• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 454 0

Sunil had a piece of jawbone that he had picked up from that same area that day, to which he felt a strong connection. He spontaneously brought it home to his guesthouse, much to the disgust of his English girlfriend. (We weren’t in the habit of collecting bones for keepsakes, but every once in a while my body bags would be full, so I would slip a finger or toe bone into my pocket only to forget it was there. I’d find it weeks later when looking for a pen.) Sunil and I both had strong separate instincts about that jawbone. Our feelings certainly may have arisen more from our desire to help the woman recover than from any scientific evidence, but deep inside we honestly believed the bone belonged to the missing daughter. So I suggested that we present Sunil’s piece of jawbone to the grieving lady as a representation of her daughter to help her with the healing process.

The next time we saw the woman, we gave her the bone. We told her that she was to bury it in her backyard and create a shrine around it where she could pray each day to feel closer to her daughter. We said we hoped it would stop her agony from wandering the coast every day looking at dead bodies. We explained that there was a 99.9 percent chance that it wasn’t her daughter’s actual bone, but there was also a chance that it was and, regardless, she should treat it as a symbol. The woman followed our instructions. She buried the bone, and from that day on she had a place to grieve. Sunil and I were very pleased that our idea had worked.

Chamilla was the first person I met in Peraliya, and the only native of the village who spoke English. She worked hard as our translator and was extremely kind to everyone. She had three brothers, two of whom had lost their wives and children to the tsunami, as well as a baby of her own named Wassani. Chamilla, her baby, and I often would go for walks along the beach holding hands while Chamilla and I discussed life.

Chamilla played a critical role in the rebuilding of Peraliya, a job her fellow villagers never thanked her for. She served as our only translator for a long period of time, and we dragged her all over the place to hundreds of meetings. She became like a sister to me, which upset some of the village women, who turned on her in jealous rages. Their vengefulness grew so destructive that at one point I had to rent Chamilla a small place in Hikkaduwa, where the volunteers were staying, so that she could escape the persecution at night, but it only made the villagers’ jealousy of her worse. I felt terrible about the difficult role we placed Chamilla in by asking her to be our translator. But I also gave her many gifts of friendship and financial support—everything I had to give.

While working in the hospital one day, a loud voice came bellowing through the window. “Why isn’t anyone working?” the voice boomed. “Get off your butts and get back to it.” It was Donny! He had returned, and we couldn’t have been happier. He had gone home to rest and see his family for three weeks, but he knew the job wasn’t finished, so he had come back.

Donny walked around the village hugging the monks and calling out “machan” to his friends, while small children pulled at his walking stick. The villagers rejoiced as much as we did. Donny remarked that when he was walking around his hometown, no one had cared about him, but when he came here, everyone cared. It was time for a celebration. The beers and king coconuts were on us that night.

Shortly thereafter, a Sri Lankan holiday shut down the village, so we decided to take the weekend off. Donny and Bruce came over for breakfast and we watched surfers shoot ten-foot curls. We played Frisbee and swam in the ocean. But no matter what, our conversations always turned to solving the village problems.

Our days were long and the responsibility of caring for more than 3,000 people grew heavy on our shoulders. Oscar was becoming more and more agitated by the lack of aid, and he expressed himself through his short temper. We had a visit from a gentle Australian doctor who volunteered to be his