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My partner Cristian shouted for us to leave the room and I called to our friends who were in the room next door. They answered they were ok and we all left our rooms into a yard full of water and debris. I realised I was naked, so I grabbed a pair of shorts that floated past then noticing my bare chest managed to grab a shirt that was also floating around. In various states of undress we waded barefoot through water up to our neck into the street, successfully avoiding the large planks of wood and nails. There were local men stomping through the water towards us shouting for us to get high. We looked around us for something high and noticing people on their roofs we started looking for a roof to get onto. We climbed up onto a Buddhist temple but being only one metre above the water level we quickly decided to look for somewhere else. We saw a two storey building still standing with people on the first floor and decided to head to it. We were floundering in our panic and urgency to find the way up the stairs to the second floor, every way up seemed to be blocked with wreckage but finally we were able to climb over a car that had been swept into the building. As we reached the second floor I looked to check we were all there and saw Martin below with an old woman on his back and the rest of her family shouting instructions to him. As requested he put her on top of the car and came upstairs to us, before we had time to settle we realised the building was made of wood and already had a broken supporting pillar. A commotion then started below and we looked down to see them attempting to resuscitate the woman on the car.
On deciding that the building wasn’t safe we knew we had to go further and look for high ground but not knowing when the next wave would come this thought filled us with fear. After seeing a Western couple with a large plastic container tied round them Penny looked around for something similar and found some huge plastic containers in the kitchen of the restaurant. We found a couple of aprons and tied them round the containers and ourselves. Feeling slightly comforted by thinking that we would now stay afloat if the wave came again we set out along the road, now waist deep in water, to leave the village. More of the village men were walking towards us and advising for us to stick to the middle of the road where there was less rubble from the buildings.
We walked, terrified, as fast as was possible amongst the debris and water and we headed out of the village for the main road. When we arrived at the main road we were stunned to find it totally dry. We sat down for a moment to think what to do next; we hadn’t been in Unawatuna very long and didn’t know where high ground was. We saw many local people, some walking aimlessly with uncontrollable emotion and others running purposefully towards the devastation. We then saw a family of tourists with their bikinis in tatters and cuts on their bodies walking away from us, we also started to walk in that general direction with no idea of where we going. A Sri Lankan man ran past us with a pack of bottled water and stopped to give us a bottle and to reiterate that we had to get high.
Thankfully sipping the water we continued up the road. Cristian opened his small rucksack he had caught as it had drifted past earlier outside our guesthouse. He originally thought it had nothing of any use (he had emptied it the night before to fill it with Christmas presents for the others) but it was now full of the Christmas presents we received: incense sticks, a wooden Buddha statue that later became our lucky Buddha and a pair of flip flops, we now had one pair of shoes between the four of us! Unfortunately later on Cristian ended up with an infected foot.
After only a couple of minutes of aimlessly traipsing up the road a small open backed truck went past, it was driven by locals and a couple of villagers were standing in the back. It stopped a few metres ahead of us and they shouted for us all to get in. We ran to the truck and helped other people in, picking up many others on route until we were tightly packed in, we were dropped off at the start of a pathway into the surrounding hills.
With three of us still barefoot we started to climb the stony path up into the hills accompanied by many other locals and tourists fleeing the waves. We kept climbing until we felt we had reached the highest point. On the way up an elderly man was at the entrance to his house with a jug of water attempting to sell glasses of water to stranded people. This sad attempt to make a small amount of money was very quickly contrasted by the welcome we received a little further along.
Continuing up the hill we wanted to find a spot where we could see the bay. I walked all the way with two big plastic containers not daring to put them down, much to the amusement of the locals living on high ground. With another stroke of luck and thanks to the wonderful people of Sri Lanka we found a house where a Sri Lankan family lived and were providing the new arrivals with fresh coconuts to drink. We sat down in the garden, watched the bay and drank. The sea was doing incredible stunts, draining the beach, exposing the coral reef and disappearing for about 200 metres and then very quickly coming back to shore with a powerful surge. This recurred again and again, accompanied by the sound of large buildings crashing to the ground.
We had four more friends who were staying in different places and we did not know yet if they were okay or where they were. Amongst the other westerners camped out outside the family’s house was a German guy who had a mobile and was able to send text messages. Finally, four hours after the wave struck we were able to find out that two of our friends were okay. We still didn’t know about the other two and did not find out until the following day that they were safe and well, we were then unable to find them until we had all been evacuated to Colombo.
Sitting in shock watching the sea and comparing stories with other tourists who were continually arriving, Cristian switched into efficient organiser role and started to organise a trip to buy food and cigarettes, he went back down to the main road in search of shops. I was nervously sat waiting for him not daring to move, only to shuffle further into the shade and lie down, at which point the head of the household instantly appeared with a cushion to go under my head. He also then returned with a small table for our lucky Buddha explaining that it needed to be above ground level and could not be on the floor where we had put it. Shortly after that a couple of monks came round from the nearby temple to check we all had food and were greatly impressed by our Buddha statue and the sodden incense that we had put next to it.
With chairs, rugs, cushions, coconuts and now a round of wonderful sweet tea we sat and waited. Martin was being troubled by various cuts on his feet so decided to make himself a pair of shoes, he provided some light entertainment as he used the ties from the aprons to tie a piece of curved bark to each foot. The locals who spend a lot of time barefoot were watching this surreal scene with large smiles and the Brits watching it were making the typical jokes about Ray Mears having some competition. After ten uncomfortable minutes Martin realised he was better off barefoot and a bit later he was lent a pair of flip-flops by the family. Cristian then arrived with a big bag of lentils, vegetables, about 2 pounds of chillies, biscuits and cigarettes.
He returned with stories about the scenes below: futile attempts at resuscitating dead children and limp bodies encased in mud. We sat down, drank sweet tea and smoked cigarettes; I suddenly turned into a hardened smoker again after a year of having given up. We shared cigarettes with a French woman who had just set up a guest house which had been engulfed by the wave taking with it 16 original Dali’s and what seemed to be even more distressing for her she had lost her supply of French red wine and foi gras.
In the late afternoon helicopters started flying overhead, we didn’t know what they were doing as there was nowhere for them to land so we just watched them fly above us. As it darkened some of the boys from the house started lighting a fire. We presumed it was to attract the helicopters but not understanding Sinhalese didn’t really know why they did it. In our highly alerted panic to anything slightly untoward, the fire lighting method put us very on edge. It consisted of setting fire to bushes in the garden and once lit it looked like it was going spread into the trees. In my nervousness I imagined a whole forest fire starting and being forced back down to low ground where we would then have to contend with the sea again. Luckily my imagination was wilder than the fire and it quickly died down. As it petered out what we thought were sparks from the fire turned out to be beautiful fireflies darting around the garden.
During the day more and more Westerners had been arriving and in the evening the fantastic family cooked for all thirty of us. A little tussle broke out when on seeing an Austrian family serving themselves from large bowls of rice and curry the French woman had asked for some. The Austrian family who had kept themselves very separate all day refused, saying they had paid the family to feed them and that it was for them only. It turned out there was more food on its way and we had a great dhal and okra curry with more sweet tea.
During the day we had kept hearing horrific stories about people missing, people kept appearing with gashes and cuts, a fruit seller from the beach appeared looking for the Dutch parents of a baby he had saved but had seen its four siblings swept away. I saw the same man two days later by the sea having given up hope of finding his mother, brother and sister. There was also constant talk of more waves coming.
As the evening went on we still hadn’t found our friends and knew we would have to wait for the next day. The brother of the head of the family, Lakshman, came to take some of us to his house to sleep, as we traipsed after him down the hill we were getting very unsettled at going down hill even though it was only about 5 metres. He stopped to give me his flip-flops so I could keep up and we were now all in dressed in lungis (a sarong you step into) that we had been lent earlier by Lakshman`s brother.
We nervously sat outside our new house drinking more tea and smoking with Lakshman until we ran out of cigarettes. Although we were eighty metres above sea level we were still terrified that the next wave would reach us, incredibly panicky, expecting anything to happen I felt unable to go indoors. A man from the village came past saying an earthquake was expected and that we should stay out of the house. The family did not take him very seriously but I did and then forced Cristian to sleep outside with me and be at the mercy of the mosquitoes. At midnight Lakshman told us to go inside to sleep and totally exhausted we managed to drift in and out of sleep till the family awoke at six am.
The first thought I had that morning was how lucky I was to be alive and the second thing I was aware of were the huge mosquito bites I had received during the night. We sat outside and were generously served sweet tea and cigarettes as the kids from the house continued to stare at us timidly and occasionally played with their one toy of a pram wheel on a stick.
There was still talk of more waves coming that then triggered the morning’s topic of conversation of whether to go back to the guesthouse to salvage any of our things that had not been washed away or looted. I was definitely leaning towards the side of never again going below 80 metres above sea level and living in the hills forever.
With no final decision but with talk of how disgusting our mouths were feeling a woman from the house set about finding us a particular type of twig used for brushing teeth. We were instructed to peel off the bark, chew the end a little and then use the end as a brush. It worked! We all marvelled at this new discovery and although still very emotional we were feeling uplifted by the kindness and gentleness of our adoptive family.
On seeing me still in my filthy white see-through shirt with no bra, the women in the house kitted me out with a long fitted evening style skirt and a large pink shirt with an embroidered flower on the breast pocket to preserve my dignity. They were very pleased to see me in their clothes and all the women came out to smile and chortle at my new look. Although when Penny saw my new attire she politely declined offers of a make over and stuck to her lungi and improvised bra made out of a mini skirt and the cord from my shorts.
We were led by Lakshman to wash in the lake and rinse the smelly dirty clothes we had managed to grab the day before. The children followed us to the lake for the local diversion of watching us learning how to wash in a lake with a bucket whilst wearing a lungi. On despairing at our clothes washing attempts a local woman took them off us and laughing with delight began the task of whacking our clothes against a rock.
Clean and a little bashful we headed back to the house to hear the news that our two friends had come looking for us and were up at the top house. We went running to the top house to discover the family had told them that they had no idea who we were and consequently our friends had left. This started a frantic and emotional search of all the houses and temples on the hill, we approached the temples with trepidation after having heard that they were bringing all the dead to the temples but found them full of displaced local people. Back at the top house we managed to send a text message from a Westerners mobile and sat and waited with more drinking and smoking to pass the time. Cristian once again went in search of food and water and after an arduous journey returned successful but yet once again with stories of fear and death after having seen the rugby pitch being turned into a mass grave.
Finally our friends Ralph and Mel arrived which created an emotional reunion and the release of tears that had been stored up from the previous day. We heard their stories of nearly getting caught in the waves again as they searched for us, of the panic and hysteria of more waves to come, how the first wave was lapping their first floor balcony as they struggled to help people up, the man on the balcony chanting hail marys and how they saw a guest helplessly watch her friend below get taken by the wave. Shortly after the wave had struck, a local man had arrived at their hotel racked with guilt and grief tightly holding a European baby. He had had has his own baby in his arms and had managed to rescue the other baby too. As the current pummelled him he only managed to hold onto this baby and had lost his own.
More tea and cigarettes as we went down to the house to introduce Mel and Ralph to the family and we sat and watched Lakshman climb a tree to hack down jackfruit for lunch. On the first thud still expecting disaster to strike we thought he had fallen out of the tree but he appeared happily from between the branches laughing at our anxiety. We feasted on a great curry of jackfruit, dhal, okra and red rice. We ate first before the rest of the family, the women bringing more food as we ate and Lakshman standing proudly behind us watching us eat and making sure we tried everything.
Appreciative and full, the conversation turned once again to whether to go back to the guesthouse. The wave had been predicted hours earlier at 11am and Ralph had a radio where we able to hear the world service and assess the situation with a little more calmness rather than just responding to rumours. The decision was made, we were to go back as quickly as we could and see what we could salvage. Ralph had passed by our guesthouse earlier that day whilst looking for us and had taken photos of the rooms. Seeing them on the digital camera we saw the chaos they were in but at least we knew they were still standing.
I was getting increasingly nervous on the way down to the village and on nearing the sea we decided I had better stay at the temple just above sea level and wait for them: My lifetime fear of water had not exactly been helped by the tsunami experience.
A local owner of two guesthouses started chatting to me, which helped keep my mind off worrying about the others. He had lost one guesthouse and the other was damaged but he was already sounding positive about rebuilding and moving forward.
Martin then appeared over the hill wearing a Titanic t-shirt with a picture of Leonardo de Caprio and Kate Winslett. On getting over our fit of sad laughter Martin embarrassedly explained that a local man had wanted to give him his best t-shirt to wear and he found it hard to refuse. A couple of hours later after many strange and questioning looks he took to wearing it inside out.
The evening passed uneventfully with more delicious food and both families wanting to cook dinner for us. In the end we ate with the family we were staying with and went to the other house for tea and lemon puffs.
The next morning we played with the children and the puppy that the whole family now called ‘puppy’ even when speaking in Sinhalese. Penny and I went with one of the women and the seven-year-old boy to collect water from the well. Once again we were a little humiliated as the seven year old skipped back along the uneven hilly pathway with a large bucket of water whilst we were struggling behind having to take breaks and sloshing the water over the edge when being tripped up by ‘puppy’. As we returned to the house for more tea we were all told that we were now part of the family and could stay forever.
A man from the village then came by the house with two monks to tell us that buses from the British High Commission were arriving to collect all tourists. Mel and I went down to the hotel Villa in Paradise where they were to collect everyone only to be told that the buses had already left. We met Tim from the high commission who explained that more were coming in the afternoon and that we should head down to the hotel in a couple of hours.
We told the others the news and set about looking for any tourists left up in the hills. As we left our new extended family we took photos with Ralph’s digital camera and were able to show them the immediate results. The quiet and frail grandmother was gently shuffling into every shot with a lovely calm and placid smile whilst the smallest boy set about arranging his plastic chair to make sure he appeared in each photo. The children quickly got over their bemusement and learnt how to pose and we all made sure that ‘puppy’ appeared in the family photos of all of us.
With sad yet joyful goodbyes and promises of phoning, sending letters and returning as soon as we could we packed our rucksacks with the wet clothes and staggered down the hill to the Villa of Paradise. Unfortunately when we arrived there was no news from the high commission and nobody knew when the buses were coming. There had been eighty foreigners staying at this small hotel over the past couple of days and most of them had left in the morning with the earlier buses. The British hotel owner immediately showed us rooms that were available for us and invited to us to use the phone. Now we were quite happy to stay one more night even if we could hear the foreboding sea from the hotel. Quite soon after that, we found out that the bus was on its way and someone had to go down to the main road to hold a sign and wait for the bus. A couple of westerners in the hotel decided to go and the hotel owner pulled out a large union jack that they could hold up to attract attention.
After they had been there an hour, Penny, Mel and I went to relieve them. Bodies were still underneath the destroyed buildings and the smell was nauseating and caused my stomach to cramp and turn somersaults. We stood at the side of the road with destruction all around us in a holiday resort that was now unrecognisable, looking like football fans, Mel with a large union jack draped over her shoulders. The traffic was chaotic as people tried to organise their lives and many people on foot were still in limbo wondering where their family was, where their food would come from and how to continue with their lives. There was now very little food available and it was extremely costly. Earlier we had seen Lakshman again who explained that there was no food anywhere and we gave him some money in case he found a way to buy any. Later he came to find us to offer us one of the two loaves of bread he had managed to buy. Shocked once again by his generosity we made him keep both but just five minutes later he had given one away.
After about half an hour the bus arrived, we informed the others, collected our luggage and boarded the bus. Leaving Unawatuna I was overcome with feelings of guilt and sadness, which still remain with me. I felt I was abandoning the very people that had saved my life. The destruction we passed as we left the village was indescribable and we could no longer recognise this beautiful place of happy, generous and positive people.
The people remain generous and positive and hopefully will one day be happy again. The land will very quickly be beautiful again and it is up to us as tourists to restore life to the coast of Sri Lanka. I phoned the Villa in Paradise from Colombo and the owner informed me that people were already clearing up, starting to talk about rebuilding and even starting to smile again. A place that did look like paradise on 25 December 2004 will one day look like paradise again so please have these people in your mind when you decide where to go on holiday over the next few years. The Sri Lankan motto is `Sri Lanka- a land like no other’. I am in the privileged position of being here to confirm that it is not just marketing.
For the people that know me I am hoping that this article can go some way to convince you and others you know to contribute to the Unawatuna Relief Fund. I am aware there were many many people affected by the tsunami but I am sure you can now see why Unawatuna is very close to my heart and why I feel a responsibility to specifically help the people that helped me.
If you would like to send a cheque by post please make it out to Tsunami Relief Fund and post it to E Burns 6 Adams Avenue, Chorlton, Manchester, M21 8FX
We are very happy to receive one off payments, regular payments, fundraising ideas etc.
For other Sri Lankan schemes including the opportunity for UK schools to twin with a school in Sri Lanka called ‘Adopt a School’ please go to www.adoptsrilanka.com
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