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One Year Later

2005.12.26

Guest post by Mahangu Weerasinghe

There are many things that can change your life - births, deaths, war, changes of government. In my two decades of living, I’ve experienced most of them. However, nothing changed my life the way the December 2004 Tsunami did.

One year ago at this time, I was sitting at my computer checking email. Christmas had been good, and I was looking forward to a relaxing Boxing Day before work on Monday. At the time, I worked for a popular weekly newspaper.

It was evening when my News Editor called me. I was to go to Matara the next day. I was totally unprepared for what I was going to see. Come to think of it, nobody was prepared. You couldn’t be.

Over the weeks that followed, I wrestled with myself. How could this be? How could it happen to Sri Lanka, a country that had already been crippled by twenty years of civil war? There were no answers.

Today, as I sit and type this, my heart goes out to all those who are still living in refugee camps, to all those who still have plastic tents as homes. I remember the forty thousand Sri Lankans who perished at the hands of the waves. I remember each one of them, and how in death they share one country, one land.

There are lessons we should have learnt from December 26th 2004, and yet, one year later, it seems we have learnt very little. The waves did not hit the Sinhalese or Tamils or Muslims. It was not majorities or minorities that suffered. We all did.

As we remember the thousands who went to the waves, and the many more who are now homeless, let us commit ourselves to bring about a safe and peaceful Sri Lanka for those who did survive. Let us always remember the truism which took a tsunami to bring to light.

Above all, we’re all Sri Lankans.

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