Well...

I have a million emails to write. I have to write to all the incredible people back home in L.A. who have helped SUBA UD and let them know what incredible things their contributions have done for the kids here in the camps. I have to write back my incredible friends who, through my hardships, have been there, writing me letters and reminding me of the girl that I am (enter music - "keep smiling, keep shining, knowing you can always count on me....") I have to write a mass email update to let people know what we've done this week, what we're doing next and that there's paypal up on the site. I have to coordinate with the incredible woman I met who is returning in August with a youth group to teach people in the camps to build sustainable housing. I have to finish my budget for the art teachers in the camps. I have no clean underwear left. I have to decide how to proceed the next months, and figure out my plan on how to return to the U.S. I have to call my mom and tell her I may be gone longer. I have to find a way to afford the taxes I owe the IRS. I'm wearing a seaweed mask. It's hot tonight, there is no wind. I'm drunk. So it goes. At least I don't have dengue.

Driving south on Galle road today, it was my fifth time on the 4 hour Colombo-Matara trip. Each time the drive is different, just as I imagine a man driving back to his childhood street, unshaven and wrinkled, picturing himself as a young boy in mittens and a scarf, travelling the other direction, leaving the house on a bicycle, his mother watching him get smaller in the distance. I thought about how my first time down. I couldn't ever listen to the right music, just switching and skipping forward after only a few seconds of a song. Rhythm? Soothing? Happy? No too depressing, not appropriate..I was excited to arrive in Sri Lanka, excited to be in this chaos, I felt like it was an honour to be part of the world largest humanitarian effort in history, and scared at the same time at what I would have found. I couldn't find a good theme song even in my well stocked iPod to complement a landscape such as this one. It was as if I took bombed buildings from Time magazines and cut them out, and collaged them onto club med adverts on the facing pages. The sea so blue and picturesque, the homes and trees and lives torn apart in from of it. Another beautiful and broken road.

This time, now a seasoned Sri Lankan west coast traveller, I negotiated a good low price for our non AC van. It was late morning, a time I had never been by the sea. I was usually at athe office inland this time of day. I felt lucky, because at this time, the sea is bluest, as there is light in the sky, but the sun is not yet fully up to wash out it's color with its strong, high noon light. Sitting up in the van, I saw a better view than in the tuk tuks we've been riding in the past month. There it was, piles of rubble, constant reminders, in from the beautiful sea, we picked up some speed, and the waves were clean slow, and large. The ones that broke far out were darker and bigger than the smaller choppy waves close to the beach. It was almost uncomfortable seeing the roots of the tall coconut trees that have been ripped from the ground and thrown on their side, the way you're uncomfortable when you see the center button unknowingly undone on a woman's shirt. You're just not supposed to see those parts.

I picked up my ipod, and didn't even need to think (thanks peymon!). Black heart procession, Broken World ("i know you've got a plan for me...now, we'll never meet again..not in this broken world...", the Cure, Plainsong. The drivers here are about as crazy as they were in India, with a rush and an urgency of a jailbreak or bank robbery, and the ridiculous chicken fight machismo of those greaser race movies. You overtake, look eye to eye with a bus driver. Your driver doesn't flinch, you shut your eyes, scream, and say your prayers. This has become quite usual at least twice an hour each drive. I'm used to it. But on this drive, I saw a young man on the ground, 20's, cool jeans, bald, with a bleeding split running down the middle of his head. I felt my rushed lunch rise in my stomach. Cat Power, I Found A Reason. In the distance, was a bus, packed like they were in india, with three or four people in each seat and people front to back in the aisle. People were running off it, sprinting down the road to the man their bus had hit. I asked the driver to stop. He said the doctor would come. We crossed the bridge that passed the tsunami boat graveyard, where all the fishing boats that are torn in half are neatly lined on the green cricket field. Coco Rosie, By your Side. A 2 walled house, father polishing a silver pipe, mother squatting at her washing, children climbing on them. We passed the train wreck. The Dutch camp with the loose bubble gum pink roofed tents. Those camps looked so much cheerier to me because of the pink. The Italian camps with the Mussolini designed chocolate coloured tents with the orange stenciling. Their shape is cut straight and fitting. like a mob suit. A group of the Scientologist volunteers in the bright yellow shirts pass on bicycles. The sky and the sea by now were brilliant and bright in the afternoon light. I fell in and out of sleep. I dreamt of someone I had met in Goa, but we were in a loft party in New York City and I was wearing a fabulous white coat I had tried in at the Vice store in LA. I had gone there a year ago with Michael at some opening. In my dream, it was strange to be cold and windy and covered when we had met in such a warm and sandy way. I realized I hadn't dreamt in a month.

At the end of our month contract, we had gone up to Colombo to debrief the head office and discuss our program. Yes a success, good reports, let's leave the south to try out our program, and see how they are able to run things on their own. They want to send Steph and I to the Ampara district to further implement psychosocial programs.

All these stories and experiences in this last month have been here in the Matara district, where there 6 IOM camps, a total of about 700 people. All six camps can be visited in a day. The furthest being Belideniya up on the hill, about 40 minutes from the office, after that Kandegodella, Samulu, and Dondra, each about 15 minutes apart. Matara Maha Vidyala is a large playground across from the youth ministry (much like the Y), and Solis camp is right on the main road in town beside a hotel.

The southwestern region of Ampara is one of the most devastated by the tsunami. The field officer (our boss) lives in a tent. Some of the camps are two hours drive apart. The infrastructure is still in shambles. People tell me for some camps, you take a vehicle, then a boat (broken bridge) then a tuk tuk on the other side. It's already begun pouring rain everyday. The camps have little management, and are still bare minimum- no tables and chairs. There will be no muraling and music in these camps. In addition to the disaster itself, we will experience the political effect of the last 18 years of war. We will need to find a translator who speaks both Tamil and Singhala, or hire 2. Sometimes, a muslim camp will not allow a Tamil inside, even if he is the camp manager. There is a heavy military presence. It is said much of the Tamil population is not seeing government Aid. We've been told not to go out after dark. We're getting clothes made , as we will need to be covered when we are working in the muslim camps. A signal is rare in this district, so phone communication will be difficult. It has been said that the people in these camps are a bit rougher, poorer, uneducated, and divided. Whenever I say I may be going to Ampara, whoever I speak to says...Ah...Ampara. Good Luck. And in this district, IOM had 16 camps, a total of 6000 people. Bring it on, I say. Bring it on.