Talking under a Tamarind tree

I arrived late  yesterday afternoon (Wednesday 23 March) in Vavuniya, northern Sri Lanka, en route to Kilinochchi where the Red Cross is running an integrated post conflict recovery programme for 5000 families badly affected by the 30 years conflict.

When I came home from the office last night,  I got an email from my good friend Yasuo Tanaka who returned to Japan on the day of the earthquake, as his Mother was seriously ill. He gave me the sad news his mother had died. Yasuo was my desk officer when I worked in Afghanistan in the mid-nineties, and we have become good friends over the years. Now he is having to cope not only with the death of his mother, but in working together with his Japanese Red Cross colleagues in the huge Rded Cross relief and recovery efforts.

This morning on waking up before daybreak, I checked my email before our planned 6.30 am start to Kilinochchi, to discover an email from my daughter in New Zealand. It read:

Brian has been found and his funeral is to be held at the Aurora Center next Thursday 2pm.

Good closure to know his where abouts.

Brian Taylor was in the Canterbury TV building in Christchurch on 22 February when that fateful earthquake occured killing over 200 people. He was my athletics coach and my best friend as a teenager, and we remained close friends all our lives.

I have been surrounded by death and destruction during a long Red Cross career, but when close friends die, the kick or the wrench is very painful. To Yasuo I send my heartfelt condolences on the death out your beloved Mother.

To Prue Taylor, sons and Suzanne, Brian's sister, I know you came to the realization Brian is dead, but to have found his body, brings the start of closure, but does not ease the pain.

I left at 6.30 am, somewhat heavy in heart, but knowing that I was travelling to Kilinochchi, where the Red Cross, the Government, the UN and many other humanitarian organistions are working is a coordinated manner to rebuild the lives of hundreds of thousands of people whose families, homes, villages, livelihoods were ruined by a cruel, 30 year long war. Virtually every family in the north lost a family member, many two or three. The destruction and the trauma caused  during the protracted conflict is indescribeable.

But the joy of travelling north this morning and seeing paddy fields with rice soon to be harvested, children everywhere going to new or repaired schools, new roads, water and electricity supplies reaching out to remote corners, and people getting their lives back together.

The Red Cross is playing a crucial role.

Seeing Vimala Rani and her family today showed me that we have got our recovery formula right, as the houses are going up quickly, they have toilets and water, and we are now providing livelihood training and financial support.

When I first went to her village, Vivekanandanagar in June last year, it was a scene of desperation. People living in tents, tarpualins or under very basic make shift shelter. Vimala and her family lived in a hovel. It is my fifth visit to her village where her new Red Cross house is one of 300 others that we built in the village. here is an aura of well being and happiness everywhere I looked..

Vimala has five children, her eldest on her right is training as a nurse and the next, 16, is doing well at high school. The young boy is her sister's son.

When I asked her about her life now, an uncontrollable smile swept her face, and was fixed there for minutes. She took Thiru, Zafran and I inside and showed us around. It was beautifully finshed with hard wood window frames, smoothly finished cement walls and floors, and lots of room.

Owner-driven houses allow people to build a core house, and they plan or dream of adding on to it.
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Vimala Rani's house. A widower who has had to struggle to rebuild her life, now has a strong, airy and roomy house for her and her five children. Her old temporary shelter is on the extreme left. Photo: Bob Mckerrow

My day finished with visiting two villages where we are building 600 houses, going to a livelihood workshop where 100 villagers are deciding how to make an income from either agriculture (land), animal husbandry or small businesses. We run workshops where we provide expertise along with a livelihood grant.

Talking under a Tamarind tree:  Village people from Vivekanandanagar village where they have 300 new houses built by Sri Lanka Red Cross, and funded by German Red  Cross. Here, they discuss how to improve their family livelihoods with RC funding. Photo: Bob Mckerrow

As I sat under the peaceful Tamarind tree in Kilinochchi, I thought of my dear friend Brian Taylor, and the pain his family must be feeling. Had things worked out, we would have been in Sri Lanka together this month where he would have been coaching young aspirant athletic champions. I will think of this Tamarind tree as your Turangawaewae Brian, and your memory will be here forever. RIP, my beloved friend.