ADRA : Adventist Development & Relief Agency International

We are at SMP4 Junior High School, and 545 students are lined up in the school yard listening to speeches from ADRA, a representative of the district education department, and their headmaster, Mr. Zainun Zakaria.

The headmaster delivers a powerful motivational speech to his students, urging them to be strong. They are survivors and should not let the tsunami ruin their lives. They need to look forward and rebuild their future through education. He reminds them of the two bombs that destroyed Japan at the end of World War II. The students should look to the Japanese to see how successfully they rebuilt their country after their disaster. It was through education and determination that Japan rebuilt a strong economy.

He wants his students to get on with life. He believes that through school the children can return to some sort of normality in the midst of personal tragedy. They have this opportunity because of the work ADRA is doing in his school. He expresses his gratefulness for the many NGOs and in particular ADRA. He urges his students to learn from ADRA and the other NGOs that have come from the other side of the world. He tells them that they are important. The world cares about them and their future. In return, they must do well in school and rebuild their lives.

These are strong words for children who have recently survived earthquakes and a tsunami. After the formalities, the children receive their new bags. I catch up with Mr. Zakaria. He shares that he has worked 34 years as the headmaster of this school. He pulls up his trousers to show me the marks, scars, and discoloration on his legs. “Tsunami—tsunami,” he proclaims. I quickly get a translator so I can understand what he wants to tell me.

On December 26, 2004, Mr. Zakaria had attended teacher training at the school and was on his way home. As he got to the bridge in town, the earth shook. He quickly jumped out of his car and lay on the ground, holding his arms around his head. When the large earthquake stopped, he hurried back to his house to make sure his wife and daughter were fine. Confirming that his family was all right, he went to the mosque to gather information and see if someone needed help. Not many people were in the mosque, so he returned home. On the way, he met people screaming about the rising water levels.

He ran to find his daughter and tell her to go to her grandmother, who lived farther down the coast. The daughter, like any teenager, wanted to change her clothes and pack a bag. Both Mr. Zakaria and his wife urged her to leave on her motorbike. Finally, she obeyed her parents and drove off. His wife ran over to the neighbor’s two-story house, bringing a small bag of documents. Mr. Zakaria watched his family leave. The water level was rising; by now it had reached the side of his house.

He got on a motorcycle and tried to drive off, but the bike stalled because the water level was too high. Everything happened so fast. Suddenly he found the water carrying him away. He tried to grab hold of something, anything. He grabbed on to a jeep. The car was tossed around, and he was back in the water. Struggling, he tried to grab hold of a building, but the current was too powerful and he was swept away. After an hour of struggling, he was finally able to grab the roots of a Beringin tree. As he pulled himself up onto the tree, he found that he was not alone. Also clinging to the Beringin tree were a civet with three of her kittens, two mice, and a chicken.

For hours, they clung to the tree, not seeing any other living being. The water was filled with dead people. It was pulling back to the sea at a stronger and faster pace than it had come in. All Mr. Zakaria could do was sit and wait. The sun was scorching hot and burning him, but he thought only of his wife and daughter. Where were they? What was happening to them?

After four hours, he decided to try to reach a patch of dry land that he saw in the distance. He removed his shirt and trousers. He tied his trousers around his waist and his shirt around his head. He knew that his clothes would slow him down. He estimated that it would take about 15 minutes to swim to land, but the current was strong and he was weak. He swam from branch to branch. He found a board and pushed it ahead a bit and then swam to it. While he was trying to swim, he was afraid that another wave would come.

 At some point, he realized that he had lost his clothes. He felt pain in his leg and saw that it was cut in many places. Finally, after an hour and a half, his feet touched dry land. Mr. Zakaria was tired and worn-out, but determined to find out what had happened to his family. He staggered to his relative’s house, which was situated in an area that was unaffected. There he was able to rest for some time and eat some food. His thoughts were with his daughter and his wife. He was particularly concerned for his daughter; had she done as he had told her? If so, he knew that there was little chance that she had survived, as her grandmother’s house was close to the waterfront.

Regaining some strength, he started his search. He walked around the city and saw destruction and dead people. He ended up at the mosque, and there he finally met his daughter and wife. It was around 4:00 p.m.; he had seen them last at 8:30 a.m. For once, he was glad that his daughter had done what she thought was best and had not followed his directions. Had she obeyed him, she would not be alive.

Mr. Zakaria still smiles; he knows that he is lucky and is grateful that his family is safe. All the material positions they have are the daughter’s motorbike and the small bag his wife took. However, this is not important; they have each other.

After hearing his story, I understand that his strong speech to his students was not out of insensitivity to the children’s experience, but out of care and to motivate them to continue life. Seeing the work ADRA is doing to rehabilitate the children’s school and give them back a future, I too smile with Mr. Zakaria and promise that ADRA will not forget him or his school.

Radek Spinka, ADRA Pakistan’s logistics officer on special assignment from the ADRA office in Germany, is our primary truck shepherd.

Today he will manage millions of rupees, analyzing thousands of details, making hundreds of decisions, and dialing up scores of phone calls, to put 23 trucks weighing 147 tons, on the road to Bagh.

Early on Radek runs into a potential glitch. A truck is missing. He is urgently trying to find a truck that has disappeared after it left the steel sheet factory near Peshawar. So far it has taken 30 hours to make a 7-hour trip.

Meanwhile, sprawled all over the lawns of our Rawalpindi office are 500 winterized tents that will be delivered by 10 trucks today. Additionally, he’ll send 39 huge custom-built wood-burning heaters via 1 truck. These were converted into two-burner cooking stoves designed for sixty 1,000-pound school tents, 35 of which were delivered and erected by our ADRA team in the past three days.

Rounding off the fleet are the 3 trucks filled with steel sheets, hammers, nails, saws, and shovels which left Rawalpindi at 3:00 a.m., 5:l5 a.m., and 6:40 a.m. this morning. They should be arriving at Deerkot, Bagh in a few minutes. Plus 6 trucks filled with 2,700 quilts that will be loaded this evening. Add to that 2 trucks filled with steel sheets from Mardan and you can see the logistical conundrum Radek must solve.

Radek seems to be continuously on the phone. This time he’s talking with Ismah, his counterpart in Kashmir. She is a 22-year-old, young lady, with a degree in commerce who speaks English fluently. Recently promoted, she manages to keep about 50 ADRA employees busy off-loading trucks, putting up tents, helping people erect shelters, and coordinating the trucks’s arrival times with Radek’s help.

It works like this. There are three NGOs (non-governmental organizations) in Pakistan who do nothing but provide free trucks, jeeps, mules, and helicopters to those NGOs like ADRA who are registered with the United Nations consortium.

When we have NFIs (non food items) to deliver to Kashmir, Radek calls up one of those three “transportation” NGOs, giving them 24 hours advance notice.

He gives them all the information, and they hire the trucks. Then Radek goes the extra mile, getting names of truck drivers, license plate numbers, and mobile phone numbers if possible, so he can help Ismah trace them if and when the get lost.

So far, Radek hasn’t lost one of the 118 trucks carrying 812 tons of lifesaving items you have donated with love for the Kashmiri survivors.

Guess what? Radek just informed me that Ismah called and said that the 1 lost truck has been found, and unloaded.

The shepherd of trucks has done his job today.

Click here to read our first update from Kashmir.

Click here to learn how to participate in our efforts.

This was made possible by everyday people who have selflessy given resources to help keep Kashmiris alive this winter. 
People from:  Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Czech Republic, United States, Norway, Slovakia, Australia, Austria, United Kingdom, Korea, Finland, Portugal, Belgium/Luxembourg, Canada, Denmark, and Japan.

ADRA International has sent $144,000 for shelters, quilts, and stoves, with much more in the pipeline from donations still being received. ADRA’s offices in Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany have sent nearly $200,000 for shelters, quilts, and stoves.
ADRA Turkey gave a donation worth $180,000.  That was the cost for three C-130 cargo planes to deliver 60,000 pounds worth of tents to Pakistan.
 
When several European ADRA donor countries donated the huge tents, promises were made by a certain airline that the tents would be sent free of charge to Pakistan.  It didn’t happen.

So Alex, ADRA’s country director for Turkey, was asked to find an alternative. He immediately trucked the tents from Europe to Turkey arranging free passage on a huge Russian cargo plane. But the tents arrived too late and did not make the flight.
 
A couple of hours later, during a United Nations Joint Logistics Center meeting in Islamabad, our ADRA Pakistan team learned that NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was making their last flight out of Turkey within 36 hours.  Alex personally traveled hundreds of kilometers with the truck drivers, driving non-stop through snowy passes at night, and he got those tents loaded onto three C140 cargo planes in time for NATO’s final free flight. 
 
Tonight those tents are in Bagh.  This week, they will be distributed via trucks and helicopters to villages. About 50 people will sleep in them by night, and about 75 children will study in them by day.
 
Last Friday, I visited a 700-student high school in Bagh where two tents are already in use.  Pakistani students always wear uniforms.  But many of these children were wearing the only change of clothes they have—the ones they were wearing on October 8.
  
More than 100 students from this school died in that 92-second earthquake. Every student in that school has lost at least one close family member.

ADRA is on the frontlines of this disaster. We’re working hard as the snows move in, and we’re committed to helping as many people as possible. Thank you for your kindness and generosity.

Click here to learn how to participate in our efforts.

After building enough trust and rapport, we initiate a conversation with her and encourage her to speak about her experience of the tragedy of December 26, 2004. The very word “tsunami” makes her sigh, and she is in tears, as she lost her daughter and granddaughter on that day.

Arjunadevi, in her late 50s, has been in Thazhznganda village ever since she married an inhabitant of that village. They had two sons and one girl. The girl was the last in line; hence, she was pampered by everyone, and in turn, she was affectionate and kind to everyone in the family. The eldest son is involved in fishing; the youngest is an engineering student.

Her daughter had been highly educated, and even had been working as a teacher. This was unusual, as girls of this village don’t go for higher studies, and no one at all goes for work outside the village. Arjunadevi had the pride that her daughter was the only female in the whole village who had been highly educated.

Arjunadevi adds, “My daughter, Arun Jelitha, aged 27, worked as a teacher; she always had the thirst to study more and more. We spent quite a sum of money for her education. She was a model to this village. On seeing her, many other girls too started going for higher studies. She was so kind toward everyone in the family, even close to her sister-in-law. She took care of her brother’s children so well and bought for them what they liked. She had brought two of her friends to her home during the holidays that December.”

Arjunadevi always gently insists on having a glimpse of her daughter’s photograph, now enlarged and decorated with flowers and lights. She takes us into the house and silently takes a deep look at it, even as we watch her and the image. Confirming that we have had a good look at the graceful person that her daughter was, she starts bringing out the gory story of her daughter’s demise.

“On that fateful day, before anyone could realize that a tidal wave was approaching us, all of us were caught in the tsunami wave,” she explains. “My daughter was just screaming to save her friends who had come for their holidays. She wanted to ensure that, because they were outsiders and guests, no harm should happen to them in the village.

“My daughter-in-law was holding my granddaughter and trying to escape, and I remember only that, because I was struggling in the water. After the wave retreated, we found that our daughter and granddaughter (the one who was in my daughter-in-law’s hands) were missing and later found to be dead. I just could not believe that my daughter was no more. She wanted to study, and we spent a lot for her studies, and now what do I see of it? Though she was 27, she wasn’t married yet; maybe if she had been married, she would have been somewhere else and she would not have died. Only because she was here she has died. As I sit alone at home, I just recall each and every movement of her and the moments she spent with us. I am not able to forget her even for a single second.”

Arjunadevi is a wreck now. Having lost her grown-up daughter in the killer tsunami waves, she has suddenly found her life emptied of all meaning. The world has become a meaningless place all of a sudden.

Her husband has hardly taken responsibility, even during the days before the tsunami consumed her daughter’s life. Now he is even more devastated.

Her house is located not far away from the shores and easily bore the brunt of the tsunami.

Arjunadevi still recalls the fond connection she had with her daughter, remembering her daughter by spelling out each and every activity in which she was engaged when alive.

They had an intense bond with each other, and Arun Jelitha grew up enjoying the intense love of her mother.

Now she is alone, as her truant husband hardly returns home and her sons spend few hours at home. She cooks for herself and for her sons—only one single meal a day. But her desolate and wrecked nature hardly excites her sons to come home. Her relatives come and spend some days with her, but they cannot help beyond that.

The panic level seems to go up every now and then these days, thanks to false warnings from people around her. After the news about the earthquake in Andaman, people were more scared, but such signs did not affect Arjunadevi, as she is no longer scared of death. Indeed, she says that if death would unite her with Arun Jelitha, she would embrace it willingly.

Nowaways, Arjunadevi sleeps little; she hangs around the seashore, wishing to meet her daughter in the form of her spirit. Her belief in the afterlife and ghosts has given her renewed strength as she hopes to meet her daughter one day on the shores of the sea that gobbled her up.

It is very significant that she does not even refer to her daughter without attaching due respect to her. She says that she did that even when Arun Jelitha was alive. They were more like equals than mother and daughter. She remembers her good deeds in the finest detail: how she woke up, how she spoke, how she performed her household chores. She remembers her gait and vividly can reconstruct the details of her returning home as she would appear on the faraway road visible from Arjunadevi’s house.

From what Arjunadevi says, Arun Jelitha was a responsible and loving girl. The entire family and the life of Arjunadevi were anchored around the existence of Arun Jelitha, as she is the one who remarkably completed her Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Education degrees. She became a teacher in a school in the nearby town (Cuddalore) and worked from home after a short stint with hostel life, which her mother discouraged because she could not bear to live separately from her daughter. Life was fine till the tsunami struck the village.

Ever since losing Arun Jelitha, Arjunadevi contemplates suicide and needs to be counseled against it. She says that after her daughter’s demise, there is no point in living her life.

When she found life meaningless in the company of her irresponsible husband, who gets drunk often and returns home after two or three days of inexplicable absence, she found meaning only in raising her daughter and showering intense love on her. This made more sense to her than doing the same with her sons, who grew up working away from home and going fishing.

In this context of meaninglessness, it was her daughter who gave a tremendous sense of meaning and purpose to her life. That’s why she wants to live with Arun Jelitha in her imaginary life, conversing with her to fight her emptiness and relating to her as if she exists in flesh and blood now.

She has not demonstrated any sign of psychological abnormality as she carries out her everyday routine, such as bathing, eating (though very little), cooking, etc. But she needs a lot of support and encouragement.

ADRA’s psychosocial officer is working with her in regular intervals, but that is not enough. We could train or encourage some village volunteers to work with her to bring her back to a certain sense of normalcy, as such volunteers could make daily contact with her.

They won’t be seen even during the village festivals. They are not part of the village, yet they are in the village. In other words, they are in the village, though they are not of the village—they don’t even possess a ration card. Only when you make a special effort will you see them or meet them.

That is exactly what we did. As we waded through the casuarina trees that cluster thickly around the hinterlands of the village, we reached a ground beyond its borders that has been cleared of the trees that otherwise abound. There lay some thatched houses. They are so low that to enter into them, one has to virtually crawl. Some 10 people, the majority of them women and children, were milling around, with a few among them only visible as hazy shadows behind the line of tree trunks.

They are the Telugu-speaking, oppressed caste members whom the mainstream village used for providing services, such as guarding the villagers’ groves or cleaning the village temple premises when the festival approached. In return for the services they rendered, they were paid a paltry sum or in kind in the form of 66 pounds annually of rice and other grains. Other than that, they were not the recipients of any other rights and privileges from the mainstream village. They normally resided in the secluded confines of the groves, at peace with themselves. Their other source of income was fishing, though they normally did that with a hook in the shallow waters of the sea. The women would sell the fish in the Cuddalore town if the catch was good and would buy vegetables and groceries from the money earned by selling the fish.

When the tsunami hit the villages, they survived thanks to their folk wisdom—they always settled on the elevated terrain since that was the safest place given the fact they lived just 66 feet away from the backwaters. While the main village suffered a huge loss, this community lost just a few belongings—or lost all of it, depending on how you look at it; the truth is that they did not have many belongings. The fact that they were utterly poor has victimized them by not inviting the attention of relief providers and rehabilitation workers since they have not ”lost” anything—their ”normalcy” need not be restored, as poverty was their normalcy.

Yet they were seriously affected by the tsunami, for their lives depend on the payment from the mainstream villagers. When the latter lost their principal livelihood, namely fishing, due to the tsunami, the village economy came to a standstill. With fish catching  having dwindled alarmingly and villagers unable to patronize them, the Telugu-speaking community members have been suddenly reduced to the status of beggars, as they themselves state tremblingly. Now they survive on the leftover food given away by the villagers.

Sadly, they were never the beneficiaries of the relief and rehabilitation measures by any of those who cared to come to the villages. They said that even on normal days, they never received any of the development efforts or schemes, and during the post-disaster days, it could only get worse. Hence, health, education, electricity, or any other development good has never touched them.

Infant mortality and maternal morbidity are very high, partly thanks to the superstitious practices. That is what is confirmed by the life of Valli, who has been living in the soukku groves for the past decade or so with her in-laws’ family.

Valli’s first marriage was a disaster, as her mother died young and her father was never a responsible person. Indeed, it was her father who poisoned her mother to death, and even Valli could have died. At the young age of 13 1/2, she was married by her mother’s sister to a man from her village. But he left her after giving her a child. The child too died due to poor health. It was then that she met Selvaraj, whose family migrates to other villages in search of work (guarding work); they decided to live together. Since then, she and Selvaraj have married and have returned to Sothikuppam. Valli has two children—one daughter named Vasantha and a son named Chinnathampi. In fact, these two are the only surviving children of six in the past 12 years. The rest have died of one illness or the other, mostly from diarrhea.

Valli does not even recall that well the reasons they died. All that she can guess is that they died because of the curse of a goddess. However, as an afterthought, she would correct this by saying that they died because of poor health and health care. She says that the health care was so costly and so distant that she could not afford to access it frequently, even when her children were suffering from runny bowels. Indeed, even today, the pregnant women in her habitation area deliver their children in their respective homes supervised by their mother-in-law and assisted by their husband. Valli’s delivery too was attended to by her husband, Selvaraj, and mother-in-law, Laxmi. Angalai, Valli’s neighbor, told her that an institutional delivery was not advisable. If she and her baby were in the hospital, she wondered who would take care of them and who would feed them good food. At least at home they could get good food and receive care from her husband and in-laws, who could afford to attend to their needs. In fact, their idea of a hospital is a place where the staff members give some colorful tablets and are grossly indifferent to them. It is far away from their reach, as they do not have reserve money, leisure, and time to go to the hospital. Over a period of time, they have learned to live without institutional health care. They have evolved their own defense mechanisms and belief systems and also alternative medical practices that are hardly effective.

As a result, Valli’s surviving children, Vasantha and Chinnathampi, look visibly malnourished. When ADRA was organizing its medical camp, it made a special effort to bring Valli and Selvaraj to the camp with their children. The ADRA staff put them across from the village health nurse. The small exposure Valli received that day and the gentle admonition she got from the visiting nurse are reasons that she now underplays the curse of a goddess as the cause of her children’s death and attributes it to poor health care or to an unhygienic water source. Their only source of water is the small fount they dig; though the water is tasty, it could get easily polluted.
 
Ask her now why her children died, and she would say that they died of “loose motion” and she tried her best to save them, which meant taking them to the government hospital. But diarrhea continued despite that, and gradually she gave up on them and left it to her Kula (traditional) goddess to decide their fate.

Now, with some awareness being built in her, she vows to protect her surviving children by ensuring adequate health care. But Valli is not to be blamed for that. Only when there is a comprehensive social change that ensures that there is an overall development in their lives will they access these services. But as it stands now, their future generation too risks repeating the same social and economic disasters that their parents and forefathers were victims of.