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Struggling for normalcy

By Amantha Perera 

Mohideen Ajmal wants life to be normal. The wholesale fish-salesman from Karathivu in Kalmunai last week decided to reopen for business at his damaged house at the beachfront that was devastated by the December......

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> Hope springs eternal!

> Proof of a crumbling state (...Thelma)

Struggling for normalcy

A small child lends a helping hand to the reconstruction effort in Malaikadu, Kalmunai

By Amantha Perera 

Mohideen Ajmal wants life to be normal. The wholesale fish-salesman from Karathivu in Kalmunai last week decided to reopen for business at his damaged house at the beachfront that was devastated by the December 26 tsunami.This despite the area looking as if a small nuclear device had exploded close by.

He wants the image of normalcy to be perfect so he found another enterprising businessman to run the tea shop adjoining his house. "Otherwise people will think things are not normal, now we have the fish stall, the tea shop and there are people here," Ajmal said standing in front of 200 kilos of fish being loaded to be taken to Badulla.

But things are not normal, not by any stretch of the imagination. His is the only shop that is operating on the beachfront that was only two months ago a busy thoroughfare of fish-stalls, lorries and screaming people, - the second largest fish centre in the country, as Ajmal has it.

A giant boat stands motionless next to Ajmal's shop, besides what is left of a house - a mound of rubble. Five people in that house died in the tsunami. And Ajamal's business is not even breaking even. His usual daily stock of fish to Colombo and Badulla before the tsunami was between 2000 to 3000 kilos. Now instead of sending fish, he gets fish from Badulla to be distributed in Kalmunai and sends stocks back only  if he can get any. Since no boats are going out to sea from Kalmunai, he goes to Oluvil, 15 km away for his catch.

Last Wednesday, was a good day with the 200 kilos. There were half dozen workers at the shop loading the fish stock. Twenty four hours later, it was the exact opposite. There was no one at the shop except the tea boy who was lazily drawing sketches ona note pad. The fish stall was deserted.  Dust clouds swirled around, while a few tsunami tourists in air conditioned vehicles toured the devastation.

Buffer issues

This is how far normalcy has been regained in Kalmunai, Karathivu, Sainthamaruthu and Marudumanai, the four coastal areas in the east decimated by the waves, leaving more than 5000 dead.

Despite Ajmal's own efforts he is not sure whether he can continue the business at his shop. It lies within the confusing 100 metre buffer zone to be implemented by the government.

"I will not go anywhere from here, this is where my life is. I did not come back here, to be thrown out," Ajmal who lost two sons aged six and four months said.

He is very likely to be joined by thousands of others along the coast protesting just like him. Like Anura Ananda who owns National Drapery Stores next to the beach in Galle town.

"I will only move from here if I am given a similar place for business, paid compensation and guaranteed business," he said. He has reopened his shop that suffered damages estimated to be around Rs. 15 million. Ananda is not very satisfied with the reconstruction effort. He charges that despite headlines of US $ 4 billion being made available for the effort, he sees nothing in Galle that is helping individuals get back to life.

"I went to a private bank to apply for a loan, they wanted my house worth Rs. 6 million as collateral for a Rs 200,000 loan - that is after the tsunami," he said. Ahamed Faizal who operates the electrical equipment shop in front too is adamant not to budge, 100 metres or otherwise. "We suffered and we have come back on our own, no one has helped us."

Exaggerated as it may sound in the midst of posters and banners thanking the goodwill of those who helped, his sentiments are not far off mark from what is really taking place along the coast from Galle to Kalmunai.

Those left destitute by the tsunami are in the hands of a few politicians, NGOs and themselves. The government reaction to the massive rebuilding effort has been haphazard.

Haphazard

In Telwatte Kahawa where three carriages of the train wreck stand like ghosts, Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle has initiated a project to rebuild houses. But that is a private initiative. His government has limited itself to relaying the rail track, so far without a functioning signalling system, and repairing the roads. And of course to having highly publicised functions, like when the first train left for the south from Colombo.

Next to the carriages banners flutter in the wind, one thanking Fernandopulle and the other Minister Felix Perera for getting the trains back on track only 57 days after the tsunami. They look and feel ironic in the still slightly nauseating smell that emanates from the carriages and a sign that says "do not enter the carriages."

 On the main the reconstruction effort is being handled by NGOs like Canada based GOAL and USAID which have inducted thousands of local volunteers to clear the rubble and set up tents.

Individuals like Ajmal would not mind the government's lack of focus if not for the confusion created by the 100 metre zone.

"It is massive confusion over here," said Chris Daley, with Medicines Sans Frontieres working in Kalmunai referring to the buffer zone. Even the government has been left confused.

Treasury Secretary, Dr. P B Jayasundera says that while the initial decision was 100 metres and 200 metres for low lying areas in the north and east, the government would announce the final ruling inthe coming week. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse is of the view that the government's rule would allow all intact structures to remain within the zone. Is the government confused? Jayasundara says no way.

That leaves the likes of Siripala Shanthikumar and Vellupillai Kanapathipullai of Karathivu in a state of total nothingness. They stare at a pole with a white flag stuck in the stand near their destroyed houses indicating 100 metres and scratch their heads.

Shanthikumar's house is just a foundation now, the backhoe machines had removed everything else while Kanapathipullai can boast of one standing wall. But both have returned from welfare centres to what is remaining and spend most of the day scraping cement off building blocks so that they could be reused. They have no idea who determines which house is intact and which is not.

"We need someone to help us with our houses," said the casual labourers." Since December 26, there is no income, no work and we are left like this." They are reluctant to start any work on the houses because of stories that alternate housing would be provided and far worse, because ofthe ghostly buffer zone.

Creative

In Hambantota, individuals have taken the decision to interpret the buffer zone in their own, most creative way. The zone they say, begins not where the waves hit the beach, but where the waves start to break. 

Unfortunately other than the government initiated confusion, there does not seem to be any big project aimed at providing houses.

In the meantime, the entire devastated coastline has been turned into tent cities. They dot the cleared coastal belt like giant cocoons. Some are extremely hot like the ones Pradeep Thilan and his wife Champika Jeevani are left with near Tangalle. In the hot sun they sweat profusely inside and the children appear zombie like with red eyes. "This is what we have," they said from inside the tent wiping their brows, "we can't stay in schools or temples because they are needed for the normal functions, we can't go home because we don't have homes, and now we have this."

The calculation is that they might be left living in the pressure cooker tent for the next six months, including the monsoon season. "Providing housing is the biggest issue now," said Silvia Moriana, MSF head for Ampara.

MSF has designed a new tent that is more suited to the local climate, and is admittedly very much cooler inside. It manages several camps in Amapara including the one at Thirukkovil with 950 families.

The tent house that MSF says could survive for a year costs only US $ 250 each and can be put up within half an hour, according to the NGO. So far MSF has constructed 550 such tents and plans to set up at least 2000.

The problem is not in setting up the tents, but in the local government officials' reactions.

There are still five welfare camps remaining in Kalmunai. For the inmates to be moved out land has to be allocated and that is not happening fast enough. Payments have to be made to the government to gain water supply to the new tent cities where the refugees are to be relocated. Even the garbage collectors have to be bribed. Though workers are loathe to admit it, bribing local officials is the only way to get the bureaucracy to work fast enough.

Grama sevakas hardly visit the tent cities. The refugees are left with the Rs. 5000 that was paid by the government last month and a food stamp worth Rs. 375 for each person. "We have food, that's ok, but what about our houses," asks a bewildered Jegan Lechchamie in Kalmunai now living in a tent city. She lost a three bedroom house at Pandiruppu.

Gloomy future

The housing situation that is at least temporarily managed by the NGOs can go out of control when they leave, which would be not that far away. MSF estimates that it would be operational in Sri Lanka till end-March and at the latest mid-April. Thereafter the massive camps would have to be run by either local NGOs or far worse, local government officials.If the local government has provided the land for the temporary camps like the one Lechchamie is housed at, then they will hold ultimate control over them. This leaves many who live in them in fear of favouritism and corruption.

If nothing else they would be faced with pure inefficiency. In Kalmunai a government decision to allow new water supplies on payment of Rs. 2500 down from the usual Rs. 15,000 has made it easier for houses outside the 100 metre zone to get the supply. "But they weren't the ones that were really hit. Those are in the 100 metres, and the Water Board says they can't do anything about it," said school teacher I.A.  Aziz.

While confusion reigns within the devastated belt, in Kalmunai the government has decided to fill the marshes to resettle people. Though environmentalists have criticised the move as an open invitation for floods, some of the homeless are willing to move to the marshes but not beyond. "The marshes are close by, but I don't think people will move any further. A lot of Muslims came here in 1996 to escape the war and they don't want move very far interior. What is important here is safety and occupation," Aziz said.

Nothing guaranteed

Neither safety nor occupation are guaranteed - not in Kalmunai or anywhere else where the waves crashed in. The fisheries industry which hit rock bottom immediately after the tsunami is yet to recover. "No boats are going out to sea, we have no jobs," Tilhan and Shanthikumar, a young fishermen living hundreds of kilometres apart said.

The boats are being renovated mostly under the patronage of  private or international funders. In Hambantota near a boar repair tent, the sign says "Thanks to our Norwegian friends." M. Chandral tends to the boats at a daily payment of Rs. 500. So far he has repaired 15 boats.

Even if the boats are made sea worthy, most fishermen have lost nets and engines. "The smaller boats are neglected, because we don't have big associations to lobby," said Mohamed Mohideen of Sainthamaruthu. Last Thursday, a group of fishermen picketed on the streets of Kalmunai seeking more help and transparency in the reconstruction effort.

No one other than enterprising businessmen like Ajmal have made the effort at attempting to revive the village economy clogged by sea water. "He is a great man, he is doing all this on his own," Aziz who recovered the body of Ajmal's four-month old son said.

Enterprising village businessmen alone would not be enough to help the more than 250,000 left homeless and incomeless nationwide. The only businesses that seem to be thriving are the car rentals and the guest houses which have reaped a bumper crop since the tsunami with the NGOs clamouring for rooms and vehicles.

For Teva Sekeram, yet another unemployed casual boat-hand, life has totally changed since December 26. His wife and child live in a welfare camp and what is left of his house is a small brick table. The family stays at the camp in order to get the food rations.

He sleeps out in the open air with Shanthikumar and Kanapathipullai and says that he is not afraid of the ghosts that are rumoured to haunt Karathivu late in the night. "We are tired and after a drink, there are no ghosts here then."

In the morning, a sober Sekeram sweeps what was once his living room and points at the rice that is strewn all over - "can't use, all sea water," he says and throws it away.

He meticulously cleans the damaged picture of Lord Ganesh and places it on the highest point in his house - the cement table. "Only the gods know why this happened," he says.

Given the state of the kovil nearby where a tower adorned with the gods has been tossed up and thrown about by the waves, maybe the gods themselves are not really sure why.

Proof of a crumbling state 

By Thelma 

My dear Satty,

It was with a shudder that I beheld the likes of Wimal Wee, Tilvin and that Nandana chap at the press chitchat last week. M'dear it violates my aristocratic sensibilities to observe these blokes gadding about pretending to be leaders. The interim authority may have prompted Wee Wee to lean forward towards the mike with a passionate gaze accompanied as always by a rich smell of camphor - (the chap likes to keep his pink shirts well bathed in kapuru balls) - and cleanse his bosom of a good deal of that perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart, but if there was ever a moment for the reds to reflect in a quiet manner rather than lash out with their tongues like a lizard in a bee hive, then that moment was this moment.

M'dear it has been many weeks now since you have, in a fit of bravado, ordered the reds to up and go.

Palayang you told them in no uncertain terms and for the umpteenth time accused them of doing away with your dearly beloved. My suspicion is that like a shy and retiring village curate pining for the visiting Bishop's daughter, Wimal too is what Paradisians might say 'aasai bayai.' They would love to leave but the red heart goes pitter-patter every time it thinks of losing out on the good things in life. Surely they didn't climb over a thousand dead bodies to give up the Pajero and the Montero so easily.

Darling, for Dhanapala to come out and agree with the very thing you based your whole election platform on, when ranting venomously at the greens, is nothing new. I bow down to your superior knack of making the masses, whom we have now established are assess, believe your concocted pishtosh. Ichabod m'girl, only a few moons ago you pretended the interim authority was as distasteful to you as a visit by King Herod to an Israeli mother's union tea party. Only I, astute as I always am, knew, that to a wench who had already offered the cyanide-toting chaps an interim administration for 10 years, offering an interim authority for reconstruction and development was as easy as Cher offering up her body to the next available plastic surgeon.

The reason that you and I might see red when dealing with these red blokes dear is that as my old ayah so articulately put it, 'yanna kiwwata yanneth ne, athule idang kaaranawa.' The thing is darling, they feel that you should go. And there's the rub. Whether 39 mustachioed members of the brotherhood can run Paradise is another matter, but this is always the way with leaders from the lower classes. They think anything is possible... once.

Anyway darling in all this hullabaloo with the reds talking tough and the tea-pluckers calling your bluff, one salient feature stands out like a bally sore thumb. Mangy does not know whether he is coming or going. As the media minister he claims to be ignorant of this interim authority statement issued by the Information Department. While inclined to agree that Mangy is ignorant of many a thing, one is compelled to fault him for his lack of knowledge in this matter. And this mind you from a man who co-edits the kept press along with you. Tch! Tch! Waggle a forefinger at him next time you see him dear. Tell him he should know things rather than not know things.

Whether old Kadi knows anything these days is in serious doubt. If ever there was a chap who had passed his use-by-date then this chap is that chap if you get my drift. All he does is smack his lips and blink twice. Certainly, if Dhanapala knows something he is going to keep it closer to his bosom than a lost and found kitten. Especially, if Kadi is loping around the corner. I say dear even your general secretary claims that he was generally unaware.

You, in your usual good style I expect, will deny everything. The day I see a tinge of shame on your jowl of modesty dear, that day I will eat that worm that romps around in my bally bubbly I tell you.

It is not often that the thought of you makes me smile darling, but when Ravi Kay demanded that the educational qualifications of parliamentarians be tabled I couldn't hide a slight smirk. If as he says there are chappies in the House who have not passed their Ordinary Level I can only say to him, these are extraordinary blokes why should they pass ordinary exams? Come to think of it why should they even have certificates in proof of anything when one can become the president of Paradise on a resume drawn up by hyperbolic elves.

Meanwhile, Thonda is angry that some other chap has stolen his thunder. With his spade and bucket the chap had been building playgrounds in the hills only to have Chandrasekeran come along like a thief in the night and open the bally thing without his knowledge. I mean to say the thing soared into the very empyrean of the unspeakable.

So acutely affected was Thonda by this trying spectacle that he muttered 'building playgrounds is one thing, getting played is quite another,' and sauntered off in a huff, or so I should imagine. Little wonder then that Thonda and the other estate types are now sulking in the green corner for  space.

Meanwhile, coffee anyone?

Hope springs eternal!

The UPFA never learns. Even after the big blunder by the state owned SLBC which reported a few days after the tsunami that Tiger Supremo Velupillai Pirapaharan was dead and the fracas that ensued involving the military top brass, JVP firebrand MP, K. D. Lalkantha refused to take a cue. In an interview with a Gulf-based newspaper during a visit to the Middle East last week Lalkantha went on record reiterating that the Tiger Chief had been washed away by the tsunami. And this despite Norwegian peace envoys and ministers having met Pirapaharan for post-tsunami talks last month!

"Though there is no concrete evidence, all available information points to the fact that Prabhakaran's hideout was ravaged by tsunami waves. It is highly improbable that he survived the disaster."

- K. D. Lalkantha, Small and Rural Industries Minister, in an interview with Khaleej Times in Abu Dhabi on February 21.

Whoever the good Minister's sources are one thing is for certain - a certain striped kind up north will have one big guffaw on Lalkantha's account!