Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of the tsunami that caused the deaths of an estimated 160,000 people throughout Southeast Asia and as far away as Africa. Destined to be written in history books among the deadliest and most shocking natural disasters of our time, it was also the catalyst for what has since been called the largest humanitarian relief effort ever mounted. For many Taiwanese, that effort continues today.
In August of this year I visited Hambantota, Sri Lanka, the southeast coastal community hit hardest in that country, and also the recipient of its largest wave of humanitarian relief. This is one of the dozens of places throughout region where the Taiwanese Buddhist organizations Tzu Chi Foundation
By some measures, rebuilding was well underway by August. By other measures, it had only just begun and still had a long way to go. Dharma Drum had already built a community of several dozen houses on a tract of land well inland from the coast. Tzu Chi, whose blue and white clad volunteers had been on the ground since the first week following the disaster, had only a single house built; the first of 920 homes, two schools, and several other public buildings planned for their Great Love community.
PHOTOS: DAVID MOMPHARD, TAIPEI TIMES
"We expected to spend the first weeks on the ground feeding people and tending to their wounds," said Danny Lee, the head of Tzu Chi's office operations in Hambantota, where he has been since the first week of January. "What we didn't expect was the degree to which we'd be tending to psychological wounds. The people were traumatized. They hadn't sought medical treatment because they had been looking for family members lost in the tsunami." Though most of Sri Lanka's 1,340km of coastline was at least partly swamped by the tsunami, at Hambantota the biggest of the waves was reported to have been nearly 9m tall when it swept across the city's low-lying peninsula area, knocking the second stories off houses dozens of meters from the shore. Of the 36,000 victims in hundreds of Sri Lankan coastal communities, the largest number was in Hambantota.
A man named Sumanthra, who found his way to Tzu Chi's clinic, had lost his wife, three daughters and seven other relatives. He was only able to save his two youngest children -- one in each arm -- by outrunning the waves.
A Muslim man named Doole lost his wife and all six of his daughters. Islamic funeral rites call for the body of the deceased to be wrapped in white cloth before being laid to rest. He never found any of his loved ones. Failing to give them a proper Muslim burial, he said, would be the greatest regret of his life.
Yasawathee had spent the weeks following the tsunami with her despondent mother-in-law. Her husband and father-in-law were selling goods together at the market the morning of the tsunami. Neither escaped. Despite her own grief, Yasawathee said she feels for her mother-in-law, who lost both a husband and her only son.
Didiyo Kotambaran escaped the waves by jumping into a tree and climbing. He held on as the water pounded his back and ripped his sarong off him. When the water subsided seconds later, his house was gone. Luckily, his wife and 10 month-old daughter were next door at his father house, which was spared. They all survived, at first because of luck and later with the help of humanitarian aide.
Within a week of the disaster, Tzu Chi had arranged for 3,000 tents to be delivered to the city and 20,000 packages of ready-to-eat rice products to be air-dropped in the area.
At the same time, 38,000 Tzu Chi volunteers took to the streets of Taiwan and collected NT$176 million in pocket change from passersby. Many millions more were collected in the months that followed.
Tzu Chi's first 30-member medical team was on the ground three days after the disaster. Within the month, another four teams sent to Hambantota had treated 27,000 patients at free clinics throughout the area. During this period the organization supplied locals with 250 to 300 tons of relief goods every other day.
But all of this met only the bare minimum required to keep people alive. The next step for Tzu Chi and Dharma Drum Mountain, whose volunteers had come later, was to rebuild the communities washed away by the waves.
Dharma Drum hired displaced locals to build the homes many would themselves soon occupy. But though construction was already completed by August, the houses had yet to be wired to an electrical grid or connected to underground plumbing. The land on which the homes were built was donated by the
government and located two kilometers from the previous city center; there was no electrical or plumbing grid to connect to.
Adjacent to Dharma Drum Mountain's rows of pink and yellow houses was a much larger area set aside for Tzu Chi to build its Great Love community. As of August, they had just one house nearing completion, though foundations for all the others had been laid. Work on schools and community buildings was scheduled to begin by the end of the year. They'd also planted thousands of trees to beautify the new community.
"Tzu Chi wants to take care of the long-term needs of the people it helps, not just provide quick-fixes then leave," said Lin Shih-chin
"Tzu Chi good. Taiwan good," was a phrase spoken by those who know little other English. It was almost universally delivered with a thumb in the air.
Critics had several misgivings: Why, for instance had Tzu Chi imported the materials used to build its community? Why not use local materials? Why had it chosen a construction method unfamiliar to local contractors? Tzu Chi's answer remains the same now as it was then: They are there to see to the overall quality of life for those they help, not just slap up houses and leave.
And they haven't left yet. The foundation maintains an office in Hambantota, staffed by over a dozen volunteers from Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. Telephone calls to follow up with some of those I met during that trip reveal that work is progressing. What was Tzu Chi's seemingly empty field in August is now dotted with hundreds of complete or nearly completed houses. The Great Love community is far from finished, but conversations with those in charge of building it, reveal that they're far from ready to leave.
"It's become exciting again to see it come together," Lin said. "I had started to hear complaints about the pace of progress, now I'm starting to hear people talk about their new house and their new neighbors." Lin, for his part, arrived in April, at the start of construction. The remaining members of the Tzu Chi office, a team of up to 20 volunteers, are there on a one-month rotating basis. They stay at a home they've rented outside of Hambantota. Vans drive them to the Tzu Chi offices at 7am every morning, weekends included. They eat breakfast together before heading out to their assigned areas, overseeing various aspects of the project.
At around 8pm, the vans drive them to a local restaurant for dinner. It was the same restaurant every night and the same meal of potato curry, rice, bananas and water for the first six months of their visit. Lee said little has changed in the past five months. They sing a song about brotherly love before eating and afterward formally report the day's progress to Lin and Lee. Then it's back to their temporary home for a quick shower and a brief sleep before doing the same thing the next day.
Each of them has taken an unpaid leave from their regular jobs back home for what they see as the privilege of volunteering. They each paid for their own plane tickets. Lin and Lee are paid modest wages for overseeing operations.
"It's maybe not as selfless as it sounds," said Chen Shun-tian (
Lee's notion has caught on with local residents and might just be one of the greater things to come from the humanitarian work being done in Hambantota. Despite having lost so much themselves, the residents of Hambantota have volunteered -- nearly a hundred at Tzu Chi and hundreds more at other relief organizations -- helping translate, run errands, and perform an endless array of odd jobs. Many have said they were moved by the spirit of volunteerism they saw in the members of Tzu Chi and other NGOs.
"Tzu Chi is giving me a home. They have fed my family. The clothes I'm wearing come from Taiwan. They have saved my life," said Kotambaran, who is now a volunteer. "When I help my neighbors, I can put back some of what the tsunami took away."
March 24 to March 30 When Yang Bing-yi (楊秉彝) needed a name for his new cooking oil shop in 1958, he first thought of honoring his previous employer, Heng Tai Fung (恆泰豐). The owner, Wang Yi-fu (王伊夫), had taken care of him over the previous 10 years, shortly after the native of Shanxi Province arrived in Taiwan in 1948 as a penniless 21 year old. His oil supplier was called Din Mei (鼎美), so he simply combined the names. Over the next decade, Yang and his wife Lai Pen-mei (賴盆妹) built up a booming business delivering oil to shops and
Indigenous Truku doctor Yuci (Bokeh Kosang), who resents his father for forcing him to learn their traditional way of life, clashes head to head in this film with his younger brother Siring (Umin Boya), who just wants to live off the land like his ancestors did. Hunter Brothers (獵人兄弟) opens with Yuci as the man of the hour as the village celebrates him getting into medical school, but then his father (Nolay Piho) wakes the brothers up in the middle of the night to go hunting. Siring is eager, but Yuci isn’t. Their mother (Ibix Buyang) begs her husband to let
The Taipei Times last week reported that the Control Yuan said it had been “left with no choice” but to ask the Constitutional Court to rule on the constitutionality of the central government budget, which left it without a budget. Lost in the outrage over the cuts to defense and to the Constitutional Court were the cuts to the Control Yuan, whose operating budget was slashed by 96 percent. It is unable even to pay its utility bills, and in the press conference it convened on the issue, said that its department directors were paying out of pocket for gasoline
On March 13 President William Lai (賴清德) gave a national security speech noting the 20th year since the passing of China’s Anti-Secession Law (反分裂國家法) in March 2005 that laid the legal groundwork for an invasion of Taiwan. That law, and other subsequent ones, are merely political theater created by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to have something to point to so they can claim “we have to do it, it is the law.” The president’s speech was somber and said: “By its actions, China already satisfies the definition of a ‘foreign hostile force’ as provided in the Anti-Infiltration Act, which unlike
RSS