T-25, Thursday, January 20, 2005

Today I spent most of the day running around getting ready to go to Trincomalee, though I am planning on leaving tomorrow night. I also spent part of the morning at VolunteerSriLanka.

After lunch I headed to the bus station to find a ticket. I think I found what I was looking for though I have my doubts. When I was here before I took an express luxury bus between Trinco and Colombo. While not very impressive by “Western” standards, it is a step up from the “chicken” buses that most people take here. If my memory serves, the AC works, the chairs are padded, and the road to Trinco is horrible.

I got this guy trying to follow me around at the bus station who didn’t speak any English (and really needed a bath) who kept trying to get me on different buses. I finally found someone who spoke good English and said I could buy a ticket for the special bus I was looking for. But I wasn’t 100% sure so I decided to wait until the day I actually left (currently planned for tomorrow) to buy the ticket.

After that I went to a Dr. recommended by Brenda Barrett, the USAID-OTI person I will be staying with initially in Trinco (and who is a PhD student at the Tulane University Payson Center, where I got my Masters). I went intending to get my Japanese Encephalitis vaccination, but apparently I wasn’t as up to date on my vaccinations as I thought I was. I got four shots today (two in each arm – fun), and I need to come back in two weeks for two boosters!

Before heading back home, I went shirt shopping. I assume I will need to dress up most of the time (at least a button up shirt). I brought a few with me but since I will probably either be sending my clothes to a laundry or hand washing them in Trinco, I will need numerous sets so I have plenty to wear in the days the laundry is being done.

I went to the clothes market, and managed to find 6 nice button-up shirts in my size for about US $5 each! Sri Lanka after all is a major exporter of clothes to the US and Europe.

I also picked up the indispensable survival guide for any traveler, the most recent edition of Lonely Planet. I just wonder how much no longer applies following the tsunami.

T-23, Tuesday, January 18, 2005

I slept in a little today, the first real opportunity I have had to take a break from the breakneck schedule I have kept since arriving. The first thing I had on my schedule was the 10 am 2nd GIS Coordination meeting, which was held at the International Water Management Institute, (IWMI).

This meeting went fairly well. It is the last meeting that MapAction will be attending – the last two staffers are leaving this week. I offered my input several times, I hope with a positive effect. The Surveyor General also spoke up more than the last meeting and seemed to have more ownership of the process now, which is really needed with MapAction handing over everything to the Surveyor General’s office. There were also several representatives from the UN today. All in all, the meeting again lasted over two hours.

I had the opportunity to briefly mention to the Surveyor General the possibility of Microsoft assisting in some way with the GIS coordination, but with me leaving town soon, I am afraid nothing will come of it because no one will push the issue.

After the meeting, I went to lunch with Hugh Turral (IWMI), Tod and Sylvie from MapAction, and two of the guys from the 4x4 Club.

The rest of the day I spent running personal chores, doing laundy, etc., the kind of stuff that I has been swept under the rug since I got here. However, I did speak with Brenda Barrett, the USAID-OTI officer in Trincomalee, about the project and what I would be doing. We hope that I can be out there and in place by Monday, even if the project hasn’t started. Brenda tells me that GTZ, German Technical Cooperation agency, needs someone to work with the Government Agent’s office in Trinco in a coordination role, and I might fit the job. I would continue supporting the USAID GIS project as well as serving with the District coordination team. GTZ is interested in having me come out asap and getting to work as soon as possible.

Photos from a day trip surveying IDP Camps south of Colombo

This is Indika Perera of the 4x4 Club of Sri Lanka obtaining basic information on the first camp of IDPs (Internally Displaced People) affected by the Tsunami. They are staying in a Buddhist Temple.

These are some of the families of IDPs who were displaced by the tsunami and are staying in the first camp we visited.

This mother and her two young daughters are standing in front of what used to be their home, located about 100m from the seashore. They are currently staying at a large Buddhist Camp several hundred meters farther inland.

This is a photo of Indika's Landrover in one of the IDP camps we visited, a Buddhist Temples being used by IDPs as temporary shelter.

This is a view out of the Landrover of some of the damage caused by the tsunami. The wall on the right side of the street was completely knocked over. This is several hundred meters from the seashore.

This is a brief view of a medical assistance camp established and operated by the Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross/Red Crescent organization. They were assisting several of the camps we visited in the area, providing basic needs as well as medicial assistance.

T-21

I have decided that at the pace I am going, I will never tell the whole story, so I am going to pick out what I consider the more interesting days, and post those so that you (the reader) has something to read!

Today was an awesome day! I finally got to go out into the field. Till now I have been working almost exclusively with VolunteerSriLanka.org (VSL), primarily as their webdeveloper, though I have no real previous webdesign experience. So I have been in Colombo since I arrived, spending my time at the World Trade Centre in Microsoft’s office, which is hosting VSL.

But today was different. Hugh Turral from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), had followed up on my lead for the 4x4 Club and had got them in touch with the MapAction group. Yesterday, Saturday, one of the 4x4 Club members had gone down south on a trip, and had agreed to map out as many IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camps as possible, and do a quick survey to find out how many people are in them, what they have and need, etc.

Today, two other members of the 4x4 Club offered to do the same, but closer to Colombo, only about an hour south, and they had invited me along for the ride, so I went with them.

I went in a Landrover owned by Indika Perera. His father-in-law, a former Sri Lankan diplomat, also came along. It was an awesome trip.

In total, we visited about a dozen camps in one District, a Sri Lankan administrative unit. Some of the photos I took are on the blog.

We first visited the District Secretary’s office, the local government official. He was quite glad for our assistance and quickly gave us the details they had for the camps that were existing in the District, including a map they had drawn by hand.

The first camp we went to, I was very much the white guy in a Land Rover. Everyone rushed over to see what was going on, what we were bringing, etc. But Indika and his father-in-law quickly took over and did an excellent job of getting the data.

At the second camp, quite a crowd also showed up, but about half of them dispersed once they found out we were not handing anything out. We then told that most of those who had gone were not actually tsunami affected people living in the camps, but had just come to get free handouts!

Some of the camps were in fairly good condition, with regular visits and assistance from NGOs, the government, etc., but others were not. Many of the camps are located in Buddhist Temples, while a few are located in government facilities, like schools. The people staying in schools are in the process of being relocated because the schools need to reopen. Luckily the tsunami struck during the Christmas break so schools were not being used, but the semester has already started and they need to get the kids back in school so they don’t lose anymore time.

I was struck by the devastion we saw. I think when I go to Trincomalee, I will be affected even more because I have something to compare it too, while here I just see the devastion but don’t know what it looked like before.

It was very strange – many of the areas we visited the destruction seemed almost whimisical – one housed would be a pile of rubble, and the one next to it would be fine. This area was actually only affected compared to further south. I can’t even begin to imagine what that is like.

After we got back, I had dinner with the MapAction people still here. It was a nice little seafood restaurant that I had eaten at when I was here before. And at dinner I had my first discussion on why I don’t drink alchohol, coffee or tea, or smoke.

T-16

I ran in first thing this morning to make myself business cards (I had actually tried last night but they had already closed by the time we got there). Business cards are a critical part of the business environment here (and I believe in many other countries). When you walk into a meeting or meet new people it is almost like an old western showdown to see who can draw first.

I had wanted to leave early this morning to get the business cards made, at 7:30am, because there was the 10am GIS (Geospatial Information System???) coordination meeting at the Surveyor General’s office. This was going to be the first real meeting I would be attending, and I really wanted to have some sort of business cad since I will be working with GIS and I would be making a lot of important contacts with whom I will be working further down the line.

However, despite my best intentions, today was the second day of classes for the local schools and there was a lot of traffic at this time of day as parents dropped of their children. It was a very sweet site seeing parents walking their children to school – the always made sure to hold their hands to keep them close (or in some cases drag them along!).

We still made it to the business card place with plenty of time. I printed some very simple business cards – they include my name, education (MS International Development), local cell phone number and e-mail. At this point, that is actually all I have! Until I start working on the project and I am able to talk some more with the people involved in the project, I don’t know what position I will be working on or how to represent myself! As I said, it is a vital social skill having business cards here. It at least makes me look official (the rest I will just have to make up as I go along).

The 10 am coordination meeting/workshop at the Surveyor General’s office had a good selection or cross-cut of people there. There were representatives of different ministries and government agencies, several professors from Universities, EMSO (the ESRI reps), the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), and MapAction (and myself). There was a particularly large contingent from the University of Peradineya which is in the city of Kandy – the professor who will be heading the GIS project I will be working on was there, and I finally got to meet him in person.

A lot of the people though were very soft spoken and I had a hard time hearing. But I think the meeting was productive. MapAction, which has taken the lead till now but is pulling out tomorrow, ran most of the show as they went over what they had done to date. The general consensus was reached that a central clearing house of GPS data needs to be established with full public access to avoid duplication of efforts, as well as to create a list of all available resources held by different organizations and individuals, which would be coordinated by the Surveyor General’s office.

Sadly, there was some friction between some of the government agencies and universities. And some people really got off on tangents – the meeting ran over two hours. After the meeting was over, I finally got to meet Ram Alagan, the professor from Peradineya University who will be working on the Trinco project with me. We had a good talk and I got a better grasp of what the project will entail – the project will be a damage and needs assessment of one village, Kinniya, south of Trinco, and will be focused on local community participation and input, rather than driven from the top down.

After the meeting was over, I went out with a bunch of professors from Peradineya who all deal with GIS and are anxious to see GIS become a significant tool in responding to the Tsunami disaster. They are talking about suspending classes to send all the students out into the field for damage assessment trips, etc. Of all places we could go, the professors, who are Sri Lankan, chose to go to Pizza Hut!

One of the main concerns at the GIS Coordination Meeting was data collection, how it would be done and who would do it. For example, IWMI (The International Water Management Institution, an International NGO based out of Colombo) who had been coordinating with MapAction and will continue to assist in the short term after MapAction leaves, has been able to collect only 11 GPS units.

I did have an interesting development later in the day though. A volunteer at VolunteerSriLanka.org, who knew I was working with GPS, had given me a contact (her brother) who belongs to a local club called the 4x4 Club. These are a bunch of local businessmen (mostly directors or senior officers in the businesses) who own 4 Wheel Drive vehicles and like to take them offroading. After lunch, I met up with a couple of the guys from the 4x4 Club. In the initial days after the Tsunami they had been involved in getting relief supplies to some areas that were completely cut off because bridges and roads were destroyed or impassable. But after that initial period, after temporary bridges were in place and the roads were cleared, people kept asking the 4x4 Club to make deliveries and they couldn’t help but feel that they were turning into glorified chauffeurs.

The 4x4 Club is very interested in continuing to contribute to the disaster response, but they want to feel like they are making a worthwhile contribution that matches their unique abilities and resources with a specific demand. And this is where I (and GIS/GPS) come in. When the 4x4 Club goes offroading, they regularly use GPS Units to track where they are (they often just go driving off into the Jungle!). And they have a guaranteed means of transportation. So on my own prerogative and with no authority whatsoever, I explained what was going on with GIS mapping, and how I thought the 4x4 Club could contribute by going out and taking GIS coordinates, surveying IDP camps, etc. These guys were really enthusiastic and want to help – they really bought into the idea of helping out with GPS. It was a very positive meeting.

Later that evening, there was a farewell party for the MapAction team who are shipping out tomorrow (two members will remain – one who has been here for about a week, Sylvie, and another, Toby, who just arrived this evening).

At the reception, I met Hugh Turral, who works at IWMI and is helping in the GIS coordination. He had been at the coordination meeting earlier in the day, but I hadn’t been able to talk to him earlier. I told him about the 4x4 Club and passed off their contact information to him, since he was helping to look for GPS Units and Mobile Teams to do mapping work. I hope they can be put to good use.

T-15

I had a 10:00 am meeting with Laurie Pierce, CoP, USAID/OTI, in Colombo. Tod’s trishaw (Rickshaw/Three Wheeler) driver took me and dropped me off. The meeting was very positive: Laurie and I chatted for about ½ hour going over the expected OTI projects as well as discussing the ongoing ethno-political issues. There is particular concern that the Trincomalee area (the North Eastern region of Sri Lanka) is a hotspot of tension and could be the flashpoint for renewed conflict. Before the tsunami, several incidents had occurred in the area; OTI had been forced to temporarily close their Trinco office on several occasions. In fact, before the tsunami, the general consensus was that the country was sliding back towards civil conflict. Initially, right after the disaster, there were a few reported cases of good will and cooperation between the Sinhalese and Tamil communities in the south (or Government of Sri Lanka – GoSL – and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam – LTTE), but that quickly ended, or at least I have not heard anything since. There has been some surprise at how quickly the situation concerning the relationship between the different ethnic communities has returned to the status quo: in military jargon, SNAFU.

While Laurie and I were talking, she received a text message alerting her that a Cyclone was bearing down on the eastern coast within the next 24 hours – what a mess! Sri Lanka is really taking a pounding. (As an aside, text messaging is something I am going to have to get use to doing here – everyone uses it, even my trishaw driver!) To finish, Laurie cautioned me with good advice: be observant of the situation and be very sensitive, people are starting to get over the shock of what happened and are becoming increasingly on edge as they process the impacts on their lives and everything else.

Today was also the first day of the school year for most of Sri Lanka. This is important because schools are being used in areas affected by the tsunami as shelters for IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons), and many of those killed were children (13,000 of the more than 30,000 estimated killed at this point). Because of the urgent need to start the school term on time and return as much of a normal routine as possible to the children’s’ lives, the government is attempting to relocate the IDPs in schools to either other camps or encouraging them to return to their place of origin if possible (some peoples’ houses were hit by the tsunami but did not suffer serious structural damage – rather the people have been reluctant to return for fear of another tsunami or are simply trying to overcome the trauma of the experience, etc). Schools in the East (the most affected area) have been delayed until at least the 20th of this month.

After my meeting with Laurie, I went outside to meet my new, fulltime personal trishaw driver. Since the tsunami hit and Tod has become involved in the response, he has hired basically fulltime a trishaw driver, who is on call most of the day. Because Tod has meetings to attend, etc., and cannot guarantee me a ride when I need one, and I will be fairly busy while in Colombo, shuttling from meeting to meeting, Tod has arranged for another trishaw driver to meet me and work for me. Tod met this guy at some point in the last several weeks and made the mistake of giving his card to him. Now, he will not stop calling Tod to see if he needs a trishaw driver, so Tod decided to foist him off on me!

Well, I had this guy’s phone number and told him where to meet me, and I kept talking to him over the phone, but in 1 and ½ hours he never managed to find where I was. So I headed back to Tod’s place in a random trishaw because I had to grab some stuff I left there, and had Seeman (my trishaw driver) just meet me there.

While I was waiting for Seeman to show up from wherever he had managed to get himself lost to, I found a little street stand where I bought some of the local baked goods and ate that for lunch. They are just as spicy as I remember them being. I also had “Elephant” brand Cream Soda, which is the local Sri Lankan producer of soft drinks, and the only major competitor to Coke and Pepsi in the island.

After I had lunch, I finally hooked up with Seeman, and I began a quest for a Cholera vaccination. I visited a couple of locations but it was pretty fruitless – I visited a nice private hospital and a public institution catering to public health and visiting foreigners needing vaccines. Apparently, the Cholera vaccine is no longer available in Sri Lanka as of two or three years ago.

In the afternoon (all the previous stuff had taken me well past noon), I headed over for a drop by meeting at EMSO, the local ESRI representative and distributor (ESRI produces the software I will be using – ArcView for GIS, and ESRI-US had told me to get in touch with these guys here). The EMSO guys were awesome – very friendly and very helpful. I met with Mr. Eddie Appathurai and Mr. Thillai Nadaragan. They spent time with me discussing with me ongoing GIS projects and Sri Lanka, and particularly in Trinco. Apparently GIS has been used in the past by a couple of organizations in the Trinco area, and several are still doing so.

With regards to GIS activity in response to the tsunami, MapAction, a British volunteer NGO, came in to respond to the disaster at the request of the Sri Lankan government, and they have been heavily involved in GIS projects responding to the tsunami. But most of them will be shipping out this week (since they are all volunteers and have jobs back where they came from) and will be turning over their effort to the Surveyor General’s office, where I have been invited to a coordination meeting tomorrow.
After the meeting at EMSO, I went to get a reimbursement from Gulf Air for my travel expenses to and from the airport to pick up my delayed baggage. They were very helpful.

Immediately from there I headed over to the World Trade Center (WTC) where Microsoft has its local office, and out of which VolunteerSriLanka.org is based (VSL).

At VSL, I finally met Mark Ratnavira, a British Sri Lankan who is managing the day to day operations of VSL. He was the one Tod turned to, to give me an idea of where I might get a Cholera vaccination. Mark was a very successful IT head hunter in England and now is volunteering his services to effectively match up the incoming volunteers and their respective skills with the local organizations that need the manpower.

An important step was taken this afternoon with regards to the long-term sustainability of VSL: Tod finally was able to sit down with the CHA (The Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies, an umbrella organization that is supposed to coordinate the efforts of the supposed 13,000+ NGOs in Sri Lanka, and now with the tsunami really has its work cut out). He presented the idea of VSL and got them to come on board and support the idea.

T-14

Sunday, January 9, 2005

Two weeks since the tsunami hit. In case I haven’t mentioned it earlier, the titles of my entries (T-14, etc.) are the count of how many days it has been since the tsunami hit. E.g. Two weeks today equals T-14.

Today was a little more relaxed than yesterday. We had a 10 am meeting with Laurie Pierce, the Chief of Party (CoP) for USAID/OTI (Office of Transition Initiatives). All of the OTI staff here are actually employees of DAI, a DC based International Development firm (beltway bandit). We discussed several projects that Tod has been advising on: one involving a donation from IBM of several hundred laptops and who they are going to go to and they are going to do with them, another one dealing with an AID project to provide the local government officials (DSs) with desktop computers, a database project to coordinate incoming relief supplies and distribution, missing persons, etc.

After meeting with Laurie and one of her Sri Lankan staff members, we went for a late breakfast, early lunch, and then headed back to Microsoft. I answered some more e-mails from individuals interested in volunteering, and helped a little on designing the VSL (VolunteerSriLanka.org) logo – now I am an artist and a designer! Who knows what I will be asked to be next!

Then I spent time actually creating this blog – in case you haven’t been following the rate of my postings, I actually write most of my thoughts down in hardcopy in my journal, only when I find time later to actually type them am I able to post them on the blog – hence why several postings may appear in rapid succession or why there may be very large gaps between postings. If you are reading this, you already know, but the name of this, my first blog, is “Disasters and Developments with the Asia Tsunami” or dis-and-dat.myblog.com (get it? Dis (Disasters) and dat (Developments with the Asia Tsunami) – sorry, it was the best I could come up with.)

After I got the blog registered, if nothing else, I then headed out to the airport to get my luggage. My other goal in going to the airport was to check out the new VolunteerSriLanka welcome desk that is now active at the airport, as of last night. I wanted to see how it was going, and I also brought along a copy of the request we had faxed into the airport administrator's office listing the names of the volunteers who would be working today so that their would be no hassle for them at airport security. The desk was setup last night, having gotten official approval and authorization from the Centre for National Operations (CNO), the government authority created by the President’s office to respond to the tsunami. Volunteers staffed it all night long, but apparently no one actually signed up, which is a shame. I think that to some extent the number of volunteers just showing up has petered off a bit since the first few frantic days and hours – it is after all two weeks since the disaster. But apparently there were some people who stopped by but refused to register.

When I actually got to the airport none of the volunteer staff were manning the desk because I arrived during a rather large gap between flights. Of course, to be able to get into the back working of the airport, both to retrieve my luggage and to check on the reception desk, I had to go to the security registration desk and sign in. They had no difficulty understanding that I was there to pick up my luggage, but then there a bit of confusion over the second item of business –making sure the airport manager had received the fax from VSL listing the names of the volunteers who would be working today. This was definitely an unknown variable for the poor security personnel – after some telephone tag, they finally ended up putting me on the phone with the airport manager’s office, who told me to get escorted in by security to the local temporary CNO office where all the representatives were stationed from all the ministries handling the disaster response, from the meeters and greeters welcoming foreign dignitaries and disaster relief teams, to the people handling incoming supplies and equipment.

After getting it straightened out, one of the very helpful but confused security guys escorted me through security. I convinced him that first we should go to the Airport Manager’s desk at the temporary disaster command center instead of going to get my luggage so we headed over that way. Except, once I got there, the people there were just as confused as the people at the security desk!

After several different tries explaining what I was doing, finally I talked to a guy from the Foreign Ministry who managed to get a call through to the Airport Manager. They then suggested that I go get my bags taken care of, which I did and without any problems at that. Sri Lankan Airlines is responsible for all lost luggage at the airport, even though I flew in on Gulf Airlines, and Sri Lankan Airlines staff were excellent.

After I got my luggage, I headed back to the CNO command center and again there was some confusion over what I was doing there. But finally the Airport Manager himself showed up, a very well spoken gentleman, who took me around and showed me where the VSL sign up desk was. After parting ways, I had to take my luggage through customs which required me declaring what I was bringing in, but it was not too much of a hassle. After that, I headed out and headed back to Tod’s place, where he was cooking dinner, which was nice.

One interesting step in VSL’s evolution today was that Tod Bruning got a call from the Foreign Ministry – all the Sri Lankan embassies/high commissions/consulates around the world will be disseminating VSL’s contact information to people interested in volunteering! (If anyone is interested, the website is www.VolunteerSriLanka.org). What a day.

T-13 (Thirteen Days Since the Tsunami)

I arrived in Colombo the capital of Sri Lanka this morning at about 6:30 am, flying in from Washington via Paris, where I had a 24 hour layover, then by way of Bahrain and Abu Dhabi. The airline flying from Paris only allowed 7 kilos of carry-on luggage so I was forced to check in one of my two carry-ons, which made it to Colombo without incident, but my luggage checked in Washington, including all my special equipment for the project and my survival equipment, missed the connection in Bahrain. Included in the missing luggage were several requests from Tod Bruning, the U.S. Fulbright Scholar in Colombo who would be my host for the first few days as I got my feet on the ground.

Luckily, my extensive international travel experience had got me in the habit of keeping several changes of clothes in my carry-ons, so I was taken care of for the immediate future. I also had the most important request from Tod in my carry on - he has been in Sri Lanka since October and asked me to bring him some Hershey Chocolate.

After I got through customs in Colombo, the first thing I did was get a SIM card for my cellular. I then hired a taxi at the airport and got directions from Tod on how to find his place - I found out later that this was his first real nights rest since the disaster struck as he had been helping with the response.

We were able to find Tod's house but only after a little wandering around: he lives relatively close to a main thoroughfare, but the side streets are rather twisting and confusing; even taxi drivers have difficulty unless they are from the area. Tod is renting an apartment joined to a larger house from a Sri Lankan family whose son's family had lived in the apartment before moving out. It is a beautiful apartment - it is on the second floor of the house, with all the sides open to the air, which allows a nice breeze to flow through the rooms, shaded by the looming trees in the yard. That is one thing I have liked about Sri Lanka since I arrived – the natural beauty and lush greenery that can be found here.

After I got to Tod’s we sat down and chatted for a while, a little to catch up, but mostly for me to get a feel on what was going on, what Tod had been doing, and how I could be helping in the next several days as I got ready to head up to Trincomalee in the North – East. Tod brought me up to speed and filled me in on what he had been doing since the disaster struck. As a Fulbright Scholar, Tod has been working with the ICTA ( ), on a project to help develop communications infrastructure and access in rural areas.

But when the disaster struck, Tod fell into a facilitator role, getting the people who had skills and assistance to offer in touch with the people who needed that assistance. He volunteered for a while with Sarvodaya, a local Sri Lankan organization that has an extensive network on the ground and an initial responder to the disaster. At Sarvodaya, Tod met Juan Bossicard, a Microsoft employee who flew out here using his vacation time to see if there was any way that Microsoft could be of assistance (Microsoft is a supporting partner of Sarvodaya).

Juan had identified several existing needs, including the need for a management system to be set up to coordinate the influx of volunteers spontaneously arriving to assist in the disaster response. From this meeting and the efforts of many people since, was born a new organization, VolunteerSriLanka.org, which hopes to coordinate local and international offers of volunteer assistance and match them up with local organizations that do not have the same resources of the large international NGOs, but all the same are assisting in the disaster response.

Also, Tod is hoping that VolunteerSriLanka.org can promote Sri Lanka as a destination for “Relief and Reconstruction Tourism,” bringing in volunteers to assist in the reconstruction effort who will be able to help rebuild the sectors of the economy, particularly the tourist industry, that have been especially hard hit by the tsunami.

Tod had to run to a quick meeting after a while, so I showered and changed my clothes while he was out. As soon as he got back, we headed off in a Rickshaw three-wheeler that Tod has been hiring almost nonstop since the disaster started. I actually dropped Tod off at the Centre for National Operations (CNO) where he was looking to get the needed signature of approval to set up a welcome desk at the airport to meet and greet volunteers arriving in Sri Lanka who were not already partnered with a particular organization. Then I went to the World Trade Center with the instructions to find the Microsoft Office on the 31st floor, introduce myself and meet everyone there, and get to work doing what I could.

Being Saturday, no one was manning the reception desk at Microsoft so I let myself in and wandered back following the voices emanating from a conference room. The volunteers working there warmly greeted me and set me to work. I was battling jet lag the entire day but I managed to keep up a fast paced effort. At Tod’s request, I drafted an e-mail response to the more than 100 e-mails that had come in three days that VSL had been organized, and let them know that we had received the e-mails, were interested in their offers of assistance, and just needed a little more time to get the show off the ground. I then helped the website development team draft text for the website.

VSL is currently staffed by volunteers, and Microsoft is loaning the use of its facilities to create a “war room.” By the afternoon, approval had been received from the appropriate authorities to go out and establish the welcome desk at the airport. The first group of volunteers headed out tonight, with shifts rotating from 8pm until 6am!

When Tod and I finally headed out, we headed over to an informal dinner of humanitarian aid workers, a very hodgepodge eclectic collection of individuals from Tod and me to professional aid workers, UN employees, and concerned citizens. It was a relatively small group but very interesting – there was even one guy from an Israeli NGO that had flown four 747 cargo planes of materials over in the first few days after the tsunami.

Throughout the day there would be times when I would be asleep on my feet but then I get a little animo, wake back up, and get my stride going. An interesting day my first day in Colombo!

Background and explanation

Things have been crazy the last several days as an unexpected opportunity arose and everything quickly came together - I am on my way to Sri Lanka to assist in the disaster response to the earthquake and tsunami.

I had previously spent six weeks in Sri Lanka during summer 2003 as part of a Tulane University study abroad, which is when I first experienced the island and fell in love with it. In May 2004 I finished a Masters at Tulane University with a concentration in Disaster Management, and I felt that these tragic circumstances were an opportunity to help those in need, do some good and put my education to use at the same time.

Tuesday, December 28th, was when I first heard about the Tsunami in Asia. I immediately sent e-mails to my friends in the area to make sure that they and their families, friends and colleagues were all unharmed. At that point I began to think about offering my assistance in some way but it was not until Friday, Dec. 31st that I seriously began to consider the idea of coming over to assist in the response and recovery effort.

On Friday I contacted everyone I could think of to see if there was anything I could do to help. Sunday morning when I went to church I started letting people know that I might be leaving, but it was not until I got home and checked my e-mail that afternoon that I knew there were opportunities to help and what until then had only looked like a remote possibility began to look like reality. By Sunday evening, I had accepted an offer to come on out and help and had a plane ticket purchased for the next reasonable flight out - Tuesday afternoon, less than 48 hours later!

Having made my decision to come to Sri Lanka, I began to let my family and friends know and I also submitted a letter of resignation from my work effective immediately. I then spent a frantic 48 hours trying to wrap up loose ends in preparation for my trip out.

On Monday morning I had a lucky break and was able to reschedule my six month dental cleaning. From there, I went to the local AAA for passport photos and then went into the Sri Lankan Embassy in Washington to apply for a visa.

The staff at the Embassy were extremely helpful and courteous and were able to process my visa request while I waited. When I had my passport returned, I was humbled to hear the sincere words of thanks offered by the Embassy employee for the work that I would be doing.

After getting the visa, I spent the rest of the day frantically running around on other errands, particularly to buy everything I thought I would need. As an Eagle Scout and Scoutmaster, I always try to live by the motto of "Be Prepared." In a disaster setting like Sri Lanka, it is vital for humanitarian workers to be prepared so that they can focus on assisting in the relief efforts and not become a part of the disaster themselves.

Tuesday morning I finished organizing and cleaning out my room in the apartment I shared with my brother. I then went in to my former work to brief my supervisor on projects I had been working on, which was the least I could do but the most I could do on such short notice. I then rushed to a 12:30 appointment to update my vaccines, less than 6 hours before I was suppose to catch my flight!

Having finished my errands, I went to my parents' house where I am leaving my car and other stuff while I am gone. They had offered to drive me to the airport and I am not one to refuse an offer like that. The only problem is I had bought so much stuff it took forever to pack! I may actually be over prepared, if there is such a thing.

We rushed to the airport and arrived with only 50 minutes before departure only to be told that there was not enough time for me and my bags to get through security! This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The very courteous staff at United were able to book me on the exact flight leaving the next day, which gave me an additional 24 hours.

The project I will be involved with will be based in Trincomalee, in the North East of Sri Lanka, where I spent several weeks in 2003 doing independent research. The goal is to conduct a needs assessment of the affected area to determine what assistance is needed and where. The project is based on using GPS equipment and special software to create an electronic map of the afflicted area along with specific areas of need included in the map.

When I had told my family of my decision to leave, my uncle, Richard Smith, who is a specialist in GPS and the associated software for doing this exact type of work, had offered his assistance acquiring some equipment for the project I was volunteering for. However, because of the long weekend from the New Year, nothing had been available by the time I was scheduled to leave on Tuesday. With the delay in my travel plans, ESRI, the corporation which develops the special software for this kind of project, had enough time to find a GPS unit and software and let me pick it up Wednesday morning on long term loan.

I made my flight Wednesday afternoon and on layover in Paris managed to contact my extended friends and family and let them know what was going on, as well as let them know I would be starting this blog. As soon as I have a chance, I will post my first few days in Sri Lanka, which have been a real whirl wind.

As a special note, a couple of people have been really helpful in getting me over here. Tom Bruning, a friend of mine who is a U.S. Fulbright Scholar in Colombo and was assisting in the initial disaster response, told me to come over and he would find a use for me. Dr. Stanley Samarasinghe (Dr. Sam), a former professor of mine at Tulane University's Payson Center, who was in Sri Lanka at the time and began organizing some local efforts to assist those affected by the disaster, also offered his assistance in finding an organization with which I could volunteer. Both Tod and Dr. Sam were part of the Tulane group I traveled with in 2003.

I also want to thank everyone at ESRI for their assistance, especially David Gadsden, Brenda Martinez, and Angela Hylton.