Sri Lanka Journal- Andew and Annette Dey 2/3/2005

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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

Andrew

The camp sites are about thirty kilometres north of Kilinochchi, where the NPA is based. We travel north on the A-9 with Tony. The jungles to the south have given way to a drier landscape characterized by scrubby trees, grasslands, and palms. We see dozens of fantastically-shaped and plumed birds, and I wonder how different my mind-set would be if I had come here to bird-watch instead of to build shelters.

Just south of Elephant Pass, the narrow neck of land that was the site of many bloody battles during the civil war, we see a camouflaged, armored bulldozer by the side of the road.

“There are lots of Tigers who have martyred themselves in battle or in suicide missions,”says Tony, “but that bulldozer represents the only known case of a martyr from the Sri Lankan Army. It’s a Tiger bulldozer that was packed with explosives and headed for the Sri Lankan Army [SLA] lines. When the SLA’s firepower failed to stop the dozer, a soldier grabbed an anti-tank mine, sprinted for the bulldozer, and detonated it.”

The camp sites are about a kilometer inland from the ocean. At one we will be building 95 shelters, at another 55, and at a third 110. The families who will move into the shelters are living at temporary holding areas near the camps. Many of them have built simple structures using poles, palmyra leaves, and tarps. Some are living in tents provided by UNHCR. About 75% of the tsunami victims in this area relied on fishing for their livelihood. We pass several groups of people repairing fishing nets. A newly-repaired fishing boat passes by on a cart pulled by two oxen.

We pull up in front of a yard enclosed by a palmyra-frond fence. We see building materials and two small houses inside the fence. Tony explains that we are paying the family to allow us to store materials in their yard. The family lost eight members in the tsunami. Several of the bodies were never found. A shy boy of about seven—he lost his mother, a sister, and a brother—brings us tea. We chat with Tony and with Roy, the site supervisor, about the building sites across the road.

The camp sites themselves are fairly wide open. In this regard, the government in the north has a tremendous advantage over that in the south, where space is at a premium. The PDS has bulldozed the underbrush, leaving sandy, uneven soil. Roy is currently supervising the construction of the toilet complexes—five toilets for every ten homes—in the three camps. The local government has declared that it will build twenty-five shelters in each of the camps, and construction of these—the metal-frame version—is already underway in one of our camps. Our inspection of the metal frames—no diagonal bracing; poor quality pipe and welds—re-affirms our decision to build timber frames.

We have prepared draft sketches of our proposed frames, and are able to discuss the construction details with several carpentry crews. As far as we can gather, the kaya poles come in a continuum of sizes that are divided into three categories: small (2”-3”diameter), medium (3”-4”), and large (4”-6”). Annette tells the carpenters that she would like to up-size the ridge from the small poles that are typically used, to the medium-size poles. She also explains that she would like to see eleven rafters per side, not the nine that are being used on some frames. The carpenters engage in spirited discussion about other details—the height of the king posts, the attachment of the cadjan to the rafters, etc. We leave with the sense that we have a good basis for finalizing the sketches, the specifications, and the timber list.