The Third Wave

by Alison Thompson

  To leave as helpers and to return as thieves was insulting and heartbreaking. I suppose that gossip and lies are an everyday way of life for many people, but I never got used to their behavior. We tried to stay focused on the bigger picture.

  The news about Tsunami-dog was also disturbing. Ever since I had cleaned her up, every male dog in the village wanted a piece of her. She had gotten pregnant shortly before I left, and the puppies had been born while I was away. So as soon as I got back from New York, I raced over to the caretakers’ house to find her and her babies. At first I thought she didn’t recognize me, because she didn’t move when I entered the room and called her name. But then she gave me a few sniffs and our love was rekindled. I was furious to see that she was exhausted and undernourished. It looked like the family hadn’t been feeding her. In the corner sat her eight puppies, crammed into a small, cruel cage. At least the puppies resembled the junkyard dog that had followed her everywhere. It put me at ease knowing that her boyfriend would help defend her and her babies in the coming months.

  Once Oscar and I had settled in, we saw that many of the NGOs had left, and the aid trucks had stopped coming. Monsoon rains had started, so tourism was nonexistent and the economy was suffering. It was a ghost town. Oscar and I were now the only volunteers left in Peraliya, with very few people working in town and other villages along the coast. An insecure feeling lingered in the air. The neediness in the village had escalated and sad letters asking for money jumped into my hands daily. Some people had begun begging near the train station. In addition, the dangers of the area were becoming more visible, as local tribes had gone back to fighting one another.

  On the other hand, there were some bright points of light. Dr. Stein had started breaking ground on the new medical center, and I was thrilled with the thought of the villagers receiving free healthcare. Sebastian, one of our early volunteers, was still working as a doctor down the coast doing great work. In his spare time, he started to operate on the sick and dying animals all around him. And CTEC, where I planned to focus my attention now that I was back, was coming along very well.

  Upon my arrival at the tsunami center, the CTEC officers lined up in full uniform against the wall, saluting me as I walked past. I noticed that the walls were now filled with world maps, and books about earthquakes lay on the tabletops. Dr. Novil, my co-founder, told me that he had been busy teaching the new tsunami officers about disaster preparedness and had also been learning about it himself. They practiced evacuation drills daily. They had erected signs along the roads marking safe exit routes leading to higher ground, and warning people about dead-end streets. The CTEC officers made these road signs by hand, spending hundreds of hours creating them. In addition, they made flyers with information about the tsunami center and distributed them to all the villagers in the region.

  On that first day back, we had to stop our meeting twice when false tsunami scares sent villagers fleeing into the jungle. At first I thought these were drills the officers had organized to show me their skills, but in fact they were real tsunami scares. The CTEC officers dutifully checked their computers, then made their rounds through the villages, reassuring everyone that it had been a false alarm and that they could stay in their homes. Watching the team in action made me so proud. I thanked Dr. Novil and the officers for their hard work. Later that week, Telstra donated ten new cellphones to our cause.

  Word about CTEC was spreading all over Sri Lanka. The police, the Navy, and other members of the military would stop by regularly to check on false tsunami reports. Shortly after the Nicobar earthquake, CTEC received letters from the United Nations officially endorsing the center and one from the minister of social services thanking them on behalf of the Sri Lankan government.

  These were strange times in Sri Lanka, ones that made us shake our heads in confusion. So many amazing things were happening, but there were also so many deceptive schemes at work. I was learning that the aid business was a dirty one. I saw how the NGOs and villagers were each trying to take advantage of the other. One of our doctors summed it up especially well: He said that it was more honorable to be an arms dealer than to be in the aid business. The arms dealer says, “I have a gun, do you want to buy it?” He has no hidden agenda. Aid groups, on the other hand, would sometimes misuse and redirect funds in ways that made my blood boil, all in the name of helping people.

  The corruption hadn’t started with this latest tsunami; it had been going on for decades. But it was magnified by the disaster. I saw villagers begging for new boats, and then turning around and selling them for cash as soon as the aid group had left. Then, a month later, they would beg the next aid group to buy them a boat. Some families received six boats and four houses in that way. Aid groups usually stayed for only two to three weeks before a new team came in to take their place. The new people wouldn’t know the villagers and would innocently go forward to help them. As a result, the cunning were getting richer while the honest folks were still waiting for aid. The ones who spoke English received more aid than those who spoke only Sinhalese. Our job was to weed through the lies to find the truths, but it was becoming harder every day.

  On the other side of the fence, the NGOs were highly accountable to their donors. In a rush to fulfill that need, some took photos of projects that weren’t their own, including ours. I visited websites where NGOs declared that they had rebuilt 2,000 homes when in reality none had been started. One group even had the nerve to post a photo of our hospital on their website. You can imagine my shock when I found it. While NGOs got mired in swamps of paperwork, people truly suffered and millions of tsunami aid dollars sat around in bank accounts and got redirected to other causes. That, in my mind, was the worst crime of all. Of course, there were also some NGOs doing great work, as well as many smaller volunteer groups that offered tremendous help.

  CHAPTER 11

  For the past thirty years, the Sri Lankan government had been involved in an ugly civil war against the Tamil Tiger rebels. When the tsunami hit, some of the worst damage was in the northern region of the country, which was the stronghold of the Tamil Army. Thankfully, this brought about a cease-fire in order to get aid into the region. But the peace rapidly dissolved into mistrust, and as the months passed, suicide bombings and attacks were on the rise again.

  Oscar had returned to training his soccer team, which gave him the idea of holding a soccer match against a Tamil team in Jaffna, on the front lines of the war zone. It was a fantastic and outrageous idea, like getting an Israeli team to play soccer against Hamas in Gaza. I was all for it.

  We started out by visiting the heads of the Sri Lankan Soccer Federation and FIFA, the international soccer governing association, in Colombo to get the go-ahead for the match. The officials looked at Oscar as if he had two heads when he proposed his idea, but he kept insisting, and they gave their consent. Oscar then visited the players’ homes to gain permission from their parents to come on the trip. He lined up everything on our end.

  But two major obstacles still lay ahead, and they required us to fly up to the front lines of the war zone. First, we had to get the support of the Sri Lankan military commanders in the region. Second, we had to meet with Tamil Tiger leaders to ask if we could play a match against them on their territory.

  We flew into the Sri Lankan Air Force base in Jaffna. An Army captain we had known from Galle who was now stationed there picked us up. We jumped into his jeep filled with snipers carrying submachine guns and drove through deserted war zones to an Army base. There, a Sri Lankan Army general met with us to discuss the soccer match. The general was excited about the game’s potential to build goodwill, but he wanted us to hold the game on the Army base. He thought it would be too dangerous for us to play on Tamil territory, as anyone in the crowd could start throwing grenades at any moment.

  Oscar agreed to have his Galle team play one soccer match against the Army team on the Army base there in Jaffna. However, he insisted that his team also be permitted to play a game ag
ainst the Tamil team on Tamil terroritory, presuming we could get the okay from the Tamil leaders. After a great deal of discussion, the general reluctantly conceded to Oscar’s plan. However, he made it clear that his men would not be responsible for our safety when we crossed enemy lines.

  With that approval out of the way, we went to meet the Tamil Tiger terrorists to arrange the game against their team. The Army escorted us to a hotel in Jaffna, where we hung around for hours waiting for some sort of contact. Finally, a group of official-looking men in white shirts and ties showed up. We sat drinking tea and discussing the game. They spoke with one another and made phone calls, clearly assessing us all the while.

  Then, in a quick turn of events, the men urged us to follow them to their van and we obeyed. Looking back, we were extremely foolish to go with them. It was the equivalent of an unplanned meeting with al-Qaeda. But we had no agenda other than to play soccer, so we felt no fear.

  We traveled a long way with the Tamils, passing through many Sri Lankan Army checkpoints. At each stop, the van was thoroughly searched. I observed that some of the men who were traveling with us had missing arms or legs and bullet scars on exposed body parts. Eventually we came to a Tamil Tiger checkpoint. After the van had been searched once more, the driver pulled up to the back of a house. The men instructed us to leave our bags in the vehicle and follow them. Men with Uzi submachine guns surrounded us as we walked out into the middle of a green field to a large, shady tree. Under the tree sat two nicely dressed, athletic men with 9mm guns tied around their waists, surrounded by men with even larger guns.

  The well-dressed gentlemen invited us to sit down, and the soccer discussions began again. The Tamil Tigers’ main concern was that the Sri Lankan Army should stay away. After three hours of discussion, we agreed to trust the Tamil leaders’ word that they wouldn’t interfere with the game or with our players if we arrived for the match unprotected. We rose and shook firm hands, and the van raced us back to Jaffna before nightfall.

  We visited the Sri Lankan Army general the next day and told him the news: Our Galle team would play a match in Tamil territory against a Tamil team with no Army presence. The general agreed to stay away, but hinted that he would have an undercover unit hiding somewhere nearby just in case anything went wrong. Oscar and I were ecstatic. We couldn’t wait for the games to begin, but first we still had quite a bit of work to do and funds to raise.

  Plans for the historic soccer matches, which we had decided to call Football Without Boundaries, came together when we received much-needed funding from Mr. Kiha Pimental of Hawaii via our friend Doug Kennedy. Then, a week before our big event was scheduled to take place, the Sri Lankan foreign minister was assassinated in his own home. The government declared a state of emergency and the country came to a standstill. Naturally, they blamed the Tamil Tigers for the incident. We nervously awaited news, wondering if our game would be canceled. I told Oscar not to be intimidated by the assassination. I felt strongly that if we didn’t go on with our lives and activities, the terrorists would win.

  On August 22, 2005, eight months after the tsunami struck Sri Lanka, Oscar, James, and I sat on a bus with a team of excited Peraliya soccer players who were singing their lungs out. The Sri Lankan military had given us the go-ahead for the soccer tournament. I was the only female in our group. We had brought Dr. Novil along as the team doctor, and the two of us discussed emergency procedures just in case we found ourselves in the middle of a bloody massacre. An older American volunteer named Buddy had joined to help me shoot some footage of the games, as Sunil had been too sick to join us (or so he said—perhaps he felt it was too risky to come). James, the British journalist volunteer who had helped us in the early days, still flew in and out of Sri Lanka often. He came in from London specially to watch the match and donate jerseys from the Leeds United soccer team.

  When we arrived at the gate of the Sri Lankan Air Force base in Galle, where we were to load the plane for Jaffna, the singing stopped. A hush fell over the bus and tensions rose as the players confronted the serious side of this expedition. The airplane ride to Jaffna was tense. When we landed at the Air Force base, Army guards with Uzi submachine guns whisked us onto a bus and drove us through deserted towns and overgrown vegetation to a small hotel for a short rest.

  Our first game was against the Tamil team on Tamil territory. We rode a bus out to their stadium without any military protection, unloaded quietly, and nervously approached the arena. There we saw thousands of bicycles parked outside, as well as one United Nations peacekeeping jeep. The huge Tamil players formed a line outside the stadium to welcome us. For the first time in thirty years, the two enemies shook hands. Many of the players had had family members killed by relatives of the opposing team. They sized one another up, then the Tamils ushered us into a small changing room where the players could prepare themselves for a different sort of war.

  The Sri Lankan and Tamil Tiger soccer teams shaking hands before the game

  When our little homegrown soccer team walked out onto the field ready to play, there were 4,000 men standing around waiting for the game, which was now behind schedule. The Tamil mayor and the head of the Jaffna Soccer Federation made welcome speeches and placed beautiful flowers around Oscar’s neck. The referee came out onto the field and I noticed that he was one of the Tamil Tiger terrorists from the negotiations the week before. He was as strong as a bull and quite a good-looking, rugged man. I found myself blushing as we met eye to eye. I had a thing for warriors. But one point was clear: We wouldn’t be arguing with his calls.

  The players did a brief warm-up and then it was game on. The Tamil players were taller and a lot older than our players, but they were all good fighting machines. The crowd watched quietly, careful not to betray which side they were rooting for just in case the secret police were nearby. Oscar ran up and down the sidelines screaming his head off like a crazy Sicilian soccer coach. James sat in a chair on the sidelines playing the English commentator. “They are too bloody good!” he yelled out in a stiff British accent. Dr. Novil attended to a player who had just passed out.

  I scanned the crowd for potential trouble and saw that Buddy had gone missing. He had offered to shoot the game on my little video camera, assuring me that he had been the video guy at his church. What I didn’t know was that Buddy was a heavy drinker and had started boozing at breakfast. By now he was toast. I found him passed out under a tree, his mind dancing with mermaids, and I took over filming the game myself. Later, when we looked at his footage, we saw a lot of images of ground and sky.

  It was a great game and both sides played well, while the civil war was put on hold for ninety minutes. The opposing Tamil team won 3–0, but I’d never been to a sporting event where I had wanted the other team to win more. Not because I didn’t think we would get out alive if we won, but simply because they needed it more. The Tamil team showed off their unrepressed excitement by screaming chants and holding the huge silver trophy Oscar had brought high in the air. Our losing Sinhalese players sat around in disappointment. But back on the bus, Oscar told them he was proud of them and spoke about its being a historic day for Sri Lanka with the two enemies coming together for one common reason.

  We held a party for both teams back at our hotel in Jaffna. Oscar gave everyone Football Without Boundaries T-shirts to wear, and the spirit of unity continued on into the night as we all wore matching shirts and celebrated together. The Sinhalese sang traditional songs in their language and the Tamil sang songs back in their language. James, Oscar, and I looked at one another in sheer amazement, relishing the fact that we had pulled off this event without bloodshed. The Tamil terrorists and the Sri Lankan generals had held true to their word and stayed away.

  The players started to get drunk, and the Tamil leaders thought it best to quit while we were ahead. As they left, they told us that they had never had a game or celebration like this in their lives. They were giddy with happiness. Now that the special day and night were over, they ha
d to work out a way to sneak back across the borders without being captured. I blushed at the cute Tamil referee as he said good-bye, and watched him walk out of my life.

  The next day, we woke up early and traveled by military escort to the large base where we would be playing the Sri Lankan Army team. The whole Army had turned out to watch. Thousands of the corps and engineers stood around the field in the roasting sun, while the commandos, generals, and other high-ranking officials sat under the trees in full uniform and maroon berets. The event was charming and civilized. We ate tiny tea sandwiches served by men wearing white gloves, a ritual left over from the British colonial days. With so many people watching the game, I wondered if anyone was left out there to fight the war.

  From the moment the game began, it became apparent that we were the stronger team. By the second half, we were so far ahead that I walked over to Oscar and told him to take it easy so as not to embarrass our hosts. Oscar pulled some of the better players from the field and let the weaker ones have a go. Still, we won the game 5–0.

  After the match, we met with more generals, and then were taken to a special holding area. It was a garden with a huge tree in the middle of it. I think they put us there to protect us until our plane left. We drank and ate to our hearts’ content and soon the players began break-dancing.

  CHAPTER 12

  Before Oscar and I had left for New York, my cousin Christine had given Chamilla $1,000 to start a communications center that sold fresh smoothies, which she called the Tsunami Juice Café. She used the money to buy a fax machine, blenders, and outdoor tables and chairs. Oscar and I were pleased to frequent the business when we returned to Peraliya, feeling happy for Chamilla’s new lease on life. I was on a tight budget, as always, living off small donations from my family and friends, so I couldn’t invest any money in Chamilla’s cause. But I always directed new volunteers and visitors to her café, and I’d stop by as often as I could. Instead of paying forty cents for an item, I would leave five dollars on the table. It wasn’t much, but it was all I could afford, and I certainly thought Chamilla would see it as a gesture of goodwill.