Distributing aid supplies: Tucker's Jan 20th Report

January 20, 2005


Today was a difficult day. An early start at 5:30 in the morning gave us an advantage as the journey before us to Kinniya was long indeed. We had a filling breakfast at a local restaurant and headed toward the ferry, which was already becoming quite a popular destination for other relief teams and everyday travelers over to the “island.”

Kinniya is not, in fact, an island but a peninsula which projects far out into the bay surrounding Trincomalee harbor. Unfortunately, the ferry which carries large vehicles to Kinniya was out of service. As a result, we had to part ways with the bus and cross over to the island as a team with only our teaching equipment in tow.

The camp inhabitants were expecting us, and we were also joined by some of the members of the VeAhvta team, who were working on counseling with some of the adults suffering emotionally in the wake of the tsunami’s devastating damage. The beginnings of the day were thus a bit hectic, as we scrambled hither and anon to coordinate rooms, halls, and the classing of students into pre-school and school going children so we could begin our day’s activities with them.

Separating the children according to age group at the outset was a bit more of a challenge than we anticipated, but we were finally able to get a handle on the ages and years of every child, and therefore put them into 6 groups of 17 students each. We had anticipated some discipline problems the night before in our planning session, but to our surprise the majority of the children were very well behaved and ready to improve their knowledge.

The expert team of Serendib teachers began their activities with the children, their collective dozens of years of experience prepared them for the communication barriers (Sinhalese-Tamil) as well as the fact that many of the children were quite small for the traditional camp age. We continued well into the morning, and after a brief break for lunch – which never arrived because the bus was bogged down on the dirt roads leading to Kinniya.

Distributing the aid also presented some considerable logistical difficulties. With only enough supplies for 100 students, we found ourselves faced with the unique dilemma that the 100 children whom we had taken under our wing were not all from the Camp area. In fact, the word had spread that our Serendib team was in town, and many children who were not tsunami survivors ended up joining us for the day. As a result, extricating those who were true residents from nearby visitors – for the purposes of distributing the aid – turned out to be a veritable conundrum.

We are resting now, and contemplating a half day of sightseeing in Trincomalee tomorrow before we return to Ratnapura tomorrow, hoping to reach there before nightfall. As closing words to this update I would like to offer my especial thanks to all the teachers of Serendib-Sri Lanka, who did a marvelous job today in exercising their talents, fortitude, and dedication for the benefit of the tsunami survivors in Kinniya.

Tucker

[Webmaster's Note: The photos that follow relate to this report]