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
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
posted by davidlang at 1:07 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home