Retrospective: My Odyssey in Sri Lanka

This is one of the stories we are featuring from “A Nest in My Heart.” The book was developed by editor Anne Sawyer from a series of creative writing classes in January and February 2024 with Southeast Seniors, a neighborhood nonprofit in southeast Minneapolis that is focused on helping people 65-plus stay in their homes with the help of local services. We chose to feature it this month as part of our theme about the sometimes hidden stories in the memories of aging bodies.

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There is an idiom in Costa Rica, an exclamation of joy: ‘Pura Vida’ or ‘Pure Life.’  There is a similar expression of sorts in Sinhalese: ‘budu pit eka alakiri; one of the phrases I picked up in Sri Lanka, halfway around the world. 

In December 2004, a devastating tsunami decimated the southern coastal villages of Sri Lanka leaving death and massive destruction in its wake. A grassroots Minnesota organization, Help Sri Lanka US, was formed at the behest of Evan Balasuriya, a Sri Lankan in Minneapolis.  The mission of  our organization centered on rebuilding Deevara, a small fishing village in Moratua, south of Columbo. Evan had lived there as a young man. Three different groups of volunteers spent 4-6 weeks there over the span of a year. Each group was divided into three different focus teams: education, medical, building reconstruction.

Each volunteer set a personal goal to raise a minimum of $2,000 to support the mission. I was swept away by the immediate outpouring of generosity from family, friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and complete strangers; $10,000 was donated in less than a month. I was humbled and touched by co-workers who volunteered their vacation time for my temporary break from my nursing job.  

I was in the second group that went, in March 2005. I spent 45 days in the small village of Deevara. There were 35 volunteers, plus Evan, in our group. I volunteered for the building team. My particular team was focused on clearing rubble for the future community center. We labored with villagers of all ages — weaving work and play; transcending our differences and language barriers; sharing ordinary things with ordinary people from very different cultures; forming extraordinary bonds. Even though people in the community were traumatized by staggering losses — still enveloped in the chaos of uncertainty, rubble, and garbage, they had not forgotten how to sing and dance, laugh and play, and to celebrate life.

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The Village

The first people I met were Malin and his mother outside their house. This clear-eyed, somber young man — towering over his mother — showed us water-damaged photos of their home. He points to chest-high water marks on the cement walls of their house, a memorial etching left by the crest of the salty sea. Out of necessity, his father left to find work in Saudi Arabia to support his family.  

On the first day of of clearing rubble, I met a young man with a playful, ready smile: Bindu.  He was 16 years old. Each day we greeted each other with a smile and a high five. I pointed to objects and asked their names in Sinhalese. Every day we traded new words. He taught me to count to five and I practiced:  eka, deka, thuna, hathara, paha.  As we worked side by side, with one- and two-worded sentences, an alchemy of friendship bloomed.    

One day I met Bindu’s younger sister, Esuru. She greeted me with a shy smile: “Come my house.”  She took my hand and tugged: “Come my house.”  We walked toward the sea. We climbed over jagged concrete rubble, broken bricks,  and through debris. The beach is strewn with shredded fabric, a lone sandal, torn clothing tangled in twisted steel cables, a man’s shoe, broken boards, dried palm fronds; shredded plastic.  She stopped near strewn slabs of broken concrete. Carefully she stepped on top of these shattered remains, gestured with her hands, and proudly announced:  “My house.”

I struggled to see any border or remnants of a foundation. Because her house had been close to the sea, on the outskirts of the village, it had been totally demolished. 

A woman in a long blue dress with red flowers outlined in white emerged from behind a partially standing blown out wall; near where Esuru and I were standing amidst the rubble. Her husband soon followed. Smiling, they beckoned me to come with them, saying “our  house.”  They invited me to walk with them through what was left of their home. Happily, they stopped before a tiled mantle displaying a beautifully carved stone statue of Buddha and six jeweled toned icons gilded in gold, untouched by the tsunami’s catastrophic destruction. This appears to hold a powerful spiritual message; evoking joy and gratitude for having been blessed with this auspicious sign, which promises to them a favorable, hopeful future.

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After several 90 to 100 degree days of clearing concrete rubble with our gloved hands under a scorching sun, I managed to snare a few of the village boys I had noticed hanging out together — a gang of 12-13 year old prepubescent boys: Eranga, Rifath, Pianka, Sirantha. We passed rocks and pieces of broken concrete blocks to one another down a line to toss into a trailer.  To break the monotony, I began to teach them how to whistle. Not just any whistle, but the sharp, shrill, ear-piercing,‘guy’ whistle one hears at sporting events in the U.S.  They were enamored, and  also diligent students. Every day they saw me, they called out “Sonny! Sonny!” with beaming smiles — then pursed their lips as they honed their whistles. I playfully reciprocated.

On another day, a few of us broke away to stroll through the village to check on the progress of the volunteers who were building the concrete block houses for the families and two showers — one for the women, one for the men. Being an avid photographer, my camera was never far away. Sri Lankans are not shy people. They LOVE having their pictures taken, often requesting to be photographed. Unwittingly, I became the group’s designated photographer and earned the nickname ‘shutterbug.’  

In this village, so many of the people’s possessions and precious family photos were destroyed or damaged in the roiling waters and ferocious winds of the tsunami. I took hundreds of photos. Whenever I took a photo, the children would excitedly rush up to me, expecting to see themselves on my camera screen — which was not possible with my non-digital camera. They didn’t hide their disappointment.

I hatched a plan. I brought multiple rolls of film to be developed, to have CDs and duplicate photos printed. The final week of my stay, I walked to the homes of the people with whom I was familiar and gave them away. Then I strolled through the village, matching photos to the people. 

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No Problem

Pradeep, a gentle man from the village, approached me.  He asked if I can visit a young woman who had recently given birth to a baby. The new 17-year-old mother was resting with her newly born baby girl on a bare wooden bed frame covered by a thin layer of foam and a woven blanket. The bed took up most of the room, which was dark, claustrophobic, and very hot. She was shy with a beautiful smile. Pradeep asked if I could help out: “Perhaps with a fan? A single mattress? Baby clothes? Some bedding?”  

I responded:  “No problem.”

I used that phrase because I had heard it used. I was often puzzled — actually stunned — when a family member showed you a photo album with pictures water stained beyond recognition, or washed off the page, and they would say, “No Problem.” Or when a wall of their home had vanished, all their possessions swept away by the violent waves and they’d declare,  “No problem.” 

I began to understand the quintessential marrow of those two words — the hope of promise, and the promise of hope.  Today,  it meant a resolve to solve — a promise for our group to fulfill. Recently our nursing team had provided medical care at a refugee camp where people had been sleeping on a concrete floor for three months. The team purchased mattresses, bed linens, supplies for delousing,  and then taught the people how to use them.  

What would be one more mattress and a set of bed linens?  “No problem.” 

Two lines of one of my favorite poems floated through me after I left:

“Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul

Sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.”

 

The next day Pradeep, Anita, and I bought a mattress, bed linens, sheets with Mickey Mouse on them, a care package with a basin, diapers, and baby clothes. No problem.

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Testing the Waters

Since the tsunami, the children of the village were reluctant to go near the beach and refused to go in the water. On a sweltering afternoon, Vicki, Sue, and I hatched a plan to go to the beach to cool off.  We invited the kids that hung out around the community center construction site.  Reluctant at first, they tagged along when we assured them that they didn’t have to go near or in the water. 

When we got to the beach, I was balancing on one foot to untie my shoe. Little Odaya quickly knelt down at my feet, looking up at me with a smile, missing a baby tooth. He untied my shoes, removed my shoe and sock from one foot, and then proceeded to slip them off the other foot.  Once again, I was a recipient of the sweet attentiveness of the children. They grabbed ahold of your heart in the simplest ways. 

Two girls began dancing with each other on the beach. A third joined in, careful to avoid the water. My heart sang when I tossed three-year-old Niroshka in the air as he giggled with delight and clamored for more. Two kids flirted with the waves as they dared run to the edge of the lapping waters and darted out again.  A boy did a handstand in the sand. 

Soon there were six girls standing in the sea with water over their ankles. Odaya and Niroshka scrambled into the water, whole-heartedly drenching themselves. Esuru and Shashini were crouching in the water up to their waists. Shanika, wet from head to toe, boldly stripped down the top of  her sodden maroon dress. Bare-chested, she tied the dress top in a knot at her waist. Pretty soon everyone was sopping wet — hair, clothes and all.  

 Alakiri!!  All is great! a transcendent day in the sun on the beach.

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Dancing into the Night

We had a number of opportunities to experience the rich cultural traditions and ceremonies while in Sri Lanka. We were invited to attend a Buddhist wedding and celebration. Dancers  and drummers wearing traditional tribal costumes performed as part of the ceremony. The drummers wear poofy white turbans decorated with braided ribbons. Their chests were bound with red cloth. The dancers donned a lattice of intricate beadwork lashed across their bare bronze chests. They wore a crown of bejeweled silver medallions fanned out like tail fin feathers of a male bird in heat. Huge, tooled silver medallions in the shape of a teardrop or yang symbol hung down from their crown to their shoulders.

Prior to the wedding, several of us conceived a plan to wear saris to the wedding. On a free afternoon we explored our surroundings away from the village. We took a tuk tuk to a small fabric shop to select our silk cloth for the saris. The minute we walked into the shop we were gobsmacked. Our eyes feasted on neatly folded layers of silk on shelves from floor to ceiling. Lengths of shimmering silk cascaded down the walls in a rainbow of colors. Shades of the setting sun. Maroons, regal purples, and fuchsias, with strands of golden threads woven through. Sea and sky blues. Sapphire blue. Carmels shading to bronze. Soft hues of forest greens.

The afternoon of the wedding, we were invited to the home of Shanti, a sweet, patient Sri Lankan woman who helped us get dressed. She properly wrapped each of us in our meters of fine silk in an exacting, ritualized fashion of drapes and folds secured as necessary. I have never had so many safety pins holding me together.

The wedding, enlivened by the dancers’ fierce undulating movements to the rhythm of the drums, was something to behold.  But what I hold most closely is the celebration afterwards. Everyone gathered in a huge room where we danced to music that lingered long into the night. It was heartwarming to see up close: everyone so ‘losonai’ (beautiful) — especially the children — scrubbed clean, dressed in their finest, and full of themselves. I was swept away. All of us fresh faced, hearts singing, eyes smiling, dancing. Poetry in motion. Girls with graceful waving limbs carving out silent messages into the night air. Beautiful boys hanging on one another. Everyone dancing together — boys with boys, girls with girls, girls with boys, adults with children. 

So there I was dancing the night away with Eranga, Pianka, Sirantha, Asun, Bindu, Esuru — all the way down to the very little ones. All that I could see was the tops of their heads. Sweat drenched my fuchsia sari with the golden threads. My eyes feasted on their exuberant, smiling faces. Their youthful spirits danced with unbridled freedom, assurance, and grace. 

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The Long Goodbye

In the final days, I privately gave small gifts and photos I had taken to ‘my boys’ and their families as a way of expressing my gratitude and saying goodbye. Six weeks after my return to Minnesota, my heart leapt with joy when I saw four letters in my mailbox from Sri Lanka, from Bindu, Sirantha, Rifath and Eranga. Each in their own sweet way shared their fond memories, their appreciation of the kindness and help they and their village had received, and their longing to be remembered.   

Bindu, 16: “Dear Sunny… So how are you Sunny. I always remember you. Are you remember me. Sunny when the time you leave us and went I feel so bad. That moment how we meet with boat, and also how we dance. One by one. I remember that time when you are leaving what you gave to me. Thanks very much for it. You also gave me umbrella for my grandmother. She was very happy … and told me to give regard to you … help me a lot and also help our village a lot. You were very kind to everybody thanks for everything. God will help you forever … very happy you teach me a english. Thank you for it. God bless your family all. Please come again to see us.”

Sirantha, 13:  “Don’t forget me. I am Sirantha. I’m safe at home … Every  dark cloud has a silver line …Thank you for the helps. God bless you.  Budu pit eka alakiri.

Rifath 13: “How are you? I also thinking about you so much. Thanks for your cap. I like it so much. I feel so many time once a day we really miss you. I gave you my great thank to your help. You are not like other tourist. You are near and closed [closest] friend to me. You and your team help use lot. We suffering from effected of the tsunami … but when you visit our place we forgot our all trouble situation. We want your help also. You are loved us as Sri Lankan. Sometime Sri Lanka also not care about effected children. This effected is not change from offering books or … things. We want lov e… God bless you.”

Rifath, quite the artist, enclosed with his letter a colorful detailed drawing of a mosque. When unfolded, two cut-out clouds outlined in blue, and a star outlined in red, tumbled out like a little blessing. Inside the clouds he had written his name. Inside the star he had written his address.

Eranga, 13: “We are very grateful to the services that You rendered in our country on this sympathetic occasion.  I am very thankful to the presents that you given me.  I felt very sad when you are leaving the island.”

Malin, 23: “Every single day we are reminding [remembering] you and we see you. We feel you in our hearts … I’ll try my best to rebuild my economy and life which destroyed by tsunami … So Sonny every single day you are appearing … You all are just like God sent angels. So how can I forget you?…We are always with you.”

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Going Home

Three of us from the second group — Winni, Vicki, and I — extended our four-week stay another two weeks, so we were the only ones from our group flying back from Sri Lanka to the U.S.  The plane was full of Sri Lankans. Once I got settled in my seat, sleep dropped like a stone. I slept for hours off and on. We were surrounded by crying babies.

We put on our headsets to listen to Sri Lankan music and watch a video of a musician singing ‘We are Sri Lanka,’ along with images of children eating coconuts, riding bicycles, dressed in white walking in a line on the horizon. We begin to cry.

My head is full of children and their voices. Memories unspooling.

I believe in my heart that we — the donors, the volunteers, and the survivors — remain connected in this transmutation of human tragedy by gossamer threads of love, kindness and compassion.  Pura Vida.  Budu pit eka , alakiri.