Last one...for now. (03/06/05)

Damn! I was so sure I posted this before I left!
I am back in New York, safe and sound so far. My biggest and most sincere thanks to all of you for reading and writing back to me while I was gone. I will post the last dispatch from Sri Lanka as well even though its a week old now. again sorry, I forgot that it never went up.
David



Ok everybody, at this point I leave for home in all of 40 hours, not that I am counting down.
As I said in the last post, I spent the weekend outside of Colombo in Kandy and climbed Adams Peak. I can safely say it was a learning experience worth my time. I still handle obscenely large crowds in tight spaces as well as I always have and when I haven’t slept in over 24 hours I am still a ball of hugs and kisses. The climb took longer than I would ever have thought and more of an exercise in frustration than a climb up a mountain to watch the sunrise from a centuries old temple in the jungle should be. I knew that this was “pilgrim season” however I would not have bet. I did watch the sunrise from the mountain and it was an amazing one. When you climb you start very late night or early morning 1 am 2 am sort of thing. Unfortunately I chose to climb on a Saturday and was mixing in with tens of thousands of pilgrims making their way up as well. For maybe the second time in my life I will actually listen to my father and since I have nothing nice to say I wont say anything at all. Which is of course a way of saying something anyway so maybe I didn’t listen so well after all. (Sorry Pop!) 6 kilometers (each way) of walking to the start of the path followed by nearly 7 more up over 5000 stone carved steps (then back down that 7 km) will make your calves sing to you the next day. All told I figure it was 25 Km (+/-) of walking, stair climbing and a bit of hiking in there too. The way down hurt more than the way up by far. Nothing will make you feel less out of shape (especially when you think your in good shape to begin with) than seeing small children on top of parents shoulders the whole way up or better than that pregnant women climbing up and down! Oh yah many people climb barefoot. I felt pretty soft after seeing that.

I will say this, in one weekend I have traveled by train through the mountains and tea plantations, seen a second Kandyian dance performance complete with fire eating and fire walking (to me it was more fun watching the tour groups watching than the performance itself) shopped a bit, went to an Ayurvedic clinic, saw the botanical gardens, washed an elephant, rode an elephant, went to a few different Buddhist and Hindu temples and climbed a mountain. Despite all of this I managed to have a good time for a bit and now I am back in Colombo.
I will not likely be posting again until I am back In the US and that one will likely be just a “made it back, here is the stupid thing I did in customs type post” which lets be honest I could find out that its illegal to bring back a live monkey in your carry on presuming he made it through security in the first place. We are working on our sit still and be quiet commands, he will learn or he will be bound and gagged!
Just kidding, the monkey I bought was dead already, they are cheaper that way you know.

If anyone ever takes a vacation to Sri Lanka, feel free to give me a shout and I will be happy to throw in my two cents.
Thanks for all the emails, support, well wishes and for reading my hardly professional opinions. I hope that this isn’t the last time I get to do this.
Take care and again thank you so very much for everything.
David

No, I did not buy a dead monkey, or a live one for that matter.

Done and out! (02/24/06)

Hi everyone!
IOM loved the images, I was a bit nervous since no one saw a single shot until I delivered them all. Apparently every one was thrilled! It’s always nice to hear good things about your work but its even better when it comes from different places! So far it’s been all praise, from Geneva, Colombo, Manila and DC! Everyone is happy. Thus I am happy.
I have one more thing to shoot for IOM and that’s on Monday and I leave Tuesday night so I decided to take the weekend and see some things. I am heading up to Kandy in the hills for a night and as long as I can find my GAF at 2 am I will climb up the stairs, rocks and whatever to Adams Peak. Fabled to be the place where Adam was created, also its supposed to be where Buddha left his footprint on the way to teach across the world, OR if your Hindu then the footprint is from Shiva. Either way for a four hour accent and the reputed most unbelievable sunrise anywhere, there better be a footprint up there from someone. Every tuk tuk driver and average person I have met no matter where they are from has promised I would not make the hike and regret it.
Sounds good to me. I am sick of Colombo anyway.
Last night though proved to be the exception, yesterday was the Buddhist full moon holiday called Poya, once a year there are two main parade/celebration/ritual/procession one in Kandy and the other here in Colombo. It is called a Perahera.
It was something else. Dancers, drummers, acrobat masked elephants…yes the elephants had masks but since I am so astute I still realized what they were. The whole procession is led by Buddhist monks carrying relics and statues, drummers, the make their way into a temple just out in the lake, then bring it back out and around the lake. Doesn’t sound like much but between the elephants, dancers, whip cracking, explosions, (a local photographer asked me If I knew what that signal meant? I said “yes, get down” he laughed and said normally yes but today it means its time to start, “oh its time to start getting down, insert a little dance with cameras on and FINALLY a joke that went over with the locals! Sad huh?) And rows upon rows of monks…it was pretty wild. I was told that this years would be remarkably small since the temple had given most of its money for the Tsunami, the “small” one lasted an hour and a half. The one in Kandy goes for Four hours or more. That’s a lot of cleverly disguised elephants.
I have very little time today and have a lot to do.
Take care
David

sorry this one is so loose and sloppy.

East (02/21/06)

First of all, thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday. If you didn’t know don’t sweat it a bit, my birthday was on the 17th and I spent it with people I have known for about a week and I will never forget it. Thanks to my family for calling me on my birthday. The phone calls definitely were the highlights of the day.
We left from Colombo around 8 am on Monday; we arrived in Ampara in the late aftenoon. Along the way I saw what people fall in love with here. This country is truly beautiful; it is unbelievable how dynamic it is. Rice paddies, mountain ranges (well little ones), tea plantations, Jungles, stunning beaches and car choked cities. Throw in the wild monkeys, work elephants, monitors and wild peacocks you have yourself one beautiful country.
The IOM officer from Akkaraipattu, a hell of a guy named “Wiz”, met us
Wiz took us to a few camps that the IOM is overseeing and working in. These camps were huge. This area (Ampara district) was one of the worst hit. According to a map at the office, Ampara district had over 10,000 deaths and somewhere between 25000-30000 houses destroyed. Thousands of tents and shelters lined the nearly two-hour drive from Ampara to Arugam Bay. Normally this drive wouldn’t have taken but an hour but between bridges washed out and roads ripped apart from the water it was a pretty ugly road to take. Its not hard to think see how so many people died and are still listed as missing just by driving these roads. In some places the road was lifted and the soil ripped out from underneath it, tube wells lay several feet out of the ground and in some places pulled out and broken. In some places the only signs of life were the Sri Lankan Army.

Once we hit Ampara we discovered we were booked in the most overpriced fleabag hotel we had collectively seen in a while. Personally I thought it was fairly frightening but apparently it was the only hotel with rooms available…. go figure. So we stayed one night then we all moved into the IOM office in Akkaraipattu for the second night. The hotel came complete with open plumbing, a toilet with out lid or handle, a “fish pond” without fish but teeming with mosquito larva and the ceiling fan that sounded like and idling diesel engine. It was a room not to be mistaken for home. First light we broke out and headed out to shoot in the camps.
I have been trying to figure out how to sum up the several camps we were in and I am just not able. Maybe its because we saw so much and I feel that I don’t have the time or maybe it was just a sort of overload of stimuli. Probably both really.
They were amazing, horrifying, beautiful and humbling as well.
Thousands of people living in tents and shelters, some camps were working well others were not. The people were polite, generally cheerful (circumstances considering) and pretty chatty.
afterwards we heading back to Akkaraipattu to crash inside the office at IOM, its free, clean and the shower worked. floor or not it was an upgrade.
On the 17th (my birthday) I awoke on the floor of the IOM office in Akkaraipattu, I slept about as well as you could in a mosquito filled oven but everyone was super cool to me…it was my birthday you know. Wiz broke out the percolator and made me REAL coffee from New Guinea, two cups really. Everyone bought me breakfast, lunch and dinner too. We headed out to the camps and began to work. We shot at a school where 80 or so families had been staying since the tsunami and IOM was putting on a camp maintenance workshop for the inhabitants. A sort of pre-turning over how to sort of thing, it also helps develop a feeling of community and pride in the operation of the camp as well as identify problems seen by the inhabitants that the IOM and other groups may not know about.
Now, there is one thing the video shooter (Ginny) and I have learned to do and that is play pied piper with the kids. The kids here love to be photographed so much that it borders on frightening really. Ginny needed to shoot and interview and needed as little background sound in her ears as possible so I began to shoot pics of the kids and show them. Moments later I have a following of about 20 kids jockeying for a place in the picture. Another IOM staffer was helping me by chatting up the other kids. In a moment it went from happy screaming children and fun photography to a riot of under three foot demons. The loud chattering of 20 or so children grew into a roar of over 50 kids with more coming. I actually stopped shooting because some of the kids were shoving and stepping on the smaller kids just to be in the front! I ended up putting the cameras away and watching some older boys (9 –11 y/o) play volleyball. I decided to jump in and play instead of shoot, how hard could it be to play volleyball with some pre-teen boys?
Perhaps I am a bit too competitive by nature. Once I saw that it was going to be 8 on 1 and those odds suck, I decided that I could use my head, feet and any part of me to keep the ball in play. They thought it was great that I was diving and heading and kicking. I was just hell bent on not being showed up by some kids. Then they just got ugly and started to spike the ball at me and try to see how hard and far they could hit the ball. Thankfully I was called back to shoot. The party broke up with HUNDREDS of handshakes and I swear to god, autographs! Some of the kids started to ask us for our autographs and to sign what country we were from. Can’t say as we didn’t all love that.
On the way back to Arugam bay we had heard about a road that does in fact go all the way through so we asked around and found an American from Relief Intl. Who knew where it was (every local said it didn’t exist and if it did the elephants would attack us). Sure enough its there, it’s about a week old, made by the Army and the farmers to get the crops out of the area so a four wheeler or a tractor was the only smart way to take it, we pushed on in our Toyota mini van. No elephants, one bog down, a push out and about an hour later we arrived in Arugam bay. Still haven’t seen a wild elephant damnit.
We headed back to the new (clean) hotel for hands down the best meal I have had since leaving New York and possibly the best in a LONG time. The crew ran up the street and bought a case of Lion beer and it was a party! There are no bridges and the hotel was running on a generator when we showed up but you can find a cold case of beer no problem. We ended the night by walking up the beach and hanging out on the balcony of a local bar. Not a bad day for

On the morning of the 18th, I sat with the crew waiting for the first of the 250 tents we were going to document being delivered to arrive on the other side of the water. While I was waiting I was nursing my post birthday hangover (remarkably mild considering some past birthdays) with coconut water, fresh oranges and phone calls from home. When I was done talking to my family (cut short by a false cry of “here they come!”) Wiz decided that if I was going to keep working with NGO’s in my life I needed to know how to ride a motorcycle. Let me say that some fun can be had learning to ride a bike through a section of beach that serves as a landing site for boats, staging area for major construction and parking lot for large and small vehicles….not mention the passengers and endless supply of dogs. I never knew how much fun first gear could be.
When all was said and done (I stalled the bike for the fourth time and couldn’t get it back in to neutral so I parked it) there were 5-6 kids from a nearby school who were laughing as hard as the Tuk Tuk drivers where watching me learn how ride. Good to know I have the gift of entertaining the locals even here in Sri Lanka.
Finally the tents did arrive by boat and were offloaded onto a waiting tractor to be driven to the camp in Ullai. Once everything was loaded up we set off and passed the turn off to Ullai. It was a move that had even the IOM Operations Assistant scratching his head and flapping his arms, turns out we were being led to an area that no one but the local administrator seemed to know about where NO ONE had been given assistance. Once again it seemed as though a gap had been found and was going to be filled. The local administrator was in fact more of a very influential man in the area, an elder of sorts, respected and trusted by everyone it seemed. That was until we arrived to this brand new site with only the first load of 8 tents (more than 200 were being brought in that day but only 8 on this trip) The villagers were overjoyed about finally getting shelters but immediately grew hostile at the low numbers of tents. While the videographer shot the IOM staff instructed people how to build and maintain the tents I went and shot Mr. Abrahim (local admin) try and calm down about 15 women who seemed to think they were not getting tents. I promise it looked a few words from growing really ugly, it seemed that no matter how many times he explained that more tents were arriving they grew more angry. Eventually it calmed down and people began to get it but I can only imagine how salty I would be after 7 weeks or so with out shelter. These people had been living with others in the tiny homes that were not destroyed and further inland with relatives. To see people that desperate for shelter was pretty ugly. Funny how no one knew but Abrahim. We passed camps run by or assisted by NGO’s as big as Unicef, several countries Red Crosses, CARE, Movimundo, etc etc. But no one had seemed to know about this area called Kudakkali. Incidentally by some miracle only 2 people had died in Kudakkali but it was a total (100% according to Abrahim) loss of livelihood, no fishing boats were spared, no bicycle was undamaged etc. few deaths but no way to earn a living.
This is bordering on obscene in length so I will reel it in here.
I am back and (possibly) done working for the IOM, They really liked what I shot and so do I, I will post them as soon as I can.
I hope you all haven’t fallen asleep reading this. I would have.
David

Solis Camp and Telwatta (2/12/05)

Ok so things changed a bit.
We now leave on Monday for the East and we went down South on Thursday night late instead. I went with the media team (of which I am now part of!) down to shoot in a few camps in Matara and Kolutara again. The more I see the more humbling it gets for me. We see people still going on day after day doing what they can to make ends meet and go back to a knocked down home with no roof. The "lucky ones" get to go back to a camp or tent city. Personally I think the IOM does a pretty bang up job in their camps, they find sites, build them with a plan (layout, drainage, sanitation etc.) and work very hard to keep every person in the camp engaged in its day to day running. They train the occupants to clean, maintain and elect a group of leaders, a board so to speak to deal with problems and to act as liaison to the IOM. The goal being to turn the camp over to its population as soon as it’s feasible. They incorporate a community center/children’s center in the camps too. One camp we went to the other day was doing very well (that’s why we were there after all) and to be honest I had a blast! The kids loved my cameras and playing with my sunglasses, we played some badminton (very hard with camera bags on) and they were having as much fun as I was. We even chased a monitor (big, BIG lizard) out of the camp. Ok so, they saw it, I began to take pictures of it and in the process we chased it, it ran deeper in the camp. Not a good thing, it tried to get into peoples emergency shelters (lots of small kids and elderly people around) some of the elderly woman got involved as it came towards them. (do not engage an elderly Sri Lankan woman wielding a coconut husk broom, you will get your ass handed to you. Which is what they did with the Monitor, it ran further into the camp and that’s where the kids and I cornered it. This is also where I thought this was a bad idea suddenly. I know it was a bad idea to begin with but now it was stupid. The kids and I backed up and let it climb the brick wall and get into someone else’s yard. So I learned few things here: there are monitors in Sri Lanka, they are in fact big, they move fast, kids will follow you no matter how stupid your actions are…I think they were waiting to see what I would do if I caught up to it more than anything, these buggers can climb up brick walls and jump and of course not to play with broom having Sri Lankan senior citizens.
Jokes aside, the camps are not a fun place for these people. They are not good places to raise a family. The camps tend be crowded and have no privacy. The NGO’s try very hard to make them safe, clean and as comfortable as possible. At the end of the day they are emergency shelters made of heavy tarp, aluminum, wood frames and a quick poured concrete floor, the door is a cut section of the tarp. Some camps that I have been told about (mostly the state run ones I am told) are full of drunks, drugs and in most cases women and girls are not safe so they won’t stay in them. The IOM staff at the camps work hard to establish and maintain a feeling of community within the camps. They are doing a hell of a job too.
In other camps that we drove by (non-IOM) the sites seemed to be rather loose, un-planned really. Others were not protected; some were straight up along side the road. So close that if the move of the day spilled out much off the road in the wrong places you have some serious problems. Generally thought this is not the case. Most places are set inside the road a bit and lay out to a grid etc.
We stopped and shot at the train in Telwatta. This was the train that everyone has seen pictures of, it was torn off the tracks and twisted up and thrown, all from the water. When everything was done, the authorities believe that over 800 were killed in and on it. There had been about 1000 tickets sold for the trip but only 802 bodies were found in the cars. The track has been re-laid and the cars put back on to the track but it can’t be moved as some of the wheels were torn off. So it’s sitting in front of the station it was stopped at when the wave hit. The rather morbid reality of it is that the trains have been repaired enough that trains run in and out of this station now. There is also a large tent city surrounding the area as well. The videographer and I climbed inside and shot what we needed to shoot but I won’t lie, it was pretty strange. It was cleaned of debris but the cars are twisted and in some areas torn, mud is caked all over the walls and chairs. All along the walls in the mud are scraping marks left by hands clawing at the mud. I would like to bet from after the fact but it wont erase the eerie feeling it gives you to look at. Some kids saw me climb in and followed me. I would bet that this was a fairly common occurrence, people climbing in to the cars and looking around anyway. They were good kids, they hung out and watched me shoot and tried to stay out of my way if I looked like I was avoiding them in my shots. They really wanted their picture taken though. So I did. Then they wanted chewing gum…gave them my last pieces of Dentyne. It was either that or a crushed protein bar. Personally the protein bar tastes pretty damn good but I don’t think it was going to go over as well as the gum did. I had seen the train from the road two or three times now and had wanted to get over there and shoot, but I was always a bit nervous to do so. Now I want to go back and shoot again. The creepy feeling and reverence of what happened would still be there but I would be able to look around a bit more clearly.
Afterwards our van broke down in another camp, when I say broke down I really mean broke. All day long we had been hearing not happy noises and occasionally stopping to look what it could be. I was in the way back of the minibus so I was trying to gauge which side to sit on when the wheel falls off since only the front seats here have seat belts. My bet was the brakes were shot and the sound was the pad grinding away but it wasn’t only happening when we were braking but it seemed louder, someone else said was betting on the tranny going. Turns out the bearing had melted away on the front passenger side and we were riding on the spindle. I did that once in the Plymouth, not cool, only I paid a lot more than we paid to get it fixed. So we sat there waiting for another car to come the hour and a half from Colombo when up walks a mechanic. He lives in the camp we were visiting, lucky for us he was ok with the camp. He pointed out the problem, jacked the car up and proved it. He sent his son for his tools and went for the parts. As we waited for the parts to show up and while he was fixing it a service was being held in a TINY (8 foot octagonal) open aired chapel. I sat down at a train station about 60 feet away with the rest of the crew and we listening to hymns being sung in Sinhalese just after the sun set. They sang and prayed with a tiny candle lit and we watched the van being fixed. It was pretty beautiful really.
That’s where I should end this.
Take care everyone.
David

Going East and South

Lets try this again folks.
You see, I spent a good 40 minutes yesterday working on a long informative, if not riveting blog entry for your collective reading pleasure and it up and disappeared on me.
I sent it; I know that I am just not sure where it went. That’s all.

I won’t attempt to re create that momentary lapse of genius I had, I will just push onward.

Today, was my first day shooting with the IOM, we went to visit an area where a reported 900 families had not yet received aid. That’s not a typo. The IOM immediately began to work out emergency shelter situations for them and begin to coordinate the process to get semi permanent housing up, re-establishment of livelihood etc.
NOW, a few people have emailed me asking about the private vs. NGO group’s efforts and how they work specifically. My answer is: differently. This area for instance, as we arrived it looked as though some people had UNHCR (united nations high command for refugees) tarpaulins up. Which are really just all weather sheets of heavy duty plastic. but they keep the sun and rain off you. No one had sufficient housing except those who were either squatting in the ruins of their old home or the homes of others and those who scrapped together shantytown type lean-tos. Nothing really good for living in really.
Later we were up the road a bit; there were people who had freshly made temporary houses out of wood slats (cost about $150 US and 2 days to make) put up by private groups. They were still getting their food from the local Buddhist Temple but they had a house of sorts. So here you have the private groups, building a house for someone who needed it (made to last 2 years maybe 3 but not 4) but they are receiving no other support from them. Then you have the IOM approach. Where they locate land, clear it put up emergency housing up (water, sanitation etc) and monitor the conditions and goings on in the camp…meanwhile training the inhabitants to maintain the camp in the express efforts to turn over the camp to them as soon as is feasible. This is being done while attempts are made to get semi-permanent homes up outside the 100-meter rule area (I already explained that right?) and supplying food, water, education and livelihood re-establishment (giving tradesmen tools, fishermen boats etc)
One is a hell of a lot quicker but the other is more comprehensive and permanent.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing them blended but it wouldn’t work that way…permits, meetings, agreements, village, local and governmental politics etc would kill the immediacy in a heartbeat.

Where is the Government? I am not sure. Not to say they are not there, I know they are, I have heard that they have been responding to some areas with a vengeance. These areas though seem to be ones that are not sympathizing with either of the two rival groups the JVP (communists) and the LTTE (Tamil Separatists) so you can draw your own conclusions. This area that I was in today, Kolutara is a JVP area…so I am told.
Another thing to remember is that there are precious few areas that were not hit around the country. So it’s relatively easy to have been forgotten despite the amount of money and aid groups here. I don’t know, like any country, some people think highly of their government and others don’t trust them for a moment. Sri Lanka is no exception.


Friday, I leave for 10 days with a few IOM staff to shoot in several areas around the country: Ampara, Ullai, Komari, Matara, Kalutara and a few others. I am very much excited by the chance to work and travel finally. I have been in country for well over a week and really don’t feel like I did very much. This is going to change something fierce here on Friday.

I want to take a second and let every one out there now that I am in an Internet café in Colombo and the radio was playing “broken wings” and is now playing Whitney Houston’s version of “ I will always love you”. …Anyone doubt my need to get the hell out of dodge?
Yet I digress.
I wanted to write a moment about some of the people I have met here. I am meeting every day some of the most amazing people I have had the privilege to meet. Aid workers who do more in a day than I have done in a busy month. I met a 22 year old recent university graduate from England who is running about heading up projects for a small private group cleaning up schools, building well covers, helped place an orphan in s good home, and is looking to build 200 houses in Ampara over the next week or two. He’s 22! I was getting drunk and working in a bar…he’s building houses and facilitating clean up operations in a foreign country after one of the biggest disasters in memory.
I met an active duty Marine who came here on his leave, to distribute aid for a small Canadian private group that he has a connection with. He said he had to help out.
I have been talking to Save the Children workers, IOM, Care, you name them they are here, and it’s amazing.

Personally I am doing better than I was now that my days are full…well more full.
I am waging a personal war against insects, bugs and all things that want to eat my flesh or drink my blood. Savage little bastards. For every thousand I avoid two get me. Which is fine odds except for where they get me. I will spare everyone the imagery but I am not sure how he or she got there without me knowing.
Speaking of, I was in Mirissa (south of Galle) this weekend to get out and see more and meet a group of private aid workers, mostly French who were there to build houses and clinics. One of the men forgot to hang up his shorts when he went to sleep. He also didn’t shake them out in the morning, he just put them on. Well he said he felt something moving and then incredible pain very high in the groin. He shook out the shorts then and out flopped a 5 inch long centipede that had gotten him about two inches from his pride and joy. Now I generally hung up my pants anyway or take them off under the mosquito netting but you bet your ass I go Ringo Starr on the in the morning before putting them on, same with my boots and pretty much anything that I wear. So far it’s working pretty damn good.
Its definitely hot as it ever was in STL in the summer, So far I haven’t worn out the Rice and Curry or any other local food. I am told that this wont last long though soon I will want to kill someone for a burger. We will see. I was pointed to a pub that serves what the Brits would try and pass off as a burger and fries but they would be beaten elsewhere for it. Cheap local beer and world soccer coverage makes up for it though. I can go out and eat in an expensive restaurant (dinner, beer, coffee…well supposedly its coffee) for around $10. The realization has hit that I can get drunk and home in a Tuk-Tuk for under $20!!! Anyone that has ever been in Tuk Tuk though knows you don’t need to be drunk to appreciate the digestive affecting properties of a Tuk Tuk. I would put a Sri Lankan driver against any driver from any country when it comes to sheer balls and vehicular dexterity. A few people have brought me into a game called “sri lankan move of the day”
Basically it’s finding the one road move that is so outrageous that it’s the one to beat for the day. I have had the honor of being in the winning vehicle twice in a row. Good times to be had screaming white knuckled in a Three wheeler (tuk tuk) while you dodge a bike, motorcycle, bus and a monk…. occasionally it’s a cow but mostly its other cars coming at you in your lane while they pass another vehicle and honk at you to get out of their way.
As I said, Good times.

Wow, this is a long one.
I am likely to be out of email and blog use for the majority of the time I am in the field with the IOM.
Until I get back.
David

a bit of reference

for the record all of this is my opinion and my understanding of whats going on here. which really means, I am nearly out of line by even talking about it because I don't know a damn thing.

The clean up is so far behind for numerous reasons. not the least of which is that there is and has been a long standing issue with refuse and waste disposal here in Sri Lanka. there is no place to put it,not much in the way of land or means has been focused on the issue. So there is no where to put the trash and debris. (haha power just went out here in the cafe....back on!) Second and a huge concern for everyone is the government directive to not allow any rebulding within 100 meters of the shore. in case this ever happens again. now the problem there is not evey home was wiped away, some were heavily damaged, some in other areas where not touched, so the idea is to some that if your house is up and gone then you have NOTHING to fix so your out of your home and the claim on the land. IF you have a home that can be "fixed" then you may have a claim to rebuild on that site. the railway and roads are within 100 meters and they are being fixed why cant my home? get it?
People cant just move inland 100 meters, its not really feasible. there are houses already there, they have lived there all their lives and this has never happened before etc etc. Also if the government or an NGO builds them another house somewhere, what happens to the guy whose house was badly damged but has been living in it anyway does he get a new home too? where? you can see how this gives rise to problems in other areas too like boats, trucks etc. mine is gone i need a new one, mine was damaged but kinda works why dont i get a new one?
when i asked about where the US Military were in all this? ( I can spot em off duty a mile away! high and tights and helmet tans and navy mustaches, creepy squids)I see them around but the i didnt know where they are or what they were doing. So, they are here down south, they are doing what they can, when they are allowed to. I was told by one person that no NGO would ever want to associate with any military (bad idea, now you are taking sides) so they cant accept the help of them, the government doesnt want to look inept and needing help to help its own people so they dont really want to make cull use of them, and any one every associated or having been in the military will understand the paperwork BS involved with this is back breaking. so as i understand it you have a whole lot of people with a whole lot of money and supplies and equipment , standing around at times waiting for permission to work. now there are also private aid groups that have to appease no one. they are kicking in doors and getting it done. they are well financed but not as well as the NGO's but dont have to answer to anyone, so they come in rebuild a village and leave. they are not there for the longterm. the long term planning is where you need help and permission and the paper work bogs you down. Oxfam and Save the Children are i believe looking at 3-5 year programs, these private groups work for a few months and split.
There are merits to each approach as I have been explained. But rebuilding a few homes and buying a few boats doesnt help deal with long term psychological health of the people.
some groups like P.E.A.C.E are neither, they are here for the duration, they have been here for years and will stay forever, they are not however geared towards doing this kind of work. but they are.

I dont want to give the idea that there is enough money and that the problem is nearly solved its not, by a long shot, nor will it ever be solved in a manner of speaking. I just wanted to put it in perspective if possible.

Colombo was all in all untouched by this, so where i am is a major city, I did have to walk around a bull on the street to get to the internet cafe though and yes the power went out a few minutes ago but its a major city. its pretty much the rest of the island that was hit and in different strengths. some areas are just gone. as in no longer there at all. others look like a tornado ripped through it (where i was just South of Colombo) I hope to be traveling South to Matara and east to Batticoloa and Trincomolee next week but I am not sure yet, if all else fails i will go on my own maybe.

side note, if people still want to email me they can, they dont have to drop feedback here if they dont want to.

Take care folks.
D

Egoda Ayuna and Moratuwa

Someone pointed me towards a place that has high speed internet connections so i can actually send my images and use my own laptop.

yesterday I went about 20 Km south of Colombo to an area called Moratuwa to see what the group P.E.A.C.E. has been doing there. Look up P.E.A.C.E. online google it.
This area was a fishing villiage mainly. I am not going to waste my time trying to describe what i saw other people are better at that. What i can say is that the water was moving with enough force to bowl over concrete phone and power poles, bend rail lines and wipe strips off houses away. Most of the houses were reduced to their foundations. The debris was everywhere still, clothes, wood, bricks, glass, hunks of random things too. Its been over a month now and there is no one to clean the area up. the people want to rebuild but the government wont allow them to build anything within 100 meters of the shore in case this happens again. The worst affected were often the poorest too. they may have only had a small lean to like shack but its gone. many people in these areas lost any means to make a living too. fisherman without boats, vendors with out bicycles to pedal there vegetables etc from area to area, carpenters with out tools. P.E.A.C.E is working with as many people as it can handle to provide them with items to help them work again. new bikes, new tools etc. they are not really organized for this sort of thing but its what they are doing. they are adapting as best they can. Really these people are working their butts off.
I shot for several hours then headed back to Colombo, edited and tried working on captions.
Today I am making calls and transmiting the images. this weekend i am trying to head further south and see the areas that were really hit hard. OH yah, Moratuwa was not hit very hard by comparison. the further South and East the worse the damage.
more later.

Hong Kong (1/30/05)

I have tried to send you all an email three damn times
today. for a city as technology driven as hong kong
you would think the damn airport would be wireless or
at least have decent internet service available for
pay but no. i finally found an old ass imac with an
english keyboard.

so far so good, no jail time or embarassing moments at
customs. one or two while getting a haircut in Kowloon
but thats something to be expected.
I hope to send a better email in a week or so.
AOL is acting odd i cant seem to read the messages
that are there so try to email me here only for now.
take care everyone,
David

Sri Lanka

Ok so this has been a pain in the ass to get logged in.
i cant seem to use my own laptop here but at least i am up and running.
I am actually in a super market in Colombo using a much better PC than i had at Hong Kong Airport.

last night while i laid prone for the first time since thursday night a storm broke out, it was great, my room is very open. so it was liek sleeping outside (only dry) during a huge rain storm.
slept like a stone.
anyway
I met with one of the groups this afternoon.
P.E.A.C.E they are connected with ECPAT (look it up then look up programs in other countries...Sri Lanka etc.
these people are amazing! the amount of stress they are under is beyond my understanding. I they pretty much are settign me up to shoot tomorrow in an area called Egoda Uyana.
I will know whats going on then. so far my biggest problem has been with understanding people. sometimes it seems as though my brain is running about 30 seconds slower than it should be. i am hoping that this changes, and soon.

OK, i should split.

tell me what you think of the blog too.
Matt Schmidt is the BMF who made it happen.
you can still email me at Yahoo too.
D