My friend sent me this-
hello all sorry for the mass email, but I am far to tired right now to write you each individually. I never thought I would say this but we happily got back home to kuwait, leaving sri lanka behind. what started out as a lovely holiday turned into what you can imagine to be, a surreal, terrifying and quite humbling experience. We were humbled by the sheer awesome force of the sea reclaiming land, albeit for a brief period, but long enough to claim so many lives. we were bsically at gound zero, or a ground zero I should say as there were so many scattered over a 10,000km radius…perhaps my number is a bit large, but not by much. I awoke on the 26th from a lazy dream about the sound of the ocean that grew bigger and bigger in my dream until, ini my dream, i knew somehitng was not quite right, the sound was too loud, and then there was that gurgling coming from the bathroom, and then the screams. as one does when instinct takes over, i was wide awake, got ria up and a pair of shorts on, I could not get our passport and ticket holder out from its hiding place in the mosquito netting fast enough so i ripped the whole thing from the ceiling. we stepped into the knee hight water racing from the beach throught the beach entrance of our guest house, throught the main corrider and past our room throught to the cack yard, driveway and street. we were instantly swept away as walls crumbled around us. I lost sight of ria and was panicked as a huge wall, silently and delicately fell down in front fo me onto where i thought she was. I was unable to hold my ground. I managed to keep my head mostly above water as I clutcched at what seemed to be solid objects…fence posts that fell away at the touch and finally a large concrete gate posted that I clund to for about 15 seconds before it too bent and succcummed to the unrelenting force. as I was spit out into the street I finally cought sight of ria who managed to clind to a bus stop pole…those things really work! she made it to a second story of a house and I could relax enough to find a bit of a calm area to rip our passpot bag out of the mosquito netting that I somehow managed to still be holding onto (along with my scrip sunglasses!) I made my way to the house ria was safely in, but not before dropping into and open sewer as all of the concrete tops that line the sewers had popped off from the pressure…we were basically in a briny sewer bath anyways…finally I made it to ria. within 20 minutes (time was not a real, quantifiable thing at this point) the streets looked almost dry…I walked back to our guest house leaving ria in the building. the house was intact but devastated as ai helped the family who were our hosts bring all of their belongings up to their second story still under construction while someone stood watch at the ocean entrance to see if the swelll would return…as someone put it…it want a hollywood wave, it was jus that the wave did not stop coming in…on top of all of this, it wa also the full moon… I collected what i could ( we had nothing of consequence with us in any case), paid the hotel people and helped that as best I could…the only ting more humbling than the water was the spirit and generousitiy of the sri lnakan people…on leaving, the owner gave me two bottles of water and a package of glucose cookies…what hapened ove the next few days continued to humbel me. the sheer goodness that came from the sri lankans was astounding. I got ria and we left, under heavy protest from the house owners…they were hysterical and now that we had experienced the wave, each new group of people running by screaming in sinhalese sent us all into a pankci…the old lady of the house was a hysteria machine and it made it difficult to wrap my head around everything…i knew if there was an after shock…this house wasnt the answer. so ria nad i headed back to the street and down about 500 meters to the steps of a temple (those buddhists pick the bests spots huh?) about 120 meters above sea level…it would have been a huge wave to get us up there. we spent the remainder of the day on the grass and running scavenger hunts down on the beach in groups of 3 for water etc…one restaurant that we ate in the night before for christmas had a freezer full of food and plates. we got all of there shrimp tuna crab and chiken along with about 50 plates that we wahsed with soap and water and cooked for about 100 people who were up there with us…people’s true colors really come out in a crisis, and i can honestly say, i wasn’t all pretty. not a lot of sleep that night as we could still hear the surf…at 7 ria and i and two other couples walked down the mountain and with the sea on our left made our way about 5k north to get to an inland road…the entire sea coust road was unpassable. the train we took down 3 days earlier right on the coast…the same train that day was demeolished and everyone aboard was dead…so we headed inland. we heard on short wave that the farthest the sea had gone inland was about 1k so after about 2 k in we all felt a lot better…we got some rides and walked until we got a ride from one guy who took us way out of his way to a town where we could catch an inland bus line all the ay to columbo…that took another 7 ours…at about 6 30pm we wound up at the gate of the trans asia hoterl a 5 star hotel with visions of white sheets, fried chicken and watching tv in the bathroom…what we got was ahuge lobby filled with refugees. we got some free moble phones and finally contacted ria’s family and then mine in sweden. we also ate our first real meal since chritsmas dinner (we didnnt really eat any of the food we cooked on the temple) after an offer from the moblie phone guy to go back to his place (which we thankfully denied…we just couldnt move) we fell asleep on a couch. we were awoken by hotel staff and led to a ball room where thy had laid out king size beds with sheets and blankets an down pillows…that was the first time i felt i could let my gaurd down and began to really feel the weight of everything. we awoke, got some medical attention ( we were pretty banged up and we have some pretty awesome gashes all over us from the floating debris)…we had the sense enough to get some disinfectant on our wounds as soon as we were in the house during the while ordeal. after some more free food we made our way to the airport hotel, which was the one place we had reserved for the trip because getting to the columbo airpot is hell on a good day… we arrived, washed clothes and finally ourselves (you could say we smelled like homeless peole after two day in dried sewage water clothing). I went down to the landlady for some sandwiches in a towel…and she asked me to check on a guest with her who went to bed the night before ,an elderly gentlman, wh had not come out all day. We wnet into his roomto find a very bloated and stiff dead man…obviously a diabetic with his syringe and insulin vials all over the bed…it was just too much on top of all this we were worrying about ria’s re endtry visa back into kuwait, so we didnt even know if she would be allowed to board the plane, be allowed out in kuwait or what… we are home now, i am done now, i need to bed…sorry for typos and the lack of elloquence…I had to get this all out once…please don’t be upset if we done write back to you right way…we are just done right now we are very lucky to be alive…i cannot tell you how devastaing this was to sri lanka. i really urge you all to do what you can…ria and I were really torn about leaving sri lanka…we wanted to stay and help, but we also had no more money and were worried about not getting her back in the country with me…we did what we could with the people we met…some how it jsut never seems enough. help if you can i can try to pass alond some info on some organizations that are trustable…don’t just give it to the government there…it wont get to where it needs to be we love you all and hope that this year is happy, lucky and healthy. we feel lucky to be alive…enjoy the year, the people you are with and the good food you eat peace and love
Ria and Ted
I am so happy that they are safe but saddened by the news that more ppl are dying or have been found dead.
peace and love to you all