The Third Wave_ A Volunteer Story - Alison Thompson [21]
We stopped at village upon village, and we were surrounded by people with medical needs. A small cut that got infected could lead to amputation and deformity later. There was nowhere for these people to go for treatment; we were their only hope. I was grateful for my nurse’s training.
We came to yet another destroyed village called Kosgoda, where people sat around in hopelessness. We cooked rice and handed out water and gave hugs. Donny saved a little turtle that had been trapped in a well and rounded up the village kids to release it back into the sea as a symbol of good luck. On the beach we came across a decaying headless body, which had just washed up out of the ocean. Everybody, including the children, stared in shock. It looked like a boy around ten years old. The corpse had a strange rope tied around its belly, and its feet and hands had been chewed off. And it had an erection. We moved the crowd farther down the beach and released the turtle into the water. It just floated there as if it were dead, so Donny gave it a few hefty pushes and at last it swam out into the ocean. Everybody cheered and the children huddled around us.
Back in the village, a toothless ice-cream man arrived on a rusty bike. He had cycled from somewhere inland. Oscar bought the entire village ice cream, and for a few minutes the world tasted better.
An elderly man from the village walked over to us and introduced himself in English. He told us that long ago, he had traveled to the United States on a ship. He then showed us an old American one-dollar bill covered in plastic, which he kept in his pocket, and offered it to us to help. He had kind eyes but was ashamed about having no teeth, so he covered his mouth with his hand as he spoke. He talked about the tsunami troubles and then introduced us to the village leaders, acting as translator. They told us that it didn’t matter if we had nothing to give them; the fact that we had come from the other side of the world from very important countries was enough to give them hope. Then they got on their knees, bowed before us, and started kissing our feet. Later, we found out this was a Sri Lankan custom, but I never did get used to it.
As it started growing dark out, we stopped in a larger town to buy ropes and plastic so that we could rig up a temporary shelter for people to sleep under. In the shop, we met two guys named Luke and Steve, who were pilots from Emirates Airlines. They had been coming to Sri Lanka to surf for years, and when they had heard about the tsunami, they had grabbed their first aid kits and flown over to help. Luke had left his wife and two-month-old baby girl in London. We bonded instantly. They told us about a village they had just found with an overturned train, and mentioned that there was also a town nearby where we could sleep. We all decided to head there right away.
The town of Hikkaduwa had been destroyed, but since there was a large reef in front of it to protect it, it wasn’t hit as badly as other areas had been. The worst affected villages were the ones where the locals had removed the coral reefs. In those reefless areas, the water surged through and destroyed everything. In Hikkaduwa, on the other hand, many structures were still standing, although the shops and hotels had filled with water and the goods had washed away. Most buildings were boarded up. We found the only guesthouse still open. It was called The Moonbeam and it cost four dollars a night. I felt great about the accommodations, as I had thought we would be spending the night in tents. The news reports had shown only destruction.
There was nowhere to eat, so we opened up our cans of baked beans and pears. We cooked them by flashlight on Bruce’s little stove on the pathway outside the guesthouse. It had been a long day. I