About the start of the last week I haven´t got lot of things to report. In the morning I was picked up at my place and in the evening brought back again. Ultimately I had time to talk about some of my tasks of this stay (If we still will work on them I´ve to see). At Tuesday we had another funeral but we didn´t stay there for long time, because I had a job interview for a university per Skype, so I had to return to the Center with the Internet connection. Result: Accepted. If I really want go to Berlin therefore I still don´t know.
Between the small puppy who is walking around the center and the temple most time got a name: Brownie (normally he or she´s just searching for food all time and also starts fighting with her mum or the other dogs).
And then everything changed. Already the last days it started raining again and again at the morning. At this moment I didn´t think that a catastrophe like the following could happen. Heavy rain of Wednesday morning just was the start of it. For paper boats it still were perfect. My invitation for dinner at my former place already was canceled cause of the rain. It was impossible to go to market cause of the rain.
Thursday also wasn´t better. Because of the hard rain the office of the center was flooded, again. So while the morning we had to clean the office. The electricity and internet connection already weren´t working very constant, so again and again we had a power cut (therefore I got lot of new Sinhala vocabularies).
At Friday I should come to center for the first time by bus this week. Punctually I was standing with my bag at the bus station and was waiting for the bus. Between I already thought that I missed the bus, because some of the busses just got Sinhala letters on their charts but then I received a call from Tesheema akka. It was the first time when I heard about the flood of some regions. Cause of that the bus line to the temple also wasn´t coming at this day. The vehicle they liked to send to my place then never reached me so I stayed at my place. While day I received pictures of the boys and Shaini, one of my former students. The pictures explained everything to me. In the afternoon the boys came to my place with the motorbike for some minutes. Don’t know how the left the flood area.
I also didn´t know about the next days. It was clear that the students couldn´t reach the center by the normal street, so no class could been hold. I was little bit surprised when I was picked up at Saturday morning by reverent Vipassi with the Van. But before we were going to temple we stopped at town for picking up boxes of prepared lunch packets for people in the flood area.
The street we used for getting to center I never used before. At the end we reached to temple from the other side then normally.
Kanthis, one of the secretaries also was affected by the flood.
Cause of that I started with the TukTuk with Reverent Vipassi, Gayan and Nadun to the house of Kanthis with lunch packets for them. Already some minutes after we left the center we had to stop, because the street gone into the water. It was difficult to imagine, that we still had used the same street with the TukTuk some days before. People were standing around of the water. Houses and trees were standing in the water. I thought about to take a picture of it, but it was feeling little bit unpleasant in this situation so I didn´t.
Already on this day, we received the news that two of the participating students were very hard hit by the flooding and the rain caused landslides. After delivering the lunch packages, we decided to visit one of the two families. Already on the way there I got a view from above over one of the flooded areas. If someone told me this was a lake in the jungle, I would have believed him without repentance.
To visit the house of the affected family, we had to make a way through the jungle, so we climbed down the mountain between trees and leaves until we finally reached the house.
As you can see, there was a landslide behind the house, causing the house to be poured out of debris, soil and mud. Except the foundation walls is not much left I would say. What can be saved is shown.
In the evening of the day we visited the second family, of which we already knew. The house of this family was flooded by the passing river. Therefore it was not possible to take a look at the house. The family has temporarily settled in a temple.
Usually at Sunday I got free. But the night before Reverent Vipassi told me, that the boys would pick me up to show me the flooding area in another place. However, they had to deliver lunch packets to families of the area, so there was no time for showing the area to me. They just told me very late that they won´t come this day, so I stayed at my place all day. Actually it was planned to repeat the invitation for dinner at my former place, because it was canceled at Wednesday. Problem was that the drinking water supply of the town area, so also in my actually place, was broken. For this reason, the dinner was also canceled again this time. So it was a little bit stupid day.
The following days are actually quickly told. On Monday, I finally went with the guys to watch some of the flooded areas. By the way, in Karlsruhe, the report of the BNN about my stay here and the related effects was written. My photos and information I sent to Karlsruhe straight.
Every day, lunch packets are prepared at the temple and the big hall for the people in flood area, as they are still not fed by the water.
On Tuesday afternoon, I visited a temple nearby with Reverent Vipassi. This temple only could be reached by boat, since the actual access road was completely flooded. What looks like an island in a lake is actually a temple amidst rice fields. Lunch packets are also prepared here. According to the translation of Reverent Vipassi, for 2,500 people in the area were prepared lunch packets.
At Wednesday I had the chance to visit one of the houses in the flood area of the village with Reverent Vipassi. If you take a look on the wall of the house, you can see the highest level of the water. Unfortunately the family of the house isn´t a participant of the scholarship so I can´t help them in this difficult situation.
Now we have to wait until the water will go down completely that we can try to contact affected students. The pipeline of the drinking water in the town and also electricity and internet connection at the temple already working again so it can´t need long time anymore.
Yours Felix