The Third Wave_ A Volunteer Story - Alison Thompson [56]
When we arrived in Peraliya after a thirty-hour plane ride, exhausted but eager to see our friends again, we found excited villagers running out to greet us. Women who previously had been unkind to me dropped down on their knees and asked for my forgiveness. We saw no signs of the viciousness we’d heard reported. The villagers said that they were happy we had come back to help them.
But then we got our first indication that something was wrong. Although it was spectacular to see the children, some of them remained at a distance. Oscar felt confused and hurt when he waved at his favorite kids and they just looked away. Soon after, Oscar learned that some parents had spread lies about him to their children and told them not to speak to him. He was furious. Oscar didn’t care about the adults’ pettiness, but finding out that the children, whom he loved dearly, had turned against him sent him over the edge. He flew into a rage and dragged the local police around to the villagers’ homes to clear up the stories. Of course, each person blamed the rumors on someone else’s brother’s cousin’s nephew, who just happened to be absent.
To leave as helpers and to return as thieves was insulting and heartbreaking. I suppose that gossip and lies are an everyday way of life for many people, but I never got used to their behavior. We tried to stay focused on the bigger picture.
The news about Tsunami-dog was also disturbing. Ever since I had cleaned her up, every male dog in the village wanted a piece of her. She had gotten pregnant shortly before I left, and the puppies had been born while I was away. So as soon as I got back from New York, I raced over to the caretakers’ house to find her and her babies. At first I thought she didn’t recognize me, because she didn’t move when I entered the room and called her name. But then she gave me a few sniffs and our love was rekindled. I was furious to see that she was exhausted and undernourished. It looked like the family hadn’t been feeding her. In the corner sat her eight puppies, crammed into a small, cruel cage. At least the puppies resembled the junkyard dog that had followed her everywhere. It put me at ease knowing that her boyfriend would help defend her and her babies in the coming months.
Once Oscar and I had settled in, we saw that many of the NGOs had left, and the aid trucks had stopped coming. Monsoon rains had started, so tourism was nonexistent and the economy was suffering. It was a ghost town. Oscar and I were now the only volunteers left in Peraliya, with very few people working in town and other villages along the coast. An insecure feeling lingered in the air. The neediness in the village had escalated and sad letters asking for money jumped into my hands daily. Some people had begun begging near the train station. In addition, the dangers of the area were becoming more visible, as local tribes had gone back to fighting one another.
On the other hand, there were some bright points of light. Dr. Stein had started breaking ground on the new medical center, and I was thrilled with the thought of the villagers receiving free healthcare. Sebastian, one of our early volunteers, was still working as a doctor down the coast doing great work. In his spare time, he started to operate on the sick and dying animals all around him. And CTEC, where I planned to focus my attention now that I was back, was coming along very well.
Upon my arrival at the tsunami center, the CTEC officers lined up in full uniform against the wall, saluting me as I walked past. I noticed that the walls were now filled with world maps, and books about earthquakes lay on the tabletops. Dr. Novil, my co-founder, told me that he had been busy teaching the new tsunami officers about disaster preparedness and had also been learning about it himself. They practiced evacuation drills daily. They had erected signs along the roads marking safe exit routes leading to higher ground, and warning people about dead-end streets. The CTEC officers made these road signs by