After the tsunami: how are people in Galle, Sri Lanka, picking up the pieces following the disaster in December?

Sunlight sears through the open car window as I travel down the Galle Road on Sri Lanka's southern coast. Houses rest silently in the shade of coconut trees guarding the roadside; the landscape whispering secrets of beauty and mystery, as we tear through the morning traffic.

We begin to see tents. First one, alone; then more, jostling for position amongst uprooted trees, and defeated architecture. Suddenly more; orderly, banal. Palaces of loss housing the victims of 26 December's tsunami. Weary eyes gaze back at us. I catch a glimpse of the sea through a break in the trees, and turn once more to eye with disbelief the canvasses that have replaced the villages lost to its dark power.

Two months after the tsunami, which killed over 30,000 people on Sri Lanka's northern, eastern and southern coastlines, I visited Galle. The town and area around it were ravaged by the wave--the scale of destruction is staggering.

Relief camps have sprung up along the road leading from the capital, Colombo. Elsewhere tents have been erected upon the ruins of houses, with street addresses carefully marked on their sides--a small detail that speaks volumes about the resilience of these communities, and the challenges they face.

Sadly, I saw scant evidence of coherent reconstruction work; stymied as it was by logistical, political and financial difficulties. Much of the most critical relief work has thus been left to the initiative of local and foreign volunteers.

The huge international presence testifies to the strength of the response from around the world. However, the random nature of the destruction left many within the affected communities acutely aware of their good fortune, and has created a strong impulse for selfless action, locally.

One such example is a group of mainly British expatriates who were living and working in the area and came together to set up Project Galle 2005.

'Immediately following the tsunami, it was clear that, due to logistical reasons, no proper outside help would reach Galle until 3 or 4 January at best,' explains Project Galle's Communications Officer, Becky Hayes. So the group brought together individual relief efforts until government and outside agencies arrived and, by 31 December, had set up a centre of operations in donated gallery space, using computers from their own homes.

'We pooled our resources and began asking friends and business associates for money,' continues Hayes. 'They gave us their credit card numbers and were telling us to take what we needed.' None of the group had experience of humanitarian or relief work, but they quickly established a database holding information on those affected and their immediate material needs; then drew on their network of friends to coordinate the purchase and distribution of supplies.

The initial vision was to do what they could until more experienced hands arrived on the scene. But once other groups did arrive, they looked to Project Galle to help them coordinate their work: no one stepped in to take over. Two months on they were helping over 35,000 people--serving some 60 camps for displaced people (96 at the height of their activity) along a 36km stretch of coast. The project supplements government food rations, builds temporary housing, provides medical services, and addresses sanitation needs for schools and other communal buildings: 'We can't even think about an exit strategy,' jokes Hayes. They are also developing smaller projects to help local people back to work--complementing this aim by employing 30 local workers themselves.

The project is now applying to the Sri Lankan government for official NGO status; the 40 odd volunteers have put their former lives on hold indefinitely. They are also working in partnership with many international NGOs, including Concern Worldwide, who have pledged US$250,000 toward home starter packs, which have already been delivered to over 10,000 people.

Cooperation on addressing the multiplicity of issues raised by the tsunami has extended beyond the traditional humanitarian groups. For instance, the Vanguard Foundation, set up by the company which runs the national ETV channel, is working with Project Galle to develop a trauma-counselling project. The company is also funding a major project to establish a national 'All-Hazards Early Warning System', as well as running smaller community-based development projects in three villages.

The Vanguard Foundation stresses the importance of working in partnership with local people. 'These people were living in good conditions before, so we don't want to build dependency,' says Ajith Rajapaksha, who is leading the Foundation's voluntary work. 'We want to empower them to rebuild their lives.'

Volunteers are visiting and befriending villagers and their families, offering support and assessing material needs. Strategic financial assistance is being given to enable local people to resume work, in projects developed by the villagers themselves. For instance, a group of fishermen approached the Foundation for help in replacing their lost fleet of boats. While three boats were needed, the fisherman requested funding for just one. With the income they generate from this, they intend to buy the two further vessels. Twenty-one families stand to benefit.

Aside from these projects, the Foundation also has a longer-term vision of building a community centre, working closely with a local Buddhist temple, it is hoped this will provide a focal point around which internal community relations can be strengthened; with the huge influx of aid, says Rajapaksha, tensions have arisen over who is benefiting and why. To begin this process, volunteers worked with the community to organize understandably muted celebrations for the Singhalese New Year in April.

Cooperation and partnership will be essential to the arduous process of recovery. This need is even more stark in a country which is nurturing a fragile three year-old ceasefire after 20 years of civil war. The urgency of the task is apparent, but so too is the hope and belief underpinning it. As one friend put it, 'Whatever's happened, we will stand tall again.'

To learn more about the work of Project Gattle 2005 and the Vanguard Foundation, visit www.projectgalle2005.com, and www.vanguadfoundation.com.

RELATED ARTICLE: Photos of the lost.

Pamela Jenner writes from Kanniyakumari in southern India

THE SCENE is idyllic--white sand, brilliant blue sea and two palm trees blowing gently in the wind. It looks like something from an upmarket travel brochure--until you turn and face inland.

Where the sand ends and the land begins it is utter devastation. A village has been completely destroyed and more than 60 lives lost in this hamlet alone.

A huge iron bridge which linked two sections of the mainland was broken into four pieces by the giant wave and two of those pieces have never been recovered. My taxi driver tells me that his uncle was riding his bike over it when the tsunami struck. He shut his eyes and when he opened them he was lying naked, six kilornetres away but alive and unharmed.

Further along the coast, we find hundreds of people living in rows of temporary buildings near the sea shore.

On the wall of a church--most of the fishermen here are Christian--is a poster showing photographs of dead children from the village.

Until now I have felt embarrassed to be taking photos and intruding on people's grief. However, this time a man spots my camera and comes up to me. Even without understanding his language I can tell he has suffered greatly.

'His son was killed in the tsunami and he has no photo of them both together,' my guide tells me. 'He wants you to take a photo of him next to his son.'

Sadly the photo on the poster was taken after his baby son had died, but it is all this man has. I take the photo and my guide promises to get a copy to him--I hope he manages it. The man is crying as I leave him. To lose any child is devastating, but in rural India to lose a son is to lose all hope for your future.

A young woman with a girl in her arms comes up to me and asks me to take a photo of her next to two pictures of her other daughters. They too died in the tsunami and this is all she has left of them.

As I leave I look back at the little group of people gathered around the poster. Their faces will stay with me for ever.

Just a few kilometres away is Kanniyakumari--the southern most tip of this huge country where the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal meet, famous for its beautiful sunrises and sunsets. I sit on the beach as the sun disappears into the sea and two young boys beside me suddenly cower under the bench.

Their father explains: 'They are frightened of the tsunami. They think it will come again at any time.'

RELATED ARTICLE: Restocking Sri Lanka's schools.

IT WAS only three days before the tsunami struck that Vijitha Yapa decided to give a day off to his staff of eight at his bookshop in Galle, though for the last 10 years they had worked on Boxing Day.

His decision saved their lives. The bookshop, 50 metres from the beach, was flooded to the ceiling before the water burst through the front door carrying the books onto the street. Yapa had about US$200,000 worth of stock, the schools were due to restart in January, the tourist hotels in the south were full and that is why We had so much stock.'

Only a few doors away, three of his cousins were killed in their restaurant which was reduced to rubble. Their bodies were never found. His 84-year-old uncle was also killed. He lived half a mile inland and died from the fright of seeing the waves bringing a 40-foot boat smashing in through the boundary wall of his house. His daughter held onto his hand but could not save him. It was the next day before the undertakers could reach the house,

What shocked Yapa as much as anything was to hear that a man was found still alive, buried under the rubble just outside his shop, a week after the disaster.

The insurance companies 'suddenly became very religious', says Yapa, initially refusing to cover losses because the tsunami was an 'act of God'. He told the company he had insured with, 'You can quote religion but don't forget that God also gave you a conscience.' They finally gave him 10 per cent of the stock value.

Meanwhile Yapa, who owns Sri Lanka's largest chain of bookshops and employs 150 people, faces a trading loss for the year

Without waiting for the insurance, within a month of the tsunami Yapa reopened his shop--the first on Galle's rubble-filled Main Street. Instead of a door, there were planks. Instead of racks there were makeshift tables Yapa had been moved by the sight of children hanging out their soaked textbook.' in the sun and was determined to have at least the school supplies available for them. 'We didn't want to deprive the children of what they needed: exercise books, pens, stationery and text books, One of our first customers was an Italian who wanted to give 80,000 rupees worth of books to the local schools.'

Yapa tells about the principal of one school in Galle who had called a meeting to discuss timetables on the day the disaster struck. One of the teachers present, who was pregnant, saw the wave coming and climbed onto the table. As the wave crashed through the door, the principal and the pregnant woman were holding hands but were pulled apart. The woman held on to a wooden plank from the table, but they never found the body of the principal.

Some children have lost both their parents and stare out at the sea, waiting for them to return, says Yapa. One salesman told him, 'We lived by the sea, our friend. Can we ever trust it now?'

Despite his losses, Yapa has initiated a campaign to give free books to school libraries affected by the tsunami. 'What is my loss compared to the suffering of these children?' he asks.

At the end of February, Yapa was elected President of Sri Lanka's Booksellers Association. He is the largest importer of books from Britain, air-freighting in one ton each week. Now he has written to some t00 British publishing houses inviting them to donate books to Sri Lanka's schools, 200 of which were damaged. The Book Sellers Association itself has made an initial donation of Rs100,000 to cover the costs of transport and warehousing. And a British man in Oxford, who was born on a tea plantation in Sri Lanka has raised 700 [pounds sterling] towards the fund.