The Third Wave_ A Volunteer Story - Alison Thompson [54]
As our van pulled out of the village, I could see the thousands of new baby coconut trees that Bruce had planted. A lot had changed since those first days in Peraliya, when we had pulled into a scene of utter despair and destruction, wondering if there was anything we could do to help. New businesses were sprouting up everywhere. A great deal of rubble had been cleared. The villagers were no longer living in tents. The school had reopened. Our small first aid van had grown into a field hospital that in six months had treated a documented 75,000 patients. Medical people had come from all over the world to work there, and a new permanent hospital, led by our wonderful Dr. Stein, was under construction.
With my beloved Tsunami-dog and her boyfriend
But our efforts never would have succeeded without the help of the volunteers who joined our efforts, everyday people who felt that they could make a difference and took the time to come here. No politics, no bureaucracy—they just showed up and got to work. That first night in Peraliya, I had prayed for every spare angel in the world to come to help us, and without a doubt my prayers had been answered.
Just then, I looked out the window and noticed my Tsunami-dog running after the van, panting and out of breath. I yelled for the driver to stop the van and jumped out to give her one last cuddle. Leaving her behind was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.
CHAPTER 10
I had missed New York during my six-month stay in Sri Lanka. All I wanted when I got back was a chewy poppy seed bagel and The New York Times. But then I saw the newspapers at the airport newsstand: Most of them had headlines about Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston’s breakup and no news at all about the tsunami recovery efforts. I had assumed that the papers would still be reporting on the effects of the disaster. Then Oscar and I arrived home, worn out from our thirty-two-hour journey, to discover an eviction notice on our apartment door. It stated that we needed to move out in six days. We had just helped rebuild more than 500 homes and had lost our own.
For the past five years on my way to the gym, I had passed by a gentle man named Ricky who lived on the street. I would often buy him food and fruit drinks. Sometimes I would sit in the gutter and chat with him, and we would watch the tall world pass by. After returning from Sri Lanka, I saw Ricky sitting in his usual spot in the gutter. He had a cup in front of him where passersby could put their money. I reached into my pocket to grab some quarters to give him, but found that I had nothing in my pocket. I realized right then and there, as I looked into Ricky’s cup, that he actually had more money than I did. We both had a good laugh about it.
My mum sent me a few hundred dollars to live on, and Oscar and I used it sparingly for subway rides and bananas. We were too proud to ask wealthier friends to help us, as over the past months we had used up all our favors by asking for donations for Peraliya. Fortunately, my banker friend Phil offered to cover the rent and utilities for a time as a gesture of thanks for our tsunami relief work.
The whole beauty of the mission was that it had been spontaneous. In Sri Lanka, we had lived day by day and concentrated fully on the tasks of caring for the people there and rebuilding, not worrying about our troubles back home. Letting go of that fear was liberating; we knew we would only burn unnecessary energy thinking of such things. Having no money to my name was in a strange way freeing. I knew that I could always make more. I still had an unmoving faith that everything would sort itself out.
Hot water felt like such a treat to us now. Oscar kept turning the taps on and off, marveling at the water flow. But New York’s opulence also made me uncomfortable. It seemed unfair that so many people were suffering when most New Yorkers were so privileged. However, my opinion on that topic flipped 180 degrees when I learned how much money the American people had donated to the tsunami cause, even if a lot of the