Rebuilding report.
The maintainer of this site is back in the U.S., and the flow of information from Sri Lanka will be slower now. Here's at least a partial report on how the rebuilding is going and how the money raised is being used.
As a first step, bulldozers were rented for US$200 to clean away much of the debris (see the pictures below), once people salvaged what they could of their personal belongings. This cleared some hopelessness away as well — the affected families were given a clean slate on which to build.
Chande has resumed paying villagers for turtle eggs, which means that many people will be able to support themselves again. At first, he's keeping them in a wooden box filled with sand. He's trying to acquire some wire netting to keep predators out of an area to bury the eggs.
Earlier this week, some of us took pots and pans for cooking, as some families are trying to move out of the camps. Approximately 100 families have been displaced in Kosgoda. Last month, we also bought pots and pans as well as drinking water with US$300. Part of this money also went to help repair one of Chande's boats (cost of the repair: $350) so that he can have his livelihood. (You can see part of his teal boat in the last picture below. Other large pieces of it ended up on the main road over a mile away.)
Buddasiri told us how his children who are studying music at college were able to only take their musical instruments when they fled the tsunami. His son plays the violin, and his daughter plays the veena.
Some pots and dishes is all one family was able to salvage from the rubble of their house. We bought cookware for other families who lost even that, once they were ready to move out of the refuguee camps.
Among the debris you can see parts of fishing boats, a window frame and corrugated sheet roofing. This area is bulldozed now.