I am just back from ten days in Muttom, a fishing village in southern India, that is seriously affected by the Boxing Day Tsunami. I stayed with Sister Selvi, her brother Nazarene and their large extended family. It was a rich and emotionally challenging time and I came back determined to see how I might be able to help the people of Muttom. Many people have lost everything: houses, boats, nets, clothes, possessions. 68 people lost family members. The families worst affected are living in brown corrugated iron camps erected by the Government. Unbearably hot when the temperature is 36 C and rising.
Others lost their only means of earning a living. Boats, nets, motors were lost or ruined by the 30 foot wave which swept over the seashore leaving children clinging disastrously to power cables, stranded on roofs and one woman told of finding herself naked in a tree. A truly terrible humiliation for an Indian lady. When I arrived six weeks after the Tsunami there was no fishing, no trading, no money and plenty of desperation and I heard many arguments and fights in the narrow streets. Bored youths, frantic women berating husbands for earning nothing and men folk paralysed by lack of equipment. Women in the camp insisted they didn’t want hand outs but to get back to work.
