Entry Five

JOURNAL ENTRY #5

My last day in Sri Lanka. The time seems too short. It has flown too quickly.

The Tsunami makes news, and we pay attention. Yet when it is over, we return to life as we’d known it.

I stroll the beach…these sands that I have come to love. It will be my last evening here, and my last view of the glorious sunset.

I step closer to the water and let the foamy waves rush over my ankles. The tide comes in, and then out again. It is the force of Nature that pulls it; a force that seemed to spin out of control last December.

Here, standing alone, facing the horizon, I pull out my notepad to scribble more into my journal. But I cannot find the words to express how I feel about this whole experience. I have seen a part of the world that reflects the pain of man. I have journeyed through a tear-shaped land that represents this planet’s cry for salvation.

And I cannot help but feel that no matter where the wind takes me, no matter where I see the suffering and strife, no matter what culture I come into contact with, this heart-cry of man is the same the world over.

There is an overwhelming presence of the need for true happiness amongst the sea of humanity. There has been pain and conflict for too long. And for longer than that, we have been blaming the circumstances on God.

But does the fault really lie with Him?

The Tsunami makes news, and we pay attention. Yet when it is over, we return to life as we’d known it.

The rich keep getting richer; the poor, poorer. And not to undermine this December tragedy, but the truth is that the statistics of dead bodies left in the wake of the Tsunami equal the total amount of people who die in Africa EVERY week.

This is a horrific number. This is where the real disaster lies. I do not believe that the mass of fallen in Africa cannot be prevented. They die of AIDS, of ethnic cleansing, of starvation and tribal warfare. They die from unnatural causes that could be stopped, if only we cared enough to do something about it.

And this we know; yet we choose to close our eyes.

A line from Dicken’s Christmas Carol comes to mind: “…let them go ahead and die, and decrease the surplus population.”

How many Scrooges today echo this? I really wonder…

I turn and walk back to the beach restaurant. Thomas is sitting there. A balding man in his 40’s, I’d met him yesterday at this same beach. He is an Irish Tsunami survivor. In fact, his own stories had preceded him, and when I’d finally met him, there were so many questions I wanted to ask.

He’d escaped death by inches, literally. With just that much breathing space between him and the ceiling of the room he was trapped in, Thomas found himself busy for the next 48 hours, rescuing people from the water and helping those who needed medical attention.

Thomas is a doctor, you see.

When fate spared him, he opened the first operating hospital for Tsunami victims in the South of Sri Lanka. He is still here, living among the people. Here, where he is needed.

The world needs more people like him…

Thomas waves, and I join him for a chat. We speak of social matters, of traveling, of faith. He knows divine intervention played a key role in the fact that he is sitting here, a cold beer in hand, watching the perfection of this glowing red sun as it sinks to the sea line.

This man is not religious, but he has seen too much of life and death to deny the presence of a higher Power. He knows that something or Someone spared him so that he might give something good back.

An hour later, my host family joins me at the table. Tonight, after the children have gone to bed, I will leave for the airport. It is our last evening here at Mt. Lavinia Beach. I will take with me good memories; deep memories. There are some places in the world you can travel, even for just 24 hours, and the experiences you gather there will be forever etched in your mind and heart.

It will be like this when I leave Sri Lanka, I know. But it will be good to get back to Africa. There is something charmed about that continent. It has grown on me, and after only two years, I have come to call it home.

The sky casts a scarlet blanket over the sea. The sun has gone. Gone from my sight, but not gone forever. Tomorrow, we know, it will rise again.

It reminds me of the thousands of souls who disappeared with this sea. They are gone from their loved ones’ sight.

But like the sun, depending on what you believe, they are not gone forever…