Sri Lanka Journal- Andew and Annette Dey- 1/26/2005
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Links from Andrew and Annette:
Pro Photographer Dixie's web site
Mondo Challenge set up Andrew and Annette's trip.
Unawatuna is the village where they're staying and working
In the north, Andrew and Annette are working with Norwegian People's Aid. NPAID is partnered with the German organization called Arbeiter Samariter Bund.
Bensonwood.com
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Andrew
The train ride to Colombo is wonderful. The aged carriages rattle steadily through the lush jungle. All of the windows in the train are open, and occasionally we catch a whiff of the flowers flowing by. Teenage boys dangle their legs from the platforms at the ends of the cars—because they can, I think. They whistle and hoot when we go through tunnels. Food vendors hawk their wares with one-word chants: “cola cola cola,” “roti roti roti.” I hear a bamboo flute interspersed with singing—it’s an old man who is blind or nearly so, performing for change.
“I can’t believe we paid 3500 Rupees for the taxi from Colombo to Kandy, when we could have taken this train!” smiles Annette. But that was our first day here…
In Colombo we manage to obtain visa extensions with only the expected number of hassles and delays. We check on preschool play equipment at Wonderworld before catching a local bus—the only one that would stop for us—to Galle.
We travel by tuc-tuc from Galle to Unawatuna. As we approach the turnoff to the Beach Road, we notice numerous small flickering flames by the side of the road. The Beach Road itself is alive with these lights—small clay oil lamps. They line both sides of the road, and sit on fences, on windowsills, in yards, and on front stoops. Girls bend over the small lamps to refill them with coconut oil. I find that I am moved more deeply by these lights than I have been by all of the devastation that I have seen. I keep seeing in the flickering lights the lives that were lost. Today is the 26th, one month after the tsunami.
We walk to the beach, and find that the entire crescent is glittering with lamps, as though the beach were wearing a delicate necklace of protective fire. We learn later that a local hotel owner distributed 40,000 lamps. The head monk of the village temple arrives with several younger monks. They chant blessings, and the head monk then reads the names of each villager who died. The monks will chant all night long. We wake up occasionally and hear their soulful droning.