Home » United States » January 9 - New York - Laura

The following is my account of what happened to me during the tsunami. I am still coming to grips with the whole disaster and trying to decide what to do with the next eight months of my life. Kate and I wanted to travel around the U.S. and raise money for the disaster victims in Unawatuna but have come to the realization that we just cannot afford it. We have enough money for India for seven months ($15 dollars a day) which just does not cut it in the good old US of A. Also, my travel health insurance will not cover me here, and, therefore, ironically, I have to leave the country. Will stay until mid-February, do school presentations, hold a fund raiser and then hit the road. Where? That is still to be determined. The following story will appear in the New York Times (shortened and edited) on January 16th in the Travel section. The money I was paid will all be donated to the Friends of Unawatuna fund that other survivors have set up in England. They started a small website: www.friendsofunawatuna.org.uk if you want to check it out.

January 9 - New York - Laura

Lasulo
2006-01-06 18:27:09

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and hospitality of the Sri Lankans. Every family in the village took in tourists for the three days we had to wait before we were evacuated. They shared their meager belongings, their limited food and their precious water. They, who had nothing and had lost much, gave everything.

Forty of us slept on mats outside the home of a family who came around at regular intervals with sugary tea, bananas and coconuts. They cooked us dinner for two nights. They let us drink water out of their well. They slept beside us to protect us from possible looters. Only one person spoke English, a man named Siri, who had owned a bar and restaurant on the beach. He had lost his business, his home and a nephew, yet he never stopped looking out for us. Never have a seen a more positive example of the human spirit then when I, who had lost nothing and was in shock, accepted a glass of tea from Siri's smiling eleven-year-old niece, whose family had lost everything. Kindness radiates.
We gave all our extra money, water purification tablets, clothing, antibiotics, malarial medication and shoes to Siri and his family, and also to Damika when we saw him on the day of our evacuation. By then, Damika had already buried three members of his family. He now stood in the only clothes he had, waiting with us for an hour until our bus arrived to take us away, to safety. Destitute and grief-stricken, Damika was nevertheless concerned about us.

These are the people we need to help. We need to help a brave and generous people who live in a country that most Americans cannot find on a map. We need to remember the survivors now, even though the Superbowl will be more important news than the world’s worst natural disaster.

We cannot forget them and we cannot abandon them.

I want to help the people who helped me, so that the village of Unawatuna can once again thrive as a beautiful paradise where the ocean’s vastness is surpassed only by the compassion and generosity of every Sri Lankan who lives there.