Archive: March 2005
Fear of Another Tsunami
We got the news around 11 o'clock in the evening. It spread like wildfire. The radio reported that an earthquake measuring 8.2 on the Richter scale had happened near Sumatra. The president of Sri Lanka warned of an "impending disaster"...
By washingtonpost.com | March 30, 2005; 7:53 AM ET | Comments (11)
A New Bike
View Enlarged Photo and CaptionLife is looking up a little bit for Chathura Madhushanka, a 13-year-old boy who lost his mother and two siblings during the tsunami. For weeks after the tsunami, he hung out around the refugee camp, not...
By washingtonpost.com | March 28, 2005; 11:26 AM ET | Email a Comment
How to Speak Sinhalese
View Enlarged Photo and CaptionWhen Sri Lankans hear Sascha Gerbracht talking their beautiful, lilting language, their first impulse is to grin widely. The spectacle of a six-foot-tall German high school student with blazing red hair speaking fluent Sinhalese seems utterly...
By washingtonpost.com | March 22, 2005; 11:43 AM ET | Comments (13)
Tsunami Jitters
Sascha Gerbracht has agreed to keep us up-to-date with what's happening in Weligama. He is the 17-year-old son of Tom and Heike Gerbracht. He attends a Sinhalese school, and speaks fluent Sinhalese. I'll tell you more about him next week....
By washingtonpost.com | March 18, 2005; 8:55 AM ET | Comments (3)
Not So Crazy
View Enlarged Photo and CaptionI want to introduce you to the Gerbrachts. A one-time nightclub owner in Germany, Thomas Gerbracht arrived in Weligama 12 years ago and has since become one of the most successful organic farmers in Asia. Together...
By washingtonpost.com | March 15, 2005; 5:00 AM ET | Comments (6)
It IS That Simple
Here's some interesting reaction to my recent Outlook article from a group of people in the Washington, D.C., area who have made several trips to Sri Lanka to help tsunami victims. They are probably fairly typical of the many people...
By washingtonpost.com | March 9, 2005; 5:00 AM ET | Comments (3)
Girls Don't Swim, Part II
My posts on swimming, "Swimming in Sri Lanka" and "Girls Don't Swim," produced a lot of reader reaction. I estimated that four out of five tsunami victims, particularly women and children, were killed because they were unable to swim. As...
By washingtonpost.com | March 8, 2005; 5:00 AM ET | Comments (3)
Planning Some Changes
Now that I'm back in Washington, we're planning some changes to this blog. We will continue to keep track of how the relief effort is going in Weligama through contributions from local people, both Sri Lankan and foreign, in addition...
By washingtonpost.com | March 7, 2005; 9:10 AM ET | Email a Comment
My Princess, Have Patience
There's an exception to every rule, of course. While I have had many reservations about giving to individuals, I don't for one moment regret my spur-of-the-moment decision to buy a cassette recorder for Shyamali. View Enlarged Photo and CaptionIf you...
By washingtonpost.com | March 4, 2005; 11:00 AM ET | Comments (1)
School Uniforms
View Enlarged Photo and CaptionI've written (here, for example) about the difficulties of distributing aid and the envy and animosity it can sometimes provoke. But here is an example of a gift that is useful, appreciated, and economical -- and...
By washingtonpost.com | March 4, 2005; 5:00 AM ET | Email a Comment
An Old Russian Proverb
I have had some interesting reaction to my Outlook piece last Sunday, which you can see here, describing some of the unexpected challenges I ran into in Sri Lanka. Readers experienced in development work said they could relate to my...
By washingtonpost.com | March 3, 2005; 5:00 AM ET | Email a Comment
Tsunami Video Shows Chaos, Theft
The day after the tsunami, I traveled with my family from Weligama to the nearby town of Galle. More than 200 people had been killed at the bus station alone, a scene I described in an article I wrote for...
By washingtonpost.com | March 2, 2005; 5:00 AM ET | Email a Comment
Celebrity No Show
Of course, one man's celebrity is another man's nonentity. On February 17, Sting and Mrs. Sting lunched at Taprobane. A week before that, everybody here was very excited because Shane Warne was expected at a charity dinner in Galle to...
By washingtonpost.com | March 1, 2005; 5:00 AM ET | Email a Comment
