The Third Wave_ A Volunteer Story - Alison Thompson [40]
Inside the small kitchen located at one end of the hospital, a few volunteers were busy preparing a Thai salad with fish sauce. It smelled like dead bodies to me, so I took a whiff from my Chanel No. 5 bottle and walked outside to breathe fresh air. But I did not find any peace out there, either. Instantly, I was swarmed by children begging for the imitation treats they called ice cream—the ice-cream man had just arrived. All throughout this stampede, my beloved Tsunami-dog excitedly humped my leg.
Ten days later, Donny returned from the hospital a different man. He had decided that he needed a longer rest and that it would be his last day in the village before returning home to Australia. He hobbled around Peraliya sharing good-byes as villagers broke down in tears at the news that he was leaving.
One thing Donny had wanted to finish before he left was a shed for an old drunken man we called Grandpa. His family had thrown him out years ago, and we would find him lying on the ground with large red ants crawling inside his ears. Donny wanted to make sure the old man had a roof over his head. Donny had contacted the family and argued with them that although their father was a drunk, he was still a human being and needed to be cared for, but his pleas had fallen on deaf ears. He made Chamilla and me promise that we would take care of him. That wouldn’t be hard for me because Grandpa was one of my favorite villagers. He had been my first patient in the hospital back in the early days. He would close his hands and bow in prayer whenever he saw me, and I would pretend he was a great king coming to visit me. I would put him in my hospital chair and clean out his infected eyes while he ate milk and cookies.
Donny was close to many of the families, and they begged him not to leave. They told him that we were the only gods they had seen after the tsunami. When Donny heard that, he broke down into little boy tears and explained to them that he was not a god or a superman but just a regular human being. He told them how much he missed his wife and children. He said he felt guilty that the work was only a tenth of the way finished, but he needed to go home. They told him that if it hadn’t been for his work, they wouldn’t have had so much as a drink of water.
Later that night on the beach we held a farewell party. Volunteers from all over the coast came by to honor the legend of Donny. He was part of what had come to be known as “the Third Wave”—the original volunteers who had arrived to help soon after the two tsunami waves had hit, destroying buildings and killing over a quarter of a million people.
People toasted and shared thoughts, and a technobeat blasted away as the village chief and I danced our butts off. Later, Oscar, Bruce, Donny, and I walked along the water’s edge to say final good-byes. The moon was smiling and a hopeful breeze warmed our hearts. We laughed and wept and spoke of memories that now shaped our souls. We hugged in a tight circle as a billion stars winked to us and the moment spun into history. We had been a good team. Donny would find his way back to us, of that we were sure.
The next morning, in a quiet moment, I said a private good-bye to the loud man who had improved my hearing and thanked him for playing with us in the sandpit. As the van pulled away, village children followed yelling, “Donny!! Donny!!”
“Good-bye, machan,” I whispered, using Donny’s own favorite phrase, as I walked back inside the hospital.
CHAPTER 8
We had been experiencing problems of all kinds, including thievery, jealously, violence, and alcoholism. But the worst crime of all was the steadily decreasing international attention to the tsunami victims as time passed and, as a consquence, the slowing down of aid money. The day after a visiting U.N. delegation had visited, hopeful that our funds and resources