tragedy also united the deeply divided country. In the eastern district of Batticalao, for instance, it was reported that Sinhala villagers from inland areas trekked some eight kilometers on foot, carrying food and other packs of relief items on top of their heads, to distribute to Tamil tsunami victims cut off from the rest of the district by broken bridges and roads. [4] And in Trincomalee, also in the east, a group of Tamil youths transported a critically injured elderly Sinhala woman to hospital in their boat when they heard her daughter screaming for help. [5]
***
Conditions in Japan were more severe than in Sri Lanka because there the tsunami hit in the thick of winter. Chilly winds brought snow and sub-zero weather and survivors had nowhere else to go but ill-heated relief centers. Hundreds of IDPs in remote areas had to survive on their own for several days because tonnes of debris, a lack of fuel, and the large volume of water that surrounded the villages for days, made them inaccessible. Food was so scarce in some of the hardest-hit places like Kamaishi town, where people took refuge in an educational center that had become a make-shift evacuation camp, they had to make do with one rice ball shared by two people for several days. [6] When Rev. Tatedera reached Minamisanriku five days after the tsunami, conditions there were also so dire, he said that refugees melted snow for washing needs, and an NHK reporter said they searched for food in the rubble. But no looting or other abuses of the kind mentioned above were reported in Japan and the country won global admiration for the scarcity of such incidents.
Japan is also reputed to be the best prepared nation in the whole world to deal with complex disasters. The government deployed 100,000 strong Self Defense Forces (SDF) for rescue and recovery operations, and like in Sri Lanka, Buddhist priests, officials, and many other volunteers who joined them worked tirelessly to clean the debris and opened up roads within a few days. The Japanese nation too gave most generously the food, clean drinking water, warm clothing, blankets, and accommodation the refugees so desperately needed and there too, and Buddhist priests played a leading role coordinating the relief and recovery efforts. A report in the Wheel of Dharma, the official publication of the Buddhist Churches of America that Rev. Fujimoto gave me provides this account of relief activities at the Hongwanji, his mother temple: “A Hongwanji disaster relief center has been activated through which volunteers from throughout Japan have been assisting in clean-up, removal of debris, providing supervision and education programs for children, serving hot meals, delivering medical supplies, and offering spiritual support through chanting of the Buddhist sutras. In addition, the Hongwanji Disaster Relief Office in conjunction with Hongwanji district offices and individual temples have joined together in offering their temples and homes to those who have been displaced….” [7] Rev. Tatedera said he and other priests also conducted funeral services as best as they could for those who perished, and comforted survivors telling them that when the situation got better they would perform the services in the traditional manner, as explained in Chapter Four.
Nine days after the tsunami, conditions had improved a great deal. In the Kamaishi evacuation camp, trays of rice balls and oranges lay untouched and tsunami survivors were even having hot baths. In this technologically advanced country, the SDF had installed mobile bath houses capable of serving up to 1,000 people a day in a car park near the Kamaishi educational center, and was bussing in survivors from a number of evacuation centers. Sri Lankan IDPs had no such luxuries; most had no alternative but to have sea baths. At the same time, the people of Kamaishi should not fallen victim to the tsunami in the first place. The port city’s famous tsunami breakwater had been completed just three years earlier at a cost of Y120 bn ($1.5bn.) At 63m deep in places, it had set a world record. So, what went wrong? Like in Fukushima, it had been designed for smaller waves taking into account the region’s three previous tsunamis. [8]
The Japanese government was well prepared to deal with the tsunami, but as the then prime minister, Naoto Kan admitted, they were not prepared to deal with such a serious nuclear accident. By April, radiation was found to have tainted vegetables, tap water, and the ocean, and that month, Japan’s nuclear regulators raised the severity level of the crisis from 5 to 7 – the highest level on an international scale overseen by the International Atomic Agency. The new ranking placed the Fukushima disaster on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, [9] but fortunately, no deaths were reported among TEPCO workers who heroically battled to contain the radiation leaks, though several were reportedly injured. Later though, it turned out that in the confusion of the nuclear crisis had caused the deaths of a few elderly people not due to exposure; they had been forgotten in the evacuation process and had apparently starved to death.
Although the nuclear crisis accident caused very few deaths, it created thousands more IDPs in Japan besides those who were displaced by the tsunami. But because the government was not prepared to deal with the situation, bringing relief to them became quite problematic. At the beginning, residents living within 12 miles of the stricken plant were confined to their homes all day and food, water, and other essentials were delivered to them. But whereas volunteers worked day and night to reach tsunami survivors, some civilian delivery workers refused to enter this dangerous zone after a few weeks, requiring the government to divert military and other emergency crews to take up the slack. So people living within the 12 mile were evacuated to other areas but the number of evacuees soon grew to over 80,000 when the government expanded the danger zone to 19 miles due to growing fears of fresh nuclear leaks. [10] But even though their displacement was caused by corrupt government and TEPCO officials, these families, unlike tsunami refugees, were not provided shelter by the government or by TEPCO; they had to fend for themselves.
The severity of this man-made disaster was reflected in polls conducted by several Japanese newspapers in mid-April. They revealed deep discontent about causes that led to the disaster; the way it was handled by the government: cozy relations between Japan’s politicians and TEPCO and absence of independent nuclear advice; the confused communication and ineffective crisis management in the first 48 hours; and the uncertainties of when the crisis would be resolved. All these left the public angry and mistrustful of the government and the nuclear crisis cost Naoto Kan his job. However, Yoichi Funabashi writes that prime minister Kan saved the country from an even bigger disaster when, on March 14, TEPCO’s then president telephoned the government about the company’s intention to abandon the plant and evacuate workers. Mr. Kan stormed into the company headquarters and ordered senior managers not to abandon ship, and to continue the battle and inject water into the reactor vessels.
***
As mentioned, the GoSL too had been paralyzed the first three or four days after the disaster because it had no disaster management plan in place. ‘Disaster Preparedness’ means officials as well as the public are educated and trained to organize and manage the situation, but with no such preparation, the government was initially very slow to respond. So, not only villagers, but urbanites also rushed to help the Armed Forces and the police with rescue and relief efforts. Many store owners provided special discounts to donors, and to help them meet the huge demand vehicle owners gave their cars, trucks, and three-wheelers so supermarkets could move stocks from warehouses to the stores. Nearly all drivers of private vehicles and the ubiquitous three-wheelers that I spoke with had either driven the vehicles transporting donations to affected areas or gone along to help with deliveries. Housewives and restaurant workers alike cooked up great batches of food, packeted them, and delivered them to the victims for weeks. Hundreds of thousands of government servants donated a day’s wages, annual salary increments or some other percentage of their earnings towards relief efforts. Private institutions and newspaper companies launched disaster relief funds. Like in Japan, artists held fund raising events. The Colombo City Hoteliers cancelled all New Year’s Eve dances and gave patrons the option to get refunds or donate money to the President’s Tsunami Victims Assistance Fund.
“The rich and the poor gave whatever they could,” Lal Samarasekara, the Divisional Secretary (DS) of the Habaraduwa Division told me, recalling that among the donations his office received were a few spoons of tea leaves enclosed in an envelope, and a handful of sugar in an old jar. I also read about a poor 105-year-old woman who walked up slowly with a small packet of sugar and a coconut to give to a group of soldiers collecting donations. She was wearing the traditional cloth and jacket. When she learned that they accepted other items besides food, she removed the top cloth of the two she was wearing and gave that too saying, “Please take this also son, I have one more at home.” [11] I got a sense of the spirit that must have pervaded Sri Lanka in the immediate aftermath of the disaster when my sister said, “It was so heart-warming to see the relief trucks going! We gave money or goods to every person who came asking for donations.”
And of course the tsunami also injected an emotional content to “globalization” – a process normally seen in terms of economic, social, cultural, and environmental issues. The overwhelming response of cash donations, relief goods and personnel by the world to tsunami devastated countries in 2004 was truly astonishing. By December 31, just five days after the disaster, Sri Lanka had received assistance from over 30 countries, including over Rs.300 m ($2.6 m) and food, clothing, medicines, helicopters, special aircraft, inflatable crafts, medicines and other medical items, tents, blankets, plastic sheets, water treatment material, generators, medical personnel, experts in diving, ecology, and telecommunications. Aid continued to pour in and international agencies on the ground rushed to provide immediate assistance with rescue and relief efforts. In Japan too, said an NHK reporter, emergency workers signed up from around the world. Volunteers came by the thousands and Rev. Tatedara said that he saw American military personnel helping to clean up debris, and also that Sri Lankan military personnel helped in the process both in his hometown and in Kesenuma City.
The value of all the local and global assistance the two countries received is immeasurable. It was particularly important for Sri Lanka because as mentioned, the government had no disaster management plan in place. But when the then president, Chandrika Kumaratunga, became active after about four days, she mobilized the country’s entire public service and the military into an internationally-backed relief operation to stave off hunger and disease, and together with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP,) set up a Center for National Operations (CNO) to coordinate the work of the relevant line ministries, the armed forces, international aid and relief organizations, local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs and INGOs,) field hospitals, private direct-aid efforts, and military personnel from about 20 other nations.
***
Regular shipments of aid from other areas had started reaching the temple where I initiated this research about the fourth day after the disaster. Had this not happened the monks said, they could not have helped the refugees adequately in those first chaotic weeks even with all the help given by neighboring villagers because hundreds of families had nowhere else to go even after the water receded. The large amount of debris, the black, noxious sludge smelling of rotten eggs, and the raw sewage that came from broken cesspits made even the homes that withstood the onslaught uninhabitable, and it took many days to clean them up.
But resuming normal lives even after they were cleaned was difficult because the wells that supply water for all needs in the villages were contaminated by sea water. Such was the case in all tsunami affected areas and Y.K. H. de Silva, Consultant of the Disaster Relief Monitoring Unit (DRMU) of Sri Lanka’s Human Rights Commission told me, “We are very thankful to the Austrians who brought equipment to purify water. They cleaned up water tanks which enabled water distribution by bowsers to affected areas. That was fantastic! So many foreign organizations brought the necessary equipment to clean up the boulders, trees, and other debris. Without their help how could we have managed?”
In the Habaraduwa division, the Sarana Foundation that Ganaweera Thero founded, also cleaned the wells using three pumps they obtained from the Irrigation Department. But even after two rounds of cleaning, salination remained and during the first few weeks of my research, Italian volunteers supplied drinking water to barrels located at the temple and other public places at periodic intervals. When I left after three months, Sewa Lanka, a local non-governmental organization that worked closely with the temple was still delivering drinking water to centrally located containers in nearby villages.
The deluge of aid that reached the Talpe temple had been so huge that the day I arrived in my new home in the south, its incumbent monk, who I met in the evening, invited me to an aid distribution the next morning. Occurring more than three weeks after the disaster, it was the sixth at this particular temple.
The next morning after breakfast, my new landlady took me to the temple through a shortcut. We walked in the shade of coconut trees to the bottom of her big garden, and got onto a footpath through a rickety wooden gate. To my right was a good-sized pond, but its murky green-black water was laced with dead flowers, leaves, and twigs from surrounding trees. “Goodness, this is why we had so many mosquitoes last night! What is this?” I asked, looking at the ideal breeding ground for the vicious insects. “This is a quarry people dug up to extract limestone about 40 or 50 years ago. You’ll see many of these around here,” my land lady replied.
As mentioned, when the CCD outlawed coral mining, people carried out the process inland and water-logged quarries such as this, ranging from about five feet to about fifteen feet in depth, exist in many villages because as a CCD official told me, after extracting limestone, the contractors leave without filling them up. “They surrender the one-hundred-thousand-rupee deposit ($1,000) they pay to dig because refilling quarries costs four or five times more” he said. The health risk posed by these rotting water holes was bad enough. I was appalled when a fisherman recounted how they became the watery graves of some unfortunate people as the tsunami swept them inland.
From my new home it was only a ten-minute walk to the temple, but it always took us longer because even those villagers who were simply sitting on the front porches of their homes when we walked by, never passed up a chance to exchange a few words with my land lady. These impromptu conversations provided me with all kinds of interesting gossip and facts about the village that I might not have come to know otherwise; but of course the exchange of information went both ways. The villagers, seldom discreet in satisfying their curiosity about me or in asking for assistance, never failed to use the occasions to fulfill their needs as well.
When we reached the temple, the monk was busy directing about 15 men and young boys who would distribute aid items. They were setting up distribution stations in the big dharma sala, the hall where monks deliver their sermons. A list of items to be distributed was posted on the door. A batch of plastic bags was stacked under a tree for people who might need them.
The monk gave me permission to talk to anyone present and my land lady steered me through the crowd towards a 13-year-old girl and her grandmother. The girl’s mother had perished in the tsunami. In the Galle district, three weeks after the tsunami 82 children were reported to have lost their mothers, 37 had lost their fathers, and 33 were orphaned. [12] This gender disparity in the death toll was reported in other areas too. In Sri Lanka’s eastern town of Amparai 3,972 women had died, compared with 2,124 men. [13] How can we explain this? A Sri Lankan researcher, Anula Abeysekera identifies several factors. Men were at work, visiting friends, or attending to other business away from home while women were feeding children or doing housework. After the first wave, instead of running to higher ground, women ran to gather children and help the elderly and the disabled, and were swept away by the next wave. Unlike men, they lacked swimming skills, the ability to climb tall trees, and the physical strength to hold onto trees and resist the ferocious waves. Their saris and long skirts also hampered their ability to run, and their long hair got entangled in trees and shrubs as they were carried by the water. [14] In the predominantly Muslim parts in the east, a higher number of young unmarried women died. Looking at culturally specific factors, Abeyesekere notes that, abiding by family and cultural values unmarried Muslim women waited inside homes after the first wave to be accompanied to safety by a male relative, and those who lost their clothing in the first wave were too ashamed to come out of the water and escape.
The United Nations Organization (UNO) reported a higher number of female casualties in all countries hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami, for similar reasons. In Aceh, Indonesia, where one report estimated that out of every five tsunami victims, four were female, the disproportionate mortality among women was also blamed on Islamic cultural inhibitions on public displays of female nudity and their inability to swim. [15] In Burma, after cyclone Nargis in 2008, again a UN report said that of the 85,000 people estimated dead, twice as many women died as men. Like in Sri Lanka, reasons included the facts that many women did not possess swimming skills, tried to save their children, or were physically too weak to hold onto trees to keep them safe until water levels dropped.
Thus as Maithree Wickramasinghe and Madhavi Malalgoda Ariyabandu, two Sri Lankan experts on gender issues and disasters, say, “Disasters affect women and men differently, because of the different roles they occupy; and the different responsibilities given to them in life; and because of the differences in their capacities, needs, and vulnerabilities.” [16] But none of the above factors caused the death of the mother of the young girl I met at the temple. She and her mother were in the yard talking to neighbors when the sea rose up. Her mother fainted at the sight. The others fled to the temple. The girls’ father was away at the time, but came to the temple later. They found the mother’s body entangled in some bushes and performed the funeral.
After we spoke with the girl, my landlady went home. I returned to the dharma sala just as the monk called all the helpers to gather around the sacks of rice. “Give each person two measures of rice and one each of lentils and sugar,” he said, holding up a measuring jug. The people nodded. “I will first call the 30 families whose homes were completely destroyed. Next I will call the people who live inland near the stream. They also suffered a lot of damage when the stream overflowed as the tsunami rushed down there.” Clearly, the monk’s knowledge of the geography of the area and the villagers enabled him to ensure that aid reached those who needed it the most.
Pointing to some candles the monk said, “Give two small candles or one large candle per family.” Then handing a pair of rubber gloves to a boy he said, “Two handfuls of these dried sprats (small fish like anchovies) should be sufficient for a family.” At the next station he decided that “These packages of flour will have to be shared by two families because we don’t have enough to go around.” He continued in this way and finally instructed a police officer to sit near the rear entrance to the room to prevent people from coming through that door for another round of goods. After that all of us went out. The crowd had grown to about three hundred. The monk told them that the first to be admitted would be those who lost the most and added, “We will admit twenty people at a time, and only one person from each family can come in here. No one can come on behalf of relatives or friends. Please do not bring children unless they are infants, and be patient until your name is called. There is enough to go around, so don’t worry, we will not run short.”
Finally, wiping off the sweat running down his temples, the monk introduced me to the crowd. “This lady lives in America, but she is one of our own,” he said. “She has come here to share in our suffering, and to write a book about what happened to us in the tsunami. So, she will be with us for a while.” People nodded and some smiled with me, and I knew with relief that with those words, the monk had effectively mediated my entry into the community. Then, leafing through several pages of names, he and his secretary admitted people who went from one station to the next, gathering supplies. The young man had been appointed by the Sarana Foundation to help the monk cope with the mountain of tsunami-related work.
The distribution process began around 10:30. It was hot and humid, the lines moved slowly. But by and large things proceeded smoothly, although not everyone was 100 percent satisfied. I overheard a few people grumbling about not getting this or that, but most men and women I spoke with expressed their gratitude to the monks for the help given since the disaster. I was quite hungry when my land lady’s household helper came to fetch me for lunch around 2 p.m. The Sangha are supposed to start their lunch before noon, but the only refreshment they and the volunteers had after starting work that morning was a cup of tea. When I left, at least half the crowd was still waiting to collect aid. I felt sorry for them, but they were far more fortunate than a large group of protesters we had encountered the previous day as we drove down south.
We had just reached Modara, a fishing village, when the driver had to slow down because men and women of all ages carrying placards informing they were fisher folk who lost their boats, nets, and other fishing gear, but were yet to receive any aid from the government, were spilling on to the road. “Do you think it is okay to talk to them?” I asked Gnanaweera Thero, feeling a little hesitant because the stereotypical view of fisher folk is that they are hot-tempered and aggressive. “Why not?” said he. The driver pulled over.
As we walked towards the protesters, a tough looking man who looked to be in his mid-thirties came up. “What’s the situation with your people?” asked the monk. The man looked at my cameras without saying anything. “Is it alright if I take pictures and videotape while you speak?” I asked nervously. “That’s fine,” he said grimly. “We are out here because no one has yet come to help us or hear our story. We lost our houses, boats, everything, but we haven’t even got tents to this date. People in other areas are getting everything.” A woman interjected, “If others get help, we should also. But do these government people come and talk to us? No! They just ride by in their fancy cars and never stop.”
I repeatedly heard angry remarks from tsunami victims about politicians riding in big fancy cars without stopping. Even in normal times stories about how every new group of politicians who come to power import better and bigger cars is legendary in Sri Lanka and fuel jokes as well as anger among citizens. But now, these cars appeared to have acquired a much more sinister meaning. People lost homes and livelihoods, but the politicians and other authorities riding in the lap of luxury did not think it worth their time even to get down and inquire about the survivors’ terrible misfortunes. Their lack of concern only indicated that along with everything else tsunami victims had also lost their social worth; they no longer mattered. These fisher folk were not simply looking for aid. They wanted an acknowledgement of their plight and respect from authorities.
“Hasn’t anyone helped you?” asked one of my fellow travelers.
“Volunteer groups and suddo (white people) come by and give us a bag of stuff or some money. Some suddo even gave each of us Rs.1000.00 (about $10.00) but how long is that going to last? We have to buy uniforms, shoes, books for our children to go back to school. We need to buy kerosene and food!” the tough-looking man replied.
By now, many protesters had gathered around us. “Where did you live before?” I asked one of the women. Before she could reply, an old woman spoke up. Pointing down the road, she lamented her house that stood there all these years was destroyed, and that she had not received any aid yet. But she was cut short by the tough-looking man. Pushing her roughly, he shouted, “Hey, you don’t live here, so why are you butting in?”
“Look here, what are you doing? This is not the way to treat an elderly mother? Why are you pushing her?” The words tumbled out of my mouth involuntarily. I was shocked both by his action and by my reaction – as soon as the words came out I realized that in this seething atmosphere I could be beaten up or have my camera smashed. Under normal circumstances, the anthropologist commands respect as a scholar and researcher, but I was not working under normal circumstances. The tsunami had turned the world of these protesters upside down, dumped them to the bottom of the social ladder violently and abruptly, and those who were supposed to take care of their needs were turning a blind eye to them. For the time being, traditional cultural values in which the young generally respect older adults and scholars seemed to have vanished. The air was bristling with a collective mood of deep anger and at that moment, I felt extremely vulnerable.
But as it turned out, my instinctive reaction to the man’s breach of cultural conventions worked. Looking slightly abashed, he backed off saying to the woman, “Okay, okay, you say whatever you want!” “See madam, see the way they treat me?” she began to cry. “Well now, why don’t you tell me your story?” I said to her sympathetically. But before she could say a word, a younger woman came forward.
“Why should she be the only one to talk? We want you to hear our stories as well! Madam, let me show you what happened to our houses.” She pointed to a row of houses behind them. Walls were broken and roofs were missing. “This is where we have to live! We sleep here in the night and our children are falling sick,” she said.
Of course I understood her bitterness; but not the recrimination she too showed the elderly woman. In other places hit by disasters, researchers have talked about a sense of brotherhood that transcends the usual class, ethnic, religious, and other social constructs that normally separate people as disaster survivors collaborate to obtain immediate necessities, but such solidarity was missing here. Later it occurred to me that relations between the old woman and her neighbors may have been sour even before the tsunami and that any collective solidarity that may have emerged soon after the disaster must have quickly dissipated as their disrupted lives dragged on.
“Didn’t your Grama Niladhari (GN) come by? Didn’t you get any help from the government?” another of my fellow travelers asked, referring to the government officials responsible for the welfare of villagers. “Yes, he came by and gave us some rice, coconut oil, sugar, and stuff,” a man replied. “But we want to get back to work. If we get boats, we can work and buy what we want. You can’t even eat the rice NGO people give. It’s not our (Sri Lankan) rice, and sticks in your mouth! And it gives our little ones diarrhea,” he added with contempt.
Even before he finished, an old woman butted in angrily with her hands on her hips. “They gave us some milk powder in a shopping bag! That’s what they did, give us milk powder in a shopping bag!” Her hissing tone, her aggressive body language, the fire in her eyes, all expressed the height of indignation: in her mind, being given milk powder in a shopping bag was the ultimate act of disrespect. But how could she refuse it? The tsunami had made her destitute; she had no choice but to take it. Disrespectful treatment by government officials and other relief workers involved in aid distribution was a theme that emerged repeatedly in this study.
The dialogue with the fisherfolk in Modara continued in the same vein for another few minutes until the monk said firmly, “Well, we should be going now,” and started walking towards the vehicle. I turned to go too but the grim faced man stopped me. “Madam, can you give us some aid?” he asked.
In ethnographic research we have a responsibility to mitigate the suffering of those whose lives we follow in whatever way we can. But I had not brought aid items or sufficient cash to distribute to IDPs along the way since these interactions had not been planned before we left on the journey. I said to him, “Well, I didn’t bring anything; I am just going around documenting how people are doing and I will try to direct someone’s attention towards your case”. “But madam, can you give us something now?” he said insistently. Rather fortunately, before I had to come up with an answer, three police officers rode up on their motorcycles. “You people, get back, get back, away from the road. You can’t block this road!” commanded one officer. Another called out to the people to bring their ration cards. Heaving a sigh of relief, I quickly followed the monk and got into the van. But the man did not give up. He came up to the vehicle and the monks gave him some supplies they brought for tsunami survivors in Talpe, which he promised to share with everyone.
In Japan, incidents such as the one I just described do not appear to have occurred in the aftermath of the disaster. When problems did occur, rather than fight among themselves, Japanese survivors turned to their traditional culture to overcome them. “Personal behavior, as well as all relationships, private and public, was based on strictly controlled harmony in the proper inferior-superior context of Japanese society,” says Boye Lafayette De Mente in Kata: The key to understanding and dealing with the Japanese! And a 67-year-old woman living in an evacuation center a short distance from the devastated town of Otsuchi had told a reporter, "When we first arrived there was no discipline. People would just jabber away, each with their own opinion. There would be hundreds of us queuing for food and there are good ways and bad ways to queue. You need good leadership. It just doesn't work if there isn't any." So, to bring order back to their lives, the hundreds of refugees at the center created a ‘micro town.’ Family members and neighbors formed into small groups of about 10 members and appointed group leaders whose job was to make sure everyone in the group got food and water, check up on people's health, and communicate with the local government task force in charge. The process had created a sense of community among the people and not only did they form neat food queues and share the food, many also pitched in to maintain the center by volunteering to collect food, sweep, clean, dispose of garbage, and clean toilets. By doing so, notes the reporter, the IDPs help each other as well as themselves, since these activities help to keep their minds off their traumatic experiences. And maintaining mental peace was far more difficult for the Japanese than for Sri Lankans: frequent aftershocks jarred their peace of mind and they experienced a constant fear that another earthquake will unleash another tsunami. [17]
It is no wonder then that many observers were struck by the resilience of Japanese survivors and the calm and patient manner in which they seemed to cope with their dire situation and I asked the Japanese priests how they explain the people’s resilience and their ability to cope with the disaster with so much calm and dignity. Rev. Fujimoto said, “We must accept reality. People were in a certain area, conditions came together, and the disaster happened. It is not a matter of punishment or anything like that. This happened to them purely by chance. They were at the wrong place at the wrong times. Again, the fact that people die and suffer must be accepted.”
Rev. Tatedera pointed out that most people in the Tohoku region are fishermen and farmers, and that, “They are living very closely, very intimately with nature. They receive tremendous gifts from nature, from the ocean and the mountains. So, they accept that when nature gives, it takes back also.”
Rev. Fujita, born and bred in the south said, “This is not the first time this sort of things have happened to the Tohoku people. That area has lots of nature-related disasters, not only earthquakes. For example, they spend months growing rice, but with one very cold wind comes total disaster. People in the Northeast are very resilient because their life is based on such nature related happenings. But I think they have a special character. This one (the tsunami) is much bigger than anything. And most of us are very impressed with their strength, their ability to bear with this disaster.”
***
The sorry state of affairs in post-disaster Haiti and the well organized relief provision that had occurred in Japan, and that I witnessed at the Talpe temple, and my findings in many other areas of recovery and reconstruction efforts in later chapters, show the critical need for relief providers and aid agencies to be familiar with the societies and cultures they rush to help, as well as the need to cooperate with local organizations, for the most effective delivery of aid.
As we see above, in Sri Lanka and Japan, while their traditional leadership roles would have helped the priests to efficiently coordinate relief efforts, there is no doubt that their awareness of the people’s needs and habits, their connections to village families, and their knowledge of the local language and geography greatly contributed to their efficiency. I saw another example of how such knowledge enabled the monks to better serve the survivors when the monks made sure that aid items were delivered to families who lost loved ones because they were too distraught to come to collect aid. And after the initial chaos started to wane, like the Japanese who created a mini town, the monks too organized the IDPs and other volunteers into various committees and delegated work to them. And a month after the disaster, Gnanaweera Thero started a brick building project to provide jobs to village youth he knew had lost theirs. [18]
Another important function the monks did in Talpe almost from the beginning of the disaster was collecting refugee data to obtain suitable help from various authorities for the IDPs and during my first research trip, the Talpe monk was extremely busy mediating with the Habaraduwa Divisional Secretariat, the armed forces, doctors, the Urban Development Authority, local and international nongovernmental organizations, private organizations and individual donors on their behalf. But his ability to be an effective mediator was significantly hampered by his limited English skills when offers came from foreign individuals and relief agencies and I spent many hours helping him and his secretary respond to such offers. Doing so enabled me to reciprocate their assistance for my research, and expand my own findings. I realized the magnanimity of the services the monks had performed when a grateful Muslim family who sought refuge at the temple returned twice with food and other donations during my first research trip. When I returned a year later two Danish tourists were building a new wing for the temple that had given them refuge.
Though the leadership function is not new to monks, providing emergency shelter of the scale needed after the tsunami has never been a part of their education or training. They follow an orderly daily routine with specific times for meals, rituals, lessons, and other chores. They dedicate their lives to learning the dhamma and disseminating the teachings to lay people, and performing other religious and social service work such as chanting pirith, performing funeral rites, and counseling. Buddhism is built on reciprocal relationships and monks provide all services free of charge and in return the lay community provides them with food and look after the needs of temples. They also invite monks home for rituals, but lay people do not live in temples as happened after the tsunami, and no monk in modern Sri Lanka had ever faced thousands of grief-stricken, terrified people of all religious and ethnic persuasions suddenly pouring into the temples. Nor have they negotiated and mediated with such diverse groups to obtain help for people before. So, it is to their immense credit that monks all along the affected coastal areas, and particularly in the east where the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam, the rebel group who fought for a separate state in Sri Lanka, killed many monks, helped the devastated and frightened tsunami survivors of all ethnicities and religions so effectively.
Of course, leaders and members of other religious and ethnic communities also crossed boundaries to help in numerous ways. Lionel Fernando, DRMU chairperson, said “Everyone opened their religious places to tsunami victims without any discrimination. Y.K. (his deputy) and I went to a mosque in Hambantota where the first name on the list of IDPs was Wimalawathi – a Sinhala name.” And he pointed out that many churches helped too.
Services extended by the members of the armed forces and the police to tsunami victims everywhere also deserve special mention. As Major Hewawitharana explained to me, their role is to conduct operations to safeguard the nation, and the armed forces do this by engaging in battle if needed. In every country, these forces are expected to be disciplined and act morally at all times, though some may violate these standards. During this research project however, I was repeatedly told by villagers about the outstanding humanitarian services provided by these groups. Among other things, they cleared debris from the roads and villages, helped distribute aid and bury the dead, and provided security for camp dwellers. In one camp I even saw three soldiers providing math instruction in the afternoons to children because they had discovered the youngsters were far behind in math skills. I encountered nothing but polite assistance in my interactions with all members of the armed services and the police at different locations.
But the services provided by the Sangha in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, with no training in disaster management, and to all ethnic groups without any discrimination, were so significant the BBC aptly called their humanitarian efforts a “tsunami of kindness.” [19] Still, not even the greatest humanitarian efforts could bring solace to those who lost loved ones and/or all their worldly belongings. How did they cope with their unrelenting grief? Chapter Three provides a glimpse of a few such families and individuals in both countries.
Charlie Rose Show. Interview with Katie Courec. Aired on January 18, 2010.
One who observes Ata Sil voluntarily undertakes to abstain from taking life, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, consuming drugs or intoxicants, sitting on comfortable chairs, enjoying dance and music, and applying perfumes. The first five of these are Pan Sil (Five Precepts) that most Buddhist lay people recite daily, and should attempt to observe. The last three in the above list are meant for those who observe Ata Sil. In Buddhist thought, engaging in these activities increase desires for sensuous and materialistic pleasures and distracts from meditation or mental development to attain Nibbana.
“Can you help trace them?” in Daily News, March 14, 2005.
“Sinhala Samaritans trek 8 kilo meters with relief items.” Daily Mirror, January 3, 2005.
“A group who came in a boat took mother who became critically ill after ingesting water.” [Vatura pevi asadhyawa siti Amma boattuwe pemini pirisa regena giya.] Lakbima, Jan. 4, 2005.
“Survivor spirits lift as supplies get through.” Financial Times, March 21, 2011.
“Hongwanji Report: East Japan Earthquake Relief” in Wheel of Dharma. August 2011.
“Tsunamis,Seneca and the samurai ethic” in Financial Times.
“Fire crews battle ‘invisible enemy.’ Financial Times, March 21, 2011.
“Japan accelerates evacuation around nuclear plant amid fresh leak fears.” San Jose Mercury News, Associated Press. March 27, 2011.
Women who wear ‘cloth and jacket’ wrap two cloths around their waist, one on top of the other. Each is about two and half meters in length, and both reach from the waist to the ankles.
“Back to school with a bag full of memories” in Sunday Observer. January 16, 2005.
“The Politics of Conflict, Gender and the Tsunami” in Options, 1st Issue, 2005.
“The gendered nature of natural disaster: the tsunami experience in Sri Lanka” in Options, vol. 36, 1st Issue. 2005.
“The Tale of the Three Pigs: Taking Another Look at Vulerability in the Light of the Indian Ocean Tsunami and Hurrican Katrina.” Greg Bankoff. Social Science Research Council Website. Published on June 11, 2006.
Gender Dimensions in Diaster Management: A Guide for South Asia. Sri Lanka: ITDG South Asia Publication, 2004.
Financial times. "Micro towns bring evacuees a sense of order." March 19/20, 2011.
The temple took care of 518 displaced families (over 2000 individuals) in the first few days, including 416 students and 160 under school age. The refugees belonged to three grama niladhari divisions. 17 people had died in those three divisions while. 30 homes were completely destroyed, and 182 were partially destroyed.
Wijesekere, Chitra. The Tsunami and the Community of Sinhala Singha. [Tsunamiya saha Sihala Sangha Parapura.] Sri Lanka: Buddhist Bala Kendraya, 2005.