Livin’ La Vida Aid-a

harimau:

temporal3@gmail.com

harimau..
thank god peole are getting wise and not giving to the government anymore. who knows what their plan is to rebuild. d and i havent gone east like planned but instead are heading south and keeping a base in colombo. started work today with volunteersrilanka. they are awesome and i will be writing more about this as the days go by. going down south tomorrow to visit the camps etc and so will be writing about it when i am back after the weekend.

chandrika and the governm,ent are powerless in the east...you HAVE to go through the TRO (tamil rehabilitaion organization, i think that is what it stands for...) they are organized and know what needs to be done in their area. i am so curious to see how this all plays out in the end. i heard about a NYTimes front page story yesterday about how the big counries are wondering about the aid money that is just sitting with the government right now..is it true that they are going to re-nig on the debt moratorium...funny, right? since now the aid money will just go back in forms of debt payment to the countries that gave SL the money. real funny.

we`ve decided in teh face of everythign we deal with everyday, all we can do is sit back and laugh...albeit hysterically but laugh is all we can do.

more from me later.
z.rizvi.

Ref temporal #5

[harimau:

you should write about it too:) ]

Thanks for the encouragement. If you would send me your e-mail address, I will mail you stuff as I write it down. I think we are all suffering from tsunami overload.

Ref Zehra #6

[... no one seems to agree on what needs to be done and the international aid workers want to take things into their own hands (this is while they all stay in lavish hotels in colombo by the way....there are STILL no rooms at all the good hotels in colombo....)...
it is crazy and i will keep yo all updated. maybe this indian dude will make thigns better...i dont have much hope for it!]

Well, I too had difficulties in locating a hotel room, ANY hotel room, in or near Nagapattinam. After all, the international do-gooders cannot be denied their creature comforts, can they? Unfortunately for them, there are NO hotels rated even two stars within 50 miles of Nagapattinam so they had to make do with whatever was available. One hopes that these do-gooders are able to drown their frustrations in good whiskey as opposed to the crap that one usually finds in India in a small town.

The Indian dude won`t be of great help to the government in Sri Lanka because there is no political will in Sri Lanka on how to go about providing relief. On top of that, most of the damage was in Tamil areas and there are no votes for Chandrika Kumaratunga in providing help to the Tamils.

My friend just landed in Chennai with about $600,000 (Canadian, also known as Chinese, dollars) of pledged money to build and operate an orphanage in Sri Lanka. The money has been raised among Sri Lankan Tamils in Canada, by the Canadian Council of Hindus and Guyanese Hindus settled in Canada. It seems that the Canadian Prime Minister talked to Chandrika and told her that all aid from Canada will be administered directly by the Canadian High Commissioner or else she gets squat, diddly, nil, nada, zero. So, maybe there is some hope that some relief might get to the east coast of Sri Lanka, however late.

thanks for reading everyone.
things here are INSANE....and not why i thought they would be!!! everyone is really confused and running around but then they stop and wonder why they are running since there is no point! no one seems to agree on what needs to be done and the international aid workers want to take things into their own hands (this is while they all stay in lavish hotels in colombo by the way....there are STILL no rooms at all the good hotels in colombo....)...
it is crazy and i will keep yo all updated. maybe this indian dude will make thigns better...i dont have much hope for it!
z.rizvi

harimau:

you should write about it too:)

t

harimau:

you should write about it too:)

t

I am in Nagapattinam (for the second time in three weeks). The word here is that the Collector of Nagapattinam district is coming to Sri Lanka to provide advice on relief efforts.

Hopefully, things would move fast once the Sri Lankans get some tips from a dynamic young man who has won kudos for his relief work here in Nagapattinam.

Zeh`r:

get rid of that slight tinge of frustration in a hurry:)

look forward to more

lve

t

Thank you for sharing this.