Peraliya had changed in the three weeks or so I’d been absent in the Colombo hospital and back in Australia. And not for the better. The evil element had grown bigger. A dangerous level of anarchy had taken over the place. As Oscar had told me in Colombo, some people realised they still had nothing, and they resented that. Those villagers turned on the people who had helped them the most and given them what they did have: the volunteers. Bit by bit I learned of a place gone feral in just a few short weeks, a place that had turned to widespread tension, confrontation and violence. Even my trusted right-hand man Kumara had been swept up by the festering ill-content and turned on the helpers from outside. Peraliya and surrounding villages had gone crazy to the extent that Alison, Oscar, Bruce and their valued colleagues who had joined us felt like packing up and walking away.
I don’t know how many times I’d said, ‘Desperate people will do desperate things.’ Sadly, it had become a fulfilled prophecy – and I hadn’t been there to try to stem the infection of discontent.
It broke my heart to find that Kumara and Dr Stein, who was one of the most placid people I came across during our Sri Lankan mission, were at each other’s throats, screaming in front of a hostile crowd as if someone had lit a fuse, and the sleepy, friendly village of Peraliya had erupted into a hotbed of uncontrollable emotion. Suspicion and deceit among certain villagers were rife, and a murder and several stabbings had occurred at the height of the nightmare. I didn’t see the ugly confrontations for myself until I watched them, captured vividly, in The Third Wave, and I believe that footage showed only the tip of the iceberg. In one way I was glad I missed the drama; in another, I wished I had been there because I felt I might have done a lot towards restoring calm as a trusted middle-man.
To see Kumara shouting his grievances, including disputing whether the medical centre should continue to exist in the library, and Dr Stein yelling: ‘Go – just go,’ as he angrily waved his arms, showed me two things: one, that the evil element had infiltrated to such a degree that even Kumara got swept up in it (no doubt he was being used by the belligerent bad element to air their grievances to the volunteers); and, secondly, that the desperate plight of Kumara and loss of his family, and the anger and anxiety he had inside, just boiled over. We had done everything we could for all the people of Peraliya, but it wasn’t enough, and people just got desperate. The realisation hit home that they had nothing, and some were jealous of those who did have something provided by us, as little as that might have been.
We didn’t know who had what before we arrived, or what status or hierarchy existed between different families. We just tried to help whoever we could and as many as we could, with no discrimination between colour, race, religion, wealth or anything else. We had no manual, no guidelines to follow, but if it wasn’t for us maybe nothing at all would have been done for these people. Administering aid to such a large number of people was hard, so we took every case on its merit. Even with the temporary shelters, it was too difficult for me to decide what order to allocate them in, so in the end I handballed it to the chief and said, ‘You decide who is really in need,’ and he would consult the village elders and come back with a list. I think we finally did them alphabetically.
Three and a half months after the tsunami most of the people were still unable to resume the fishing industry that had sustained them for so long, there were few houses, they were short on food, and still didn’t have a fully functional school to send their children to. They felt desperate. There were two reported suicide attempts during the couple of weeks I was away, including a teenage boy who threw himself in front of a train. Somehow he survived and was very fortunate he had such good medical help on tap in the village, with Dr Stein taking particularly good care of him, I was told. The boy’s father was wheelchair-bound and the boy and his brother had kept his head above the water as it rose after the tsunami. But his father was in and out of hospital with terrible bedsores and infections and didn’t lead much of a life. Unfortunately he died a few months after we’d finally left; I think the local medical system let him down without the volunteers and our medical staff around.
A particular group of women always tried to cause trouble. I’m not sure if it was sparked by past grievances or whether they were just envious and resentful that others who they had some beef with appeared to be favoured in the rebuilding process. There was obvious jealousy that some had been seen as receiving help and others not, and there was obviously a village status issue too: some who might have had a nice home and a greater standing within the village social system, were still waiting in line and struggling with nothing while others who may have been beneath them previously at least had shelters.
Those people didn’t trust anyone. They liked to create all these conspiracies and make up ill-founded stories of others getting grand handouts of money or goods, which were vicious and untrue. And they would lie for their own benefit. As Alison said on her website, it became a bit like the book and movie The Lord of the Flies, in which a bunch of schoolboys stranded on an island turn on themselves in the most savage way. And many of the villagers genuinely believed we had wads of money to hand around and were angry, and very understandably, that they had seen none of the reported $2.18 billion in aid money that was supposed to be flooding into Sri Lanka. If they trusted anyone from our group, I’d like to think it was me. I’d busted my guts to give them what I promised without fear or favour; if I couldn’t provide what they wanted I’d tell them I couldn’t. I naturally had favourites among the villagers, like Kumara. I wouldn’t provide him and his family with money or resources that I wouldn’t give to others, but I was happy to take him for a meal or to the swimming pool at my hotel in Hikkaduwa just to give him a break from the grind of the work and some little luxury in life.
Alison bore the brunt of the unrest. She received several death threats, some in writing thrown through the window of the library, while drunks would tell her bombs had been planted under the makeshift hospital. She also received verbal threats to her face, basically telling her to ‘be careful’ as the villagers were about to take things into their own hands. And having to treat some nasty knife wounds sustained by locals who were attacked by rival groups or gangs, and knowing that people were quite willing to kill others over a dispute, made her believe the threats were real. A boy was shot one day out the front of his place; someone stuck a 9mm pistol to his head but no one was game to identify who the assailant was.
The Sri Lankan police had set up a station on the edge of the village to ensure they had a strong presence. I’m pretty sure Mr Fernandopulle was responsible for that after he visited and saw the potential for trouble. But even the police had problems coping with the antagonism and growing violence. I’m not sure whether they ever arrested anyone over the murder, but they probably didn’t. I can’t say the policing techniques of the local force were like what we are used to back home, something I learned first-hand. One evening I had seen a guy hanging around Casa Lanka looking suspicious. We knew him; we called him ‘Milko’ because he would ask for money to buy milk for his children. It seemed more than coincidental that we had several items stolen from our rooms that night, including a laptop computer belonging to the English photographer Juliet Coombe. Oscar, Juliet and I reported the thefts to the Hikkaduwa police station and I told them that Milko had been hanging around. Within an hour they had him at the station, while we were still there filling out our reports, and I never want to see or hear what happened next ever again in my life. The police beat the absolute crap out of this guy and forced him to make a confession. I felt absolutely gutted; I’d seen him hanging around and he had to be the main suspect but I didn’t see him steal anything (although I suspect he did). Whether he was guilty or innocent, he wasn’t going to leave there without a confession!
A very different story was that of Buddhika, a very talented artist who we naturally all took to. One day he told Alison he and his sister couldn’t go to school any more because they had to fish to help get money in for his family. Alison thought that would be a tragedy and that he should continue at school and use his talents. So she gave the family some money, donated by a friend from the US on the condition it was used on one particular family. They were one of the poorer families and had lost their boat and home. Alison’s action allowed both the children to stay at school and the family to keep feeding them. It was one of those hard discretionary decisions we had to make.
Another time Alison was accused of providing $500 to an antique dealer from Ambalangoda who had lost his store in the tsunami and had no income. The word got around about her alleged gesture and there was holy hell to pay from the group who were already on the warpath. The chief took her to task because he felt she’d allocated money to someone without his permission and, to make it worse, it was someone from outside the village. He accused Alison of giving money to the ‘thieves and whores’ of the country. Alison gave no cash to the antique dealer. This was typical of the unfounded rumours that would travel around the village. She did provide him with a tent. If we visited someone in their tent or shelter just to say ‘hi’ and check how they were going, a rumour would spread through the village that we had given them hundreds or even thousands of dollars. It was like Big Brother was watching our every move.
Trivial things became big issues, like the fact that we spent $1000 of donated money on brick-making machines and mosquito nets, which were both very important and integral to the work we were doing to rebuild their village and give them some quality of life. Yet when we handed out clothes and mosquito nets, we would almost get our arms clawed off in the desperate rush of hands grabbing whatever we had on offer.
Alison did not deserve the anger and lies that some dealt her. So many people who came to Peraliya were only interested in helping. We showed no favouritism. Maybe we had spoiled too many people in Peraliya: they had come to rely on us, knowing they could rely on us. Alison’s spirit always looked unshakable to me, but it became very fragile during this time. She commented on the website: ‘At night I cry alone in my bed. I am just trying to help them. I have given my heart, my soul and every cent I own to these people. This trip has left me confused about mankind and how cruel and how kind we can be to each other.’
The people of Peraliya were aware that they’d received far more assistance and far quicker rebuilding than any other place in the Galle-to-Colombo strip, but it was like a handout to them and I worked on the principle that we were there to give a hand up rather than a hand out. In the end it was a case of anything that needed fixing, get Donny and he will ‘make it good’ – that was a common term they used, ‘You make it good’ – whether it was a small repair job or repairing wells so they had water. And that was the hardest thing to get through; people might not have any running water yet but they had four walls and a roof while others didn’t have even that. We had to convince people that we were doing the best we could. I must have said a thousand times a day, ‘Be patient … you must be patient,’ but in the end they got so frustrated they ran out of patience. And we didn’t have the money or resources to rebuild their houses like they were before, or bring back the lives they had lost. A lot of their frustration centred on the ‘where’s the money?’ argument. So many people had heard of these billions of dollars that were supposed to have come into the country; in the end they were accusing each other of stealing funds or even us for spending it on ourselves. The fact was, we were spending our own money on them, and we didn’t have much of that!
It was so sad that Kumara and Chinthu, who I had built such a good relationship with, went a bit loose during the period I was away. One of the first things I did on my return was to take Kumara aside and, with the help of an interpreter, explain to him that he had to calm down. He was going through his grief and we had to understand that, but I told him the antagonism had to stop. I said, ‘I know it is hard for you but if this continues it’s not going to help anyone at all.’ He just needed a bit of guidance and for someone to tell him we cared. Here was a guy who wouldn’t leave my side before and was so loyal and hardworking for our cause, but in the end he felt helpless and frustrated like everyone else. I don’t think Dr Stein realised he was unwell or what he was going through after losing his wife and children and never being able to find their bodies.
The ringleader of the discontent was a woman who is often seen confronting us with complaints in the film – even Sunil, the camera operator, was targeted for deciding to assist with the making of the film rather than getting his hands dirty with the manual work. He explained later that he wanted to remain neutral and that was a good way of doing that. One distressing event, and again I only witnessed this in the film because I was in Australia at the time, was when this woman threatened Alison and Oscar, saying they had a problem and if they didn’t do something about it others would, meaning the rebel group in the village. Their way of ‘doing something’ would have meant violence and mass revolt, it seems.
Unbelievably, even Chamilla got caught up in the revolt. She was such a loving, kind and even-tempered lady who we took everywhere to act as our interpreter, yet she was accused by this group of lying when she interpreted what they said to us or when relaying our views back to them, changing the meanings for her own convenience. One day when she had been taken to task verbally by this one evil woman (shown graphically in The Third Wave), she started pointing and shouting at Oscar, claiming it was his ‘fucking fault’ for giving the women money because they then caused trouble by saying they had received nothing. It was the only time I knew her to swear. Kumara snapped at her, saying she should be beaten for speaking so defiantly and pointing at Oscar. I had never seen Chamilla rattled at any other time, so that showed how volatile everything had become. Alison was angry and upset, too, and it took a lot to rattle her. Bruce was level-headed, always seeing the middle ground of everything, always the calming influence.
Apparently while I was away in Australia things became so bad that a meeting of the volunteer group was held to determine whether the situation had become too unstable and dangerous for them to carry on. They discussed the idea of explaining to the villagers that, because of their complaining and threats and the resulting fear, the volunteers would have to leave. Typically, Bruce acted as the diplomatic arbiter and calmed the situation, saying there was no benefit in lodging ultimatums. He reminded them that it was a small minority stirring up trouble and they needed to reiterate to the locals that they were not trying to change their lives or their systems but to give them the infrastructure to get back on track with their lives.
They decided to have a meeting with the villagers and four or five times as many turned up than would usually attend a meeting. The locals were asked whether they wanted a medical centre, as there had been so much bitching about using the school library as the centre, but when the idea of closing the centre was put to them, they weren’t happy. They didn’t want to lose the medical centre, they just wanted us to get alternative premises for it, which eventually happened. It seems a lot of the claims by the rebel women ‘on behalf of everyone in the village’ were bullshit; there was no consensus at all.
On top of all that drama while I was back in Australia, there was the panic one night when another tsunami warning was relayed to the village. Probably once a week someone who was drunk at the time would scream, ‘Tsunami!’ I remember the first time, it was like a stampede: people running inland in sheer, blind panic. You could see the terror in their eyes. Next door at Telwatta there was a temple on higher ground and people would run the two kilometres there. Each time it would take us nearly an hour to restore calm. Children wouldn’t come out again, they were so petrified, so we had to tempt them back to the village with the promise of ice blocks or ice creams.
On 28 March at about 10.30 pm, the warning was for real. Bulletins had gone out all over the world about an offshore earthquake and the possibility of another tsunami hitting South-East Asia. Alison and Oscar received calls from Germany and Italy, and James, the British journalist who had helped us, sent a warning saying ‘huge earthquake … tsunami warning … head for higher ground’. In Australia I had also heard about the warning and sent my text message to Peraliya, too, as the world stood by for another potential disaster. The remaining volunteers, and there were probably only six or seven by then, would have liked to have organised a controlled evacuation but that just wasn’t possible considering the circumstances and the fear that still existed after the previous tsunami.
Many people fled on foot to higher ground in the dark with their children in their arms, desperate not to lose more of their beloved young ones. Others tied ropes to the top of coconut trees, ready to climb above the expected giant wave. The volunteers rode through the village providing updates on what was happening. There was reasonable calm but mass anxiety.
Everyone waited nervously for hours before international text messages came in stating that there was no tsunami; certainly there was a quake that measured 8.7 on the Richter scale, centred off the coast of Indonesia about twenty-five kilometres south-east of Banda Aceh and only 160 kilometres from the Boxing Day earthquake epicentre, so it was right to have been concerned. Tremors were felt in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, but as Alison, Oscar, Bruce and the village leaders looked out to the horizon under the moonlight and through night goggles, there was no upheaval in the ocean. However, thirteen people were reported to have died in Sri Lanka in motor accidents or from heart attacks while frantically trying to escape to higher ground. About three hundred died in Indonesia as a result of the violent tremors caused by the earthquake.
Another thing that must have really frustrated the villagers, too, was that quite a few boats, funded by Larry Buck and his group Bread for a Hungry World, had arrived but we were unable to source any motors or nets for them to be utilised. They sat there, teasing the local fishermen, really, for weeks and weeks. All the stocks of nets were exhausted after the tsunami and in the end we sourced a few from Scotland and had them shipped over but we were never able to get hold of any motors before I left.
I certainly missed an uneasy time in Peraliya. I returned after the rebellion, when a reasonable level of calm had been restored. Then there was a storm of a different kind: a lot of people began protesting in the streets of Hikkaduwa and Galle demanding to know the location of the $2.18 billion aid money; there was little evidence of any of it reaching those parts of Sri Lanka. Oscar even went to United Nations office and to the government to ask where the money was. Mr Fernandopulle had no idea where it had gone. ‘Someone took the money and must be living a jolly life somewhere,’ he said; not a bad line. He was virtually accusing people of impropriety. When the mayor of Galle was interviewed he said, ‘We don’t know where the account is; we don’t know where the bank is; we don’t know where the money is!’
People who had had houses within 100 metres of the coastline had also started to protest in the streets, asking why they had had to move and where was their aid after being dumped in the middle of nowhere with little infrastructure. So unrest was growing quickly. The locals were definitely feeling that all the great promises of international help were something of a con, and they had been let down. Don’t get me wrong, most were very appreciative of what we had done for them and even the troublemakers later conceded that. Human emotion is a powerful thing – good and bad, positive and negative – and at distressing times it tends to magnify itself considerably.
I’d like to think my return at the end of that difficult period helped calm things a little bit further and gave some reassurance to the people that they had a friend, and a ‘straight down the middle’ contributor back to help Alison, Oscar, Bruce and the others whose motives should never, ever have been questioned. Figuratively, there were some bridges to mend, while physically there was even more to do.