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The New Year signals a new beginning to many, but to these hapless people with tiny classrooms for homes, this is hardly a possibility
Endless suffering
By Kumudini Hettiarachchi
A tiny little pot to boil the milk and a small clay hearth to keep it on were the precious gifts they showed us proudly, three days before the Sinhala and Tamil New Year.

No kiribath, kevum, kokis or athiraha. No new multi-coloured clothes as specified by the astrologers. No avurudu games to enjoy. Nothing to look forward to as the New Year dawns… only despair and disillusionment.
“We usually have games on the beach. We have the spoon-and-lime race, climbing the greasy pole and kotta pora. Then they choose the Avurudu Kumari,” smiles 11-year-old Nadeesha Malshani, for whom, like for all the other children here, these are distant memories.

Memories of a time before the tsunami, which in turn seem to have become a memory for the bureaucrats, dealing with those affected by the tsunami. While the focus of most bureaucrats and non-governmental organisations has been on the badly-hit south and the east, some of the men, women and children who lived on the beach and whose homes and belongings were engulfed by the waves on December 26, 2004, in areas closer to Colombo, have become homeless – shunted from one place to another.

A good example is the 22-family colony of people now housed in a dingy and dirty, disused line of classrooms, right in the middle of Health Square amidst the sprawling buildings of the Dehiwela – Mount Lavinia Municipal Council.
“There are 88 people here, with about 18 being children, as you can see,” says Pradeep Shirantha, 27, who has taken up the cause of this community, adding that earlier there were 23 families, but all the members of one family are now at the Mental Hospital in Angoda.

Soon after the tsunami, the families living on the beach just across from the Dehiwela Railway Station, 40 in all, were bundled into the Tamil Vidyalaya, down Station Road, but two weeks later when schools reopened some families moved out to relatives’ homes, and the others came to Upananda Vidyalaya.

There was one large hall, and they lived like a commune. “We begged and pleaded for the partitions, and got them only two months ago,” says Shirantha, explaining that they have been given many promises by the authorities.

First came the promise of small flats in a place called ‘Barrack Watte’, opposite Holy Family Convent, Dehiwela. Then came stories and rumours that a local politician wanted some part of that land for a money-making venture, laments Shirantha.

Now they are being told that Rs. 500,000, not as a lump sum, but on an instalment basis will be available to anyone willing to buy their own land and move out. From where can we get the land, says Vinitha Munasinghe, 43, a mother of three. The father of two of her children had died eight years ago, and she now lives with the man who has fathered her third child. “He does maalu business. I cannot leave my boy alone for half an hour, because when I come back there are randu hetak to settle,” she says, pointing out that they need to live near the beach.

Adds Shirantha that most of the breadwinners in their community are either involved in the buying and selling of fish, or as ath-udaw karayas (helpers) to fishermen on the beach, with such tasks as drawing in the nets. “There are four people working for the government, two as labourers in the National and Kalubowila Hospitals, and the other two as garbage collectors at the Dehiwela – Mount Lavinia MC and the Panadura Urban Council.

Shirantha, father of a five-year-old, who worked as a security guard in a private firm, lost his job after the tsunami, because he couldn’t go to work for weeks on end. Recently a “gentleman” found him another job as a supervisor in a company, but he couldn’t face his employer.

Why? “I don’t have a permanent address. I’m homeless,” he says sadly.
Dhammika Priyadarshani, who showed us the tiny pot in which they were planning to boil milk as the New Year dawned, and her husband, who are in the fish business, are idling these days, because many fishermen do not go out to sea during this time, and fish is expensive.

“We have a struggle. I have three small children, 10 years, three years and two years. My sister looks after the two younger children when we work, and the older girl goes to school. After her lessons it is the ten-year-old who looks after the younger ones,” says Dhammika, mumbling that there is no hope even after the New Year.

The children are sick most of the time, with colds, coughs, fever and dengue, and though the Municipal Council is across the road, no help is forthcoming. For all 88 people there is only one toilet. “The other is blocked and can’t be used,” says Shirantha.

Living in the cell-like 8’X4’ space, each family calls home, they have hit the depths of despair. What irony – above one door is the picture of Lord Buddha, over another is that of St. Anthony, while plastered right round another door is the face of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

One year and four months after the tsunami, these hapless men, women and children – some of whom brought as infants are now toddlers playing in the filth – do not seem to have got either divine or human help.

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