Amantha Perera
POLATHUMODERA, Sri Lanka , Dec 26 2005 (IPS) – When Indian psychosocial support specialist Mitesh Govender arrived in Sri Lanka six months after the tsunami struck, he was taken aback by the reception he received in this village, 160 km south of Colombo.
One of the worst affected villages on the island s south coast, Polathumodera has been visited by streams of volunteers including former U.S. presidents, George Bush and Bill Clinton.
Govender was part of an American Red Cross team attempting to deal with the emotional fallout of the natural disaster. The villagers, instead of being receptive to counselling and support work, were disdainful, he remembers.
Now, another six months later, Polathumodera considers the Gujarat native as one of its own. There was no knowledge or understanding initially among the villagers about the sort of work we do à It was alien to them, Govender explains. Slowly, slowly we built up a relationship and found out what we needed to do here, he says.
First a dialogue was initiated with the help of local Red Cross volunteers like Amila Sampath. One of the most fruitful outcomes was a pioneering project to provide assistance to women to recommence lace weaving which had been a cottage industry in the area untill the tsunami.
Sampath, who belongs to the area, is emphatic that the project has allowed the women to regain some sort of normalcy to put behind them the trauma of the widespread destruction wrought by the tsunami a day after Christmas last year.
On Dec 26, giant waves smashed into the coast around Polathumodera, razing 60 houses, and killing 10 villagers. The government estimates the death toll countrywide at 31,000 people. One in 19 Sri Lankans has been affected.
The villagers had lost everything they owned and there was a sense of worthlessness in them, especially the women. There was a lot of depression here when we started, says Sampath.
Before the tsunami, fisheries and tourism were the mainstay of the local economy. With their livelihoods gone, the men would go and get drunk, but women can t do that, says Dushanthi Suranjika, the local coordinator for the American Red Cross programme.
The women languished in the relief camps or the homes of relatives. We had to find something that would keep them occupied, and also allow them to recover from the trauma, Govender explains.
The weaving proved therapeutic. It is done mostly at home after the women have finished their household work. Yet the programme has also allowed the beneficiaries to form a lose support network where they can share experiences. The women meet in a local nursery which the Red Cross uses for meetings.
Suranjika, 27, who lost her 24-year-old brother in the natural disaster says she found in the network a place to mourn her loss. She does not cry at home when her parents are around, she explains. If I cry, they see my sadness and they will cry too. If I remain normal they feel that I am happy, she says.
If we stop crying it will not be right, she says between sobs as she talks about her brother.
Govender thinks the healing process has begun in Polathumodera. Survivors are unburdening their emotions, not keeping them bottled inside. The women are also raising their voices against the discriminatory pattern of aid and relief distribution.
The group has been trying to persuade the government agent s office to sign a document that will provide them with ICRC relief. Polathumodera was not a poor village; we never lived on government or any other help. Because of that, many donors think that we don t need anything, says P. Piyasalee, a member of the network.
One year after the tragedy, survivors still wait for physical and emotional relief in Sri Lanka.
