Sri Lanka Journal- Andew and Annette Dey- 1/28/2005
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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
Annette visits camps with Big Alex, and I attend a meeting at the office of the Government Agent (GA). The political administration of Sri Lanka is by district, and each district has a GA. The Galle District GA has overall responsibility for the activities of relief agencies in his district. He has called a meeting of all the NGOs working on shelter in his district, in order to try to coordinate the supply with the demand.
The moderator of the meeting, a World Bank employee currently working for the UN, tells us that the GA is tied up, but that we will start the meeting without him. USAID is represented (“we don’t build houses, we give money to NGOs that are building houses”), as are The Salvation Army, Danish People’s Aid, Community Housing Finance, Caritas, and World Vision. They all have plans to build hundreds of transitional homes—structures that are more substantial than tents, but that do not have masonry walls. It’s apparently easier to get permission to build transitional structures than permanent homes. The new regulations regarding coastal setbacks are still muddy.
At one point we hear an unusually powerful volley of car horns from the street below. People are shouting outside, and some of the locals in the conference room rush to the windows. “Tsunami!” The people outside sound panicked, but the scare quickly subsides. False rumors of a swell in Matara seemed to have spread up the coast like a wave. When the news reached the village in which Annette and Alex were working, they were stranded in traffic as drivers abandoned their vehicles and ran inland.
The GA eventually arrives. He seems to have been getting heat from his constituents on the housing issue. He asks each of the attendees in turn, “How many homes will you build, where will you build them, and when can you build them by?”
An hour into the meeting, tea arrives for all twenty-five attendees. The tea is served in china cups, on saucers, with spoons. As we sip our tea, one attendee notes that certain areas seem to be getting a disproportionate amount of shelter attention. The GA wants meetings like this one to help address that issue. Another participant comments on the difficulty of building housing when the sites are not yet cleared of rubble. The GA laments the departure of the American and Austrian military forces that have been clearing debris: “This work will be difficult for our government to continue.” The issue of obtaining certification of the one-hundred meter coastal setback generates strong opinions.
The GA ends the meeting with a proclamation that has the ring of wishful thinking: “Next week will be a happy time for our people, because they will begin to see the construction of new housing!”