Journal of a Journey
(February, 2005 )
Memoirs of the 2004 Tsunami Aftermath
by Nyx Martinez
Introduction:
Five years ago, I dared to take a journey. I didn’t have the money or the means, but I had the will, and a little nudging whisper telling me to go; that this journey would change my life forever.
As I remember that time, that unforgettable experience in Sri Lanka, as I re-read my old journals, I recall how everyday was a miracle, and everything that happened brought me a little closer to the knowledge that my life wasn’t mine alone. I was travelling across the world to find my purpose, my calling, myself.
I found it all, and so much more.
Here, in several parts, I share with you my journal, and the lessons I learned walking in the wake of the 2004 Tsunami.
Entry One:
Anticipation. Trepidation. Excitement.
These are the things I feel, lying here. One more night, and then tomorrow will fly me to Sri Lanka. I’ve never been there before. What must I expect?
Theirs is a pain we have never felt.
Theirs are tears we have never wept.
Theirs are lives we have never known.
Theirs, too, are deaths we have never slept.
The world has heard too much of the recent tsunami. Relief efforts have forged on in the last two months. Two weeks ago, I was in my own bed in the heart of Africa and thought there was nothing I could do about the tragedy that had swept Asia and stunned the entire world.
God had something else in mind, though, and suggested that I go and put my hands where I’d said my heart was.
I argued with Him that, as a volunteer for the past 16 years, I had no salary or savings to take me clear across the African and Indian oceans.
He told me that all things were possible.
So I prayed for His will to be done, and within six hours sponsorship for a trip to Asia lay in the palm of my hand.
I was on my way.
How can the loss be understood?
How can the feeling be described?
When everything we know is gone,
And everyone we love has died?
I am in Thailand as I write this. The last two weeks have been spent in preparation for my destination. My friend Julz and I had thought to do relief work in southern Thailand or Indonesia, but the wind of God’s Spirit is blowing us to Sri Lanka.
The world is far too frigid for feeling
It cannot know man’s desperate plight
While some spend their days in riotous living,
Forgotten others know nothing but night.
And so, I anticipate tomorrow. It is in traveling to the four corners of the earth that I find my deepest fulfillment. Epiphanies come then. Whether sharing the grass hut of a Ugandan tribe, walking the slum-lined streets of downtown Manila, racing to beat Bangkok traffic, or strapping on my seatbelt for take-off over the Indian ocean, I look up and see the same sky…the familiar full moon…and in vastly different cultures, the striking perfection.
Can life be restored and seeds be sown?
The winter has killed life from this earth.
Only when the world has reawakened,
Then, from its womb, will spring new birth.
Tragedy is all around us. We prefer to close our ears to its cry and our eyes to its presence. We opt to blame God for its existence, and demandingly question where the past has brought us.
A Chinese fable tells of a pig that had found a fallen apricot and began frantically digging the soil for more, never once thinking to look up and realize that it had fallen from above.
It is when we look up in the darkest night that the silvery moon shines most brightly. And yet, we scratch the surface of this wretched earth like that foolish pig to find goodness.
This trip has only just begun. Yet, it has taught me as I have traipsed through three different countries in the last two weeks that life is beautiful.
Even in pain.
Even in sorrow.
Even in death.
I have seen broken families reunited. I have been reunited with a once cancer-stricken child, whom I taught four years ago, now beginning college. Strange things have happened recently.
Strange, unexpected, and beautiful things.
And I can’t wait for tomorrow.
JOURNAL OF A JOURNEY
Entry 2
8 Feb 2005
Mt. Lavinia Coast
Colombo, Sri Lanka
Is it not significant that this land is tear-shaped? Falling from the tip of India, it emerges from the Gulf of Mannar and is situated 10 degrees from the Equator. Marco Polo wrote of it, "The finest island of its size in the world." The ancient Greeks knew it as Taprobane; the Arabs, as Serendib, and to the European world, it was Ceylon.
The Land is known for its agriculture, aromatic spices, Ceylon tea, and precious stones. The last three months of world history, however, brought something else to its shores and people: the deadly Tsunami.
This evening, I walk along a sand-strewn beach with my host family's dog, Carol. This pile of rubble…a child's shoe…a piece of cloth…packaging cardboard…wasn't here before the tsunami hit. But then again, the cottage behind me wasn't either. Things have been rebuilt.
The golden sun will set in half an hour. The remarkably still sea mirrors its reflection and seems to stare at me like a woman with a deadly secret.
It is too haunting.
There is postcard-perfection on my right and remains of tragedy on my left. The pup tents pitched all along the coast do not house globetrotting backpackers. There is one tent per family; sometimes for two. And above that, the government has given $25 per family for basic necessities.
…What can you do with $25?
That unpredictable sea.
Its waves are quiet now. They ripple in, washing over my feet, sweeping the sand over the seam of my jeans, and then washing back out again.
That fateful day has passed, but to the families who remain, it is not forgotten. The ocean is whispering now, but its voice is never really silent. The dead are sleeping, yet never really gone. I walk back towards the main street, crossing first a railroad.
Locals tell me a brick wall once stood here. But nothing separates the beach from the train tracks now. I hear the whistle, the deafening sound, and I quickly move off the railway, out of the train's path. It
rushes by-the only awful sound on the beach today. And when it is passed, I note again the mess of debris lying just along those tracks.
The golden sun has turned to an exquisite red ball. It hangs low over the horizon; hovering just above the still blue waters.
Yes, it is picture-perfect, this teardrop in the ocean.
***
ENTRY 3
Hikkaduwa, Galle Road
Sri Lanka
Time has passed since the day after Christmas, 2004. A concerned friend wrote me yesterday: "2 months later, how much can be done? Hope it's worth it.”
It is true; other world events have caught the public's attention.
When countless lives had been swept away with those tidal waves, we'd read the stories, watched the news clips, and viewed the web shots in horror. We'd seen enough.
Do we really want to be reminded of the tragedy?
I do not write these entries to press a matter too far in the past to grasp. I write so that I will never
forget. Months, perhaps years from now when this page is but a forgotten leaf in my journal, there will be thousands who still live its present reality.
Hikkaduwa is a tiny fishing village on the coast of Sri Lanka. Like the other villages around, every other building is some kind of guest lodge, pub or seaside restaurant. They say life once thrived here-and especially nightlife. They say the restaurant where we stopped for lunch and coffee once bustled with foreign tourists.
I count less than ten foreigners on the street today.
This little street winds like a worm through building rubble. It is as if something blew upon everything in sight. Almost nothing stands higher than 10 meters now.
We drive for two hours, stopping at 3 refugee camps. The children greet us with beaming smiles. Most of these ones are blessed; they still have their parents. Fathers and mothers alike produce photographs of what is left of their homes.
We look for the camp office. They direct us to a single plastic chair on the roadside, and our disbelief is almost an amused one. But the man in uniform assures us that this spot is indeed the office, and so we speak with him about the needs of this camp.
“School materials for the children,” we are told.
And of course, other basic necessities, such as floor mats and cooking stoves. Today we will buy what we can, and return tomorrow with more.
Our sponsorship is meager, but good enough to purchase 13 kerosene cookers for a few families.
There are 450 families in this camp.
Will our tiny efforts make a difference?
The smile of these children tell me the worth of our time spent here. I am led to a tent, home to two little girls and their parents, who invite me for a cup of tea. I refuse at first, not wanting to take the
little they have. But they insist on proving their warm hospitality, and so I sit, surrounded by more children. They speak basic English, and for that, I am glad.
.My first cup of the famed Ceylon tea. It is hot, very milky, and very sweet. I am astounded by their generosity. As we spend time in this camp, we hear the stories. One woman's arm is in a cast. It was broken as she fell, trying to run with her children from the oncoming wave-a wave traveling at 700 mph. She is lucky that her babies are still alive.
The man sitting silently on a chair amongst the rubble is not so lucky. His neighbors tell us he has returned to the pile of what used to be his home, the only survivor in his family.
But his story is one in a million.
Two months later, the world forgets, yet the people left of this tragedy will never. How can they?
They say that the spirits of the dead still walk this place. They roam at night, screaming; they cry out, "the waves are coming! The waves are coming!"
And hearing their awful shouts of terror, the living run from their tents in the dark of night. They may
flee from this place, but never from this paranoia.
Ghosts haunt Hikkaduwa. And they will haunt many years from now.
Even though the sea is silent, the bodies it has borne upon its waves will forever wash up on the memories of the loved ones that were left behind.
Left behind, to rebuild their lives.
And it will take much, much longer than 2 months for that.
****
JOURNAL ENTRY #4
This morning, over breakfast, I pose a question to my friends and co-workers: “Why would anyone want to become a nun?!”
I cannot see the logic…or the reasoning behind the choice of such a career. To me, it means donning stuffy, conservative frocks; foregoing pleasures necessary for preserving my sanity, and living in seclusion from the rest of the world.
And so I ask them, “Why would any woman choose to do such a thing?”
My friends are more insightful than I. They tell me that in today’s modern world, the majority of nuns do not devote their lives to mere solitude, but rather a long-term commitment to serve mankind.
“For example, Mother Theresa and the Sisters of Charity in Calcutta,” they say, “they have done so much good for the world.”
I nod my head in agreement. Perhaps these women have found a career that is more beneficially fulfilling than I’d imagined.
Ironically, this afternoon, I end up at the Mother Theresa Orphanage on Galle Road. My project coordinators had arranged for 500 schoolbags to be delivered there, and sponsors in Bangkok provided 2,500 school notebooks for displaced children.
The handouts would be organized today, in this Children’s Home that remains as a small part of the legacy that this saintly woman named Mother Theresa has left behind.
After an hour and 45 minutes of riding under the heat of the Colombo sun, we disembark at the orphanage. Its garden is neatly manicured, and a crowd of children frolic in playground.
At the entrance stands a sculpture of the world-renowned nun, its white figure drawing the onlooker to the humble smile spread on her lips. Her hand is raised, as if blessing all who enter there, and below, the words are engraved:
“Love one another, as I have loved you.”
The sound of babies draws me to the doorstep of the Nursery. I remove my shoes and enter the simply decorated room. Ten cribs fill the tight space. I try to guess the age of the children here, but each is so small, it is hard to tell.
My friend Julie is already at the bedside of one child. My smile escapes me as I come closer. For I am seeing up close, for the first time, the fragile form of a helpless infant born at only 5 months.
Her stomach is round like a lopsided balloon. Her ribs jut out at the sides and her arms are no wider in diameter than Julie’s thumb.
My friend cradles the child while I take a snapshot on my digi-cam. It is another memory frozen in time forever. I cannot forget it.
I walk to the next wing of the building, where I am told the physically handicapped kids are kept. There, a laughing child sits among his caretakers, his little body kept upright in a chair. His feet dangle over the floor, and they are contorted at the ankles. His body is twisted, deformed. Yet his spirit is beautiful. One cannot help but see how the smile of his round eyes detract from the abnormal size of his head.
He looks at me, first with suspicion, and then amusement. I am told his name is Darshan.
“Hello, Darshan,” I say carefully, slowly lowering my own body to sit down beside him. He does not pull away when I reach out my hand, but offers me another angelic smile and giggles delightedly.
His tiny fingers are fumbling to string shoelace through a wooden Montessori puzzle piece. The string is in a tangle. As we work together to untangle it, Darshan’s Sri Lankan nurses try to stifle their laughter. I know that our presence here as foreigners creates quite the spectacle, but their happiness is mine, too, as Darshan completes the laced wood piece.
They ask me where I come from, and when I tell them The Philippines, they excitedly tell me that there is a Filipina nun in this very compound.
Later on, I find her, and we exchange stories. A friend of hers, also a nun here, is Kenyan.
These women were the very ones I’d questioned in my mind, but now, as I see them among the throng of children, I realize that they have given up many things of the world to gain what one can never lose.
The handout begins, and the nuns organize the crowd in three lines to receive the school bags. The entire process takes about 2 hours, and when, finally, all the children are waving their new bags and school materials, I feel a sense of gratitude to God for bringing me here to witness this day.
They have had to start all over again, re-building their lives amongst the rubble. At least now, they have something to begin with, and something to give them a sense of pride the day they step into school.
“The children have had the indignity of living in camps for the past weeks,” a teacher reports. “Now, they want to have something to do, to have a role in their communities.”
It will be hard; many of them will come back to nearly empty classrooms. One school that had a registered 1,800 children prior to the Tsunami now has a headcount of only 800.
I do not know for sure if the lucky ones were the ones lost, or those who survived yet lost everything. There are millions of stories, and in Sri Lanka alone, nearly 600,000 people displaced. The government says it will take 5-10 years to rebuild the country.
And so, as I write this journal entry, I wonder how much good one little school bag and notebook is to a child…how much worth we have invested in coming here.
But when I remember the smiles on their faces, a reflection of the gratitude in these little ones hearts, I know that it is by touching one life at a time and giving them some hope for a better start that we change this world.
And it is people like the dedicated Sisters on this compound, following in Mother Theresa’s footsteps, loving these children in the humble way that God first loved us, who show us that this love that is worth everything.
JOURNAL ENTRY #5
My last day in Sri Lanka. It has been two weeks now, and the time seems too short. It has flown too quickly.
I stroll the beach…these sands that I have come to love. It will be my last evening here, and my last view of the glorious sunset.
I step closer to the water and let the foamy waves rush over my ankles. The tide comes in, and then out again. It is the force of Nature that pulls it; a force that seemed to spin out of control last December.
Here, standing alone, facing the horizon, I pull out my notepad to scribble more into my journal. But I cannot find the words to express how I feel about this whole experience. I have seen a part of the world that reflects the pain of man. I have journeyed through a tear-shaped land that represents this planet’s cry for salvation.
And I cannot help but feel that no matter where the wind takes me, no matter where I see the suffering and strife, no matter what culture I come into contact with, this heart-cry of man is the same the world over.
There is an overwhelming presence of the need for true happiness amongst the sea of humanity. There has been pain and conflict for too long. And for longer than that, we have been blaming the circumstances on God.
But does the fault really lie with Him?
The Tsunami makes news, and we pay attention. Yet when it is over, we return to life as we’d known it.
The rich keep getting richer; the poor, poorer. And not to undermine this December tragedy, but the truth is that the statistics of dead bodies left in the wake of the Tsunami equal the total amount of people who die in Africa EVERY week.
This is a horrific number. This is where the real disaster lies. I do not believe that the mass of fallen in Africa cannot be prevented. They die of AIDS, of ethnic cleansing, of starvation and tribal warfare.
They die from unnatural causes that could be stopped, if only we cared enough to do something about it.
And this we know; yet we choose to close our eyes.
A line from Dicken’s Christmas Carol comes to mind: “…let them go ahead and die, and decrease the surplus population.”
How many Scrooges today echo this? I really wonder…
I turn and walk back to the beach restaurant. Thomas is sitting there. A balding man in his 40’s, I’d met him yesterday at this same beach. He is an Irish Tsunami survivor. In fact, his own stories had preceded him, and when I’d finally met him, there were so many questions I wanted to ask.
He’d escaped death by inches, literally. With just that much breathing space between him and the ceiling of the room he was trapped in, Thomas found himself busy for the next 48 hours, rescuing people from the water and helping those who needed medical attention.
Thomas is a doctor, you see.
When fate spared him, he opened the first operating hospital for Tsunami victims in the South of Sri Lanka. He is still here, living among the people. Here, where he is needed.
The world needs more people like him…
Thomas waves, and I join him for a chat. We speak of social matters, of traveling, of faith. He knows divine intervention played a key role in the fact that he is sitting here, a cold beer in hand, watching the perfection of this glowing red sun as it sinks to the sea line.
This man is not religious, but he has seen too much of life and death to deny the presence of a Higher Power. He knows that something or Someone spared him so that he might give something good back.
An hour later, my host family joins me at the table. Tonight, after the children have gone to bed, I will leave for the airport. It is our last evening here at Mt. Lavinia Beach. I will take with me good memories; deep memories.
There are some places in the world you can travel, even for just 24 hours, and the experiences you gather there will be forever etched in your mind and heart.
It will be like this when I leave Sri Lanka, I know. But it will be good to get back to Africa. There is something charmed about that continent. It has grown on me, and after only two years, I have come to call it home.
The sky casts a scarlet blanket over the sea. The sun has gone. Gone from my sight, but not gone forever. Tomorrow, we know, it will rise again.
It reminds me of the thousands of souls who disappeared with this sea. They are gone from their loved ones’ sight.
...But like the sun, depending on what you believe, they are not gone forever…
__________________________________________________
JOURNAL ENTRY #6
The inevitable has happened again! …I credit it to Murphy’s law. I’d been so careful to check my departure schedule from Bangkok and kept a keen eye on my watch.
Then, at a calculated 1 hour till the safe time to haul a taxi to the airport which is an hour away, I realized with dismay that I have not thought to change my watch from Sri Lankan time!
…I’d been living an hour in the past!
So, what would have been a long and luxurious bath turned into a frantic hop-in-hop-out dash in the shower. I quickly rushed to make sure all our bags are properly packed, and 15 minutes later, Julie and I were on the doorstep, saying a hurried goodbye to friends from Central Thailand Missions who had put us up during the transition.
And now, here I stand at the check-in counter of Don Muang Airport…a bustling place, and Murphy is here again to ensure that I wait an awfully long time in line.
I’ve been waiting 45 minutes. (What was the rush for?)
The check-in girl isn’t in her place, so I have some empty moments to scribble a journal and reflect on what life has been like in the last month.
Hundreds of people scurry in this airport. I don’t know their names…yet I think I feel what the African woman in front of me feels:
She is finally coming home.
And that young couple boarding Korean Air…
They are finally going home.
Home…a place you feel safe, and right, and where you know you’re supposed to be.
That, for me, is Uganda.
The uniformed Thai man signals that the counter is open, and here my meditation (or is it just my mind’s ramblings?) comes to a halt.
(Nairobi Stop-Over, 5:50 am)
Finally…the last leg of our journey. 30 days ago, I sat in this very waiting lounge, using the words “trepidation” and “anticipation”. Yes…so much has passed that I did not anticipate; so much that there was no need to fear.
Now there is hardly a white person or Asian seated in this room. Is it strange that I feel so comfortable in this dark continent, among its ebony-colored people? My future here is uncertain, but I am secure knowing that God holds it in His palm.
As for my past, it has been perfection every minute. Perhaps not in my human eye, but in the mind of the One who hangs this planet on nothing.
Getting to do relief work this last month took us through hardships, obstacles, face to face with people who said it couldn’t be done, the problem of cash needed, etc. At first it seemed only a dream that never take form other than the hidden corners of our minds.
But today, it’s happened.
It’s happened because of the amazing individuals who assured our arrival to Asia.
People like the amazing angel who, upon hearing of our desire to be of service, promptly wrote a check which covered our air fare to Bangkok.
People like the ones in Uganda who got us from Bangkok to Colombo.
People like my childhood friend in Bangkok, who donated towards the 2,500 notebooks for the kids.
People like an old colleague in Manila who provided the missing cash for a ticket to Colombo.
People like the NGO volunteer who gave me a bill from his own pocket to cover the ridiculous airport tax.
People like the Bjorvand family who took care of Julie and I in Sri Lanka.
People like Sara and Frank, who spent their summer vacation with us in the refugee camps.
People like the CTM volunteers who acted as our travel agents, setting us up with the best air deals possible.
People like my housemates from Radioactive Productions back in Uganda who filled in for my work there for a month.
…and there were many other people who came to my aid in the most desperate of moments.
To them I am grateful, for I know that this journey was not made alone; it is not my personal success. All those individuals who gave me their prayers, best wishes, love and moral support for this journey…I took them all with me in my travels. For they are what made this journey possible.
As I write this journal, I hope they know that.
It is in my return to Uganda, the place where this journey began, that I finally understand:
Success is a process; an evolution that never ends. When our lives seem underdeveloped, like there is still more to reach, to dream, to do…then success has been attained.
As the sun rises over this Kenyan horizon, emblazing a savannah and giving life to this enchanted habitat, I finally understand what they mean when they say that it is not the destination that matters, but the journey.
It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who wrote, “Today is a gift. That is why we call it the present.”
Here, on this amazing day, this journal ends, and here too, another one begins. Thank You, God, for the gift of life….I pause to pray, and pen a poem:
To dare to try
And know failure is but a trial
A pathway to a different star
And just a longer mile
To dare to dance
Barefoot, splashing in the waves,
In step to a different page of music
To the tune of crazy braves…
To know, in that crucial moment,
That death is but a graduation robe,
A promotion to a higher status
And finally, release from this wretched globe,
These are the lessons given me
On this journey I’ve embarked
They have given deeper meaning
To the beating of my heart.
And, in this pearl of Africa—Uganda--
Where my life begins once more,
There are so many dreams to dream
Each one richer than before.
Now, as I close this journal,
Another chapter lies white
And its virgin pages beckon me,
“Look deep in your heart…and write.”
The end of this Journal….and the beginning of a new Journey…
