The Third Wave_ A Volunteer Story - Alison Thompson [65]
The chief came by and suggested that I help a woman he knew who needed assistance. When I told him that I had already helped her, he didn’t believe me and dragged her over for a confrontation. When he asked her to tell him the truth about whether or not she had received help from us, she lied and denied it. I stood there feeling as though I had been stung by bees. I distinctly remembered the goods and services I had given her, including treating her wounds when she was close to death from infection. I asked her to look me in the eyes as she repeated her answer. When she again denied the help, I felt my heart physically crack. However, I remained quiet, knowing that if I proved her to be a liar, she would lose face in front of the village chief and be run out of Peraliya. I couldn’t wish that fate on anyone.
I pulled myself together and got to work. But later that same day, when we were working in the schoolyard, a village lady came by screaming and pointing her fingers at Sunil and Chamilla. I knew her to be a tribal ringleader. She breathed fire at our interpreters, accusing them of being the cause of all the villagers’ troubles by not accurately translating what they were saying to us. Kumara, a regular troublemaker, stormed over in mid-argument. He yelled at Chamilla and the ringleader, telling them they should both be beaten for the things they were saying. He accused them of accepting money from the foreigners and then denying it behind their backs. The village chief joined the fray with his Communist theories. It sounded like an orchestra of seagulls.
I sat in a nearby chair, slumped over in front of all the arguing people, and wept openly. I felt that I’d had enough and wanted to go home. I wanted my bubble bath and sushi at Nobu. At the same time, I also knew that if we left now, no one would help the villagers, and I couldn’t bear that thought, no matter how tough things had been lately.
But the snake reared its head once more. My favorite pet, Tsunami-dog, was always at my side, and I knew that some of the villagers were jealous of the attention I gave her. A few angry drunken men made our lives hell by throwing stones at her and kicking her when she was alone. Then one day she went missing, and I walked the entire village asking if anyone had seen her. A kind villager led me to her, lying on his family bed. She whimpered like a baby and I held her in my arms as if she were my child. The villager told me that a drunken man had broken all her legs just for the fun of it. I was speechless. It was as if my own legs had been broken. I lay hugging my Tsunami-dog, my heart shredded into a trillion pieces. It was a good thing for the man who had hurt her that I couldn’t find him, because I wanted to tie him to a tree and have a thousand dogs pee on him.
I lost my innocent faith in humankind that day when I saw just how cruel, jealous, and evil people could be to one another. I was inconsolable. I missed Donny and Bruce and I missed my mum, who would usually give me a hug and tell me everything was going to be fine. But I was a big girl now and I had to look after myself.
Sunil had been taking small jobs in film with NGOs to pay for his room and board. But these days, he dedicated most of his time to helping Nuwan, the little boy who had been disabled when he fell into the pit of burning oil, learn to walk again. Since Nuwan’s father was blind and his mother was mentally challenged, Sunil realized that if he didn’t teach Nuwan to walk again, no one would.
Helping meant that Sunil had to bicycle to Nuwan’s village three times a day, four miles round-trip each time, to make sure the boy got food and stretched his legs. To make matters worse, Sunil had acquired many enemies—villagers who thought he was making millions of dollars from his filming, when in reality he earned very little.