Amid the Wreckage of a Town, a Community Remains Intact

Even before the tsunami, Dewata wasn’t much to look at. It isn’t blessed with a great beach, and most tourists don’t stop for much more than gas or a Coke on their way to better sun spots farther south. Locals are sometimes at a loss to say what’s special about their town. Maybe the cement factory, they venture, or the visit by a Russian cosmonaut in the 1950s.

Eventually, though, it dawns on them. What they cherish about Dewata is something they take for granted -- the bonds among neighbors, the willingness to help when someone’s in trouble. In other words, the extraordinary connections people forge in an otherwise ordinary town.

It’s the kind of place were Buddhists and Muslims share their food on feast days. Where fishermen splurge for a bottle of arrack, a local brew made from coconuts, to share with neighbors when they haul in a good catch.

When the tsunami slammed into this town on a beautiful day in late December, the sea that sustains life for the people of Dewata united them in death. Almost everyone in this town of 7,600 people lost at least one family member that horrific day.

For the survivors, the sea’s fury destroyed something fundamental inside them, the trust and beliefs that people everywhere cling to to get through their day: that angry seas give warnings, that loved ones don’t disappear by the hundreds, that tomorrow will be much like today.

“Now everyone understands life is not sure,” M.Y.M. Mulaffer, 39, whose seaside butcher shop and guesthouse were destroyed, says as he cries in the ruins. “My father died in the shop. There’s nothing left.”

In interviews with dozens of residents over several days, from well-heeled business owners to fishermen and impoverished day laborers, the stories of death and survival tumble out. Some are relayed quietly, others with frustration and passion, the speakers feeling the pain as they relive searing memories mixed with small relief at releasing some of their burdens.

“It’s so painful, it’s almost unbearable,” says Ranasinghe Sunil, clutching his 14-year-old son -- all he has left after losing his wife, two daughters and sister. “I want to talk about it and don’t want to. It’s all I think about.”

The commercial heart of town unfolds along Galle Road, the busy thoroughfare hugging the sea that is the site of Dewata’s worst damage and a large proportion of the 523 deaths reported so far here.

A few concrete buildings are still standing along the road, but their contents have been disgorged. Small grocery stores, guesthouses and Internet cafes once lined the route. In front of a bakery, a dozen 100-pound bags of flour sag, waterlogged, like oversize dumplings, feeding an army of flies.

But most of the area is a tangle of smashed beams, twisted coconut tree limbs and bricks, some covered with bits of blue and white plaster, the remnants of walls that once held clocks, family photos, religious icons. In trees that withstood the force of the waves, nests of torn fishing nets, broken planks and colored plastic bags are caught in the branches.

Along this stretch of coast, the area behind Galle Road flattens out for several miles before reaching the hills, so there was little to halt the wave when it roared ashore. Farther inland lie houses that were shattered as the water surged, twisting and tearing everything in its path.

Few Families Spared

Scattered here and there are remnants of the lives that so recently filled these ruined buildings: a single gold sandal, a toothbrush, a torn purple sari that retains a certain grace in its resting place in the dirt. Cats, their owners displaced or dead, slink over the uneven terrain, looking confused and skittish.

Particularly jarring are reminders that children’s laughter once resounded in these neighborhoods: an elementary school math quiz marked 80%, a young girl’s green pinafore dress still on its hanger, a student’s English composition book with the sentence “When Sena went to the shop, he only bought chocolate” carefully handwritten in block letters.

The shock of what unfolded that Sunday is all the greater, many residents said, because the day was so lovely. The water was calm, the sky was clear and there was a festive air as Buddhists prepared to celebrate Puya, the festival of the full moon, and Muslims looked forward to a day with their families.

When 17-year-old Asanka Sanjeewa heard his mother scream that the sea was coming, he immediately ran next door to tell his deaf neighbor, Dickson Jayalath, knowing he wouldn’t hear the panicked warnings.

In the seconds before the first monster wave hit, Asanka broke down Jayalath’s door and helped the 37-year-old man, the owner of a photo studio, climb onto the roof of a two-story concrete house nearby.

“He saved Jayalath’s life,” says Asanka’s father, Dayananda Jayasooriya, standing amid a pile of bricks that had been their living room, nearly stepping on a waterlogged music cassette and a television tube nestled in soggy plasterboard. “Anyone in town would have done the same.”

Asanka’s 26-year-old brother wasn’t so lucky. He tried to reach higher ground with his grandmother. They both died.

As Jayasooriya steps through his battered front door and into the street, he is joined by neighbor Kingsly Bastian, 30, who drives a tuk-tuk, a three-wheeled scooter taxi, for a living.

Bastian had left his house that morning to buy a cake for his son’s first birthday, returning a few hours later to find his wife, mother, eldest daughter and baby son dead.

Bastian stops in front of Dickson Photos and pulls a snapshot from his wallet. His eyes well up. It’s his wedding picture, his wife in a white dress and he in a brown suit, looking proud and confident. It was taken by Jayalath.

The deaf photographer emerges from the depths of the crippled building, where he’s been working like so many others to salvage scraps of his former life. He gestures excitedly to convey his despair at having lost his 70-year-old mother, all his cameras and his business in the deluge.

“Celebrate Life” reads the slogan for a prepaid phone card on what’s left of the facade.

The three men talk a few times a day, they say, trying in some small way to connect through their pain. As Bastian walks gingerly down the street in flip-flops, avoiding the broken glass, felled power lines and twisted metal that litter the road, he describes the vibrant street that exists only in his mind’s eye now.

“That one was a shipping company,” he says, pointing to a nearby storefront. “That one was a fancy shop run by a nice, older guy, what’s his name, who sold gold bangles.”

Then, in a flash, the debris-strewn street comes back into focus. “It’s all been destroyed,” he adds. “That older guy is dead, along with his daughter-in-law and their little one.”

Down at the end of the block, just beside the sea, five family members sit on plastic chairs in a field of broken concrete slabs, as if trying to will their house back up. In this tight-knit neighborhood of fishermen, known as Lovigahawtya, the 48 families suffered 68 deaths.

Things had been looking up recently, with tuna selling for about $1.75 a pound and kelawalla, a local fish, going for about $1.15. But it’s unclear how the fishermen will get back on their feet, given that almost all of their boats have been destroyed. Besides, few people are now willing to eat seafood. They think the fish have been feeding on the bodies of the dead.

The sea has been the lifeblood of this community, bringing early traders across the waves from Morocco and elsewhere in the Arab world to settle here centuries ago, providing a good living for fishermen and bringing much-needed cash along with sun-worshiping tourists. In a flash, however, the sea revealed its power to also deliver death.

Locals often ventured down to the water to talk to the waves, a form of meditation, some say. They asked for nature’s blessing, for help in dealing with a problem and for the currents to bring good fish into their nets.

They still come. But many stare vacantly at the horizon, while others talk to themselves, gesturing, asking why the ocean took their mother or their wife. What could an 18-month-old tot have done to deserve its wrath?

Most of the village’s fishermen, who account for about 30% of the workforce, were ashore that day. In retrospect, some say there were signs that they missed. Mohammed Imitias recalls seeing funny bubbles coming from the depths.

A few recall that they found it odd when, a little after 9 a.m., millions of gallons of seawater disappeared into the bay -- which they now know was the tsunami winding up to deliver its fatal blow -- leaving fish flopping on the exposed sand.

A few fishermen were out to sea when the tsunami hit, returning hours later to find their hometown upended.

“I didn’t even recognize Dewata when I came back in. I thought it was a different village,” says fisherman K.V. Dayarathna, wearing a white Muslim skullcap. “I just ran to my family, but my wife and two daughters were already dead.”

Hope Stays Alive

As Dewata reels, short of food, water, shelter and almost everything but misery, there are early signs of resilience.

Dewata’s biggest employer, the Holcim cement plant, has removed dozens of bodies from its land and plans to reopen Monday, putting 117 people back to work. Its motto, “Strength, Performance, Passion,” remains emblazoned across its still-standing gate. And the coconut oil mill, with its 35 jobs, is rebuilding.

Many who ran from the beach in panic on Dec. 26 headed up Akuressa Road to the Wijitharama Buddhist Temple or the Katugoda Jumma Mosque and its adjoining school.

“It didn’t matter what religion you were,” says Deiyandara Jinasiri, the temple’s chief monk, barefoot and with his bright orange robe slung over his left shoulder. “Everyone just felt a need to connect to something.”

At both houses of worship, now refugee shelters, leaders say they are working as hard to give people hope as they are to provide food and water. One extended Muslim family lost 90 members. “We’re trying to rebuild their morale,” says Imran Uwais, a teacher at the mosque. “And to convey a sense of faith so they regain their confidence to live in this world.”

School principal Sumith Liyanage, 50, who moved here two years ago from the north, has observed a certain strong-spirited side to the people of Dewata. They’re much less passive than other Sri Lankan communities, he says, which could shorten the time they need to regain their bearings.

Many are frustrated by the pace of government action and suspicious of a plan to bar rebuilding of lighter structures near the sea, which locals say would hurt the little guy.

“We lost lives and houses, and now they want to deny us everything else,” says Mohammed Hussain, 52, the owner of a two-story waterfront tire shop who says he saved 35 neighbors by dragging them onto his roof as they floated by. “They should be helping us, not hurting us.”

Most aren’t waiting for the government. Every day, the shelters empty as people return to their destroyed shops and homes. While many sit in the ruins dazed, a growing number are clearing the rubble themselves, salvaging a dish or a desk, dragging off parts of wrecked boats, drying recovered passports and other documents in the sun.

“It’s the young ones who must take on the challenge of pulling Dewata together,” says Misiline Nona, who at 86 is among Dewata’s oldest residents. Her dirty white lace blouse is held together with safety pins. She hugs her granddaughter in the Wijitharama Temple refugee center. “I’m too old. But I know they’re up to it.”

Those trying to figure out how to make something out of nothing after losing so much don’t need to look far for inspiration.

At the main intersection, beside the town’s only gas station, M.S.M. Ruzuan has set up a roadside stall selling tea. He’s using a pot salvaged from the wreckage, a fire fueled by debris, a wind guard of corrugated tin and a retrieved table under a handmade sign that reads “The Tsunami Tea Room.”

“I realized there wasn’t a single place to have a tea, so I started this up with stuff I scrounged from the ruins,” says Ruzuan, 30, whose fruit stand across the street was washed away. “Given how sad everyone is, you need a bit of a laugh. We can rebuild, maybe better than before, and I hope this encourages people to get out there.”