After the Tsunami: More Confidence, Less Fear

Island Evacuation on March 28, 2005

Confidence. That is the operational term in the Alappad Panchayat these days.

The Math received a phone call at 8:15 pm on the 28^th of March: there’s been a very big earthquake in Sumatra, possibility of another tsunami. People rush to tell Amma. She already knows. In fact, she has already called the temporary shelters further north on the island: “Don’t be afraid,” she has told them. “Be alert.”

It is three months almost to the day since the killer wave of 26 December ‘04 devastated so much of South Asia’s coastal fishing communities, including the Alappad Panchayat on this island where the M. A. Math is headquartered. Now there is warning of the possibility of another.

Amma comes to her window, overlooking the yard, and speaks to the twenty or thirty residents gathered there. “Don’t worry,” she says. “Nothing will happen. But take precautions. Get everything up from the ground level.” It is the voice of confidence.

Immediately the community swings into action. There is a strong sense of camaraderie as people work together in their various areas of responsibility. There doesn’t seem to be any need for particular organizing or detailed instructions. Amma said just, “Move things up,” and confidently the ashramites and volunteers spring into action.

In the canteen, they lift everything to table tops; in the kitchen, they carry movable equipment and food supplies to the floor above; in both computer rooms (where virtually everything was lost to the tsunami, and new equipment is in place), they pass the monitors, towers, external drives, power lines—from hand to hand, and carry them up to safety. In the bookstall storage rooms—source of “carpets” of wet photos and books laid out in the sun to dry after the tsunami—they lift and store the photos, books, and everything else high out of foreseeable danger. They secure the press, where mountains of heavy printing paper and supplies have to be removed. Even all the potted plants (so many plants and trees died from salt water before) they carry to a high place or set up on tables—and this includes hundreds of tulasi seedlings that are being grown to give as housewarming gifts when the people move into the homes the Math will build for them. The elephants and cows, of course, return to their special quarters: the temple. It all goes like clockwork; having been through the tsunami in December, and the clean-up afterwards, the ashramites know what is needed and how to do it. Their knowledge breeds confidence.

And the people? Once again, there is immediate evacuation. The large motorized ferries ply back and forth across the backwaters, and men pole the small wooden canoes full of refugees, going east, and empty, heading west, for more passengers. The boats take the computer students first, and the elderly and the hospitalized; then ashram visitors, and then the western residents, brahmacharis, and brahmacharinis who are ready to leave since their rescue work is already accomplished. They must leave; it is a government order. But they leave with little anxiety since all has gone smoothly. Confidence.

What about the local people? The villagers? The ones who have already lost to the tsunami so many loved ones, their homes, and their livelihood? Right from the time the warning goes out, they begin streaming to the ashram dock to be taken across the water. Amma sends one of the large motorized ferries north to Shrayakkad, one of last December’s worst-hit areas; it is the location of the temporary shelters that the Math runs. The people there, too, are ferried to the mainland. Seeing the boats plying the backwaters steadily, the people know they will be taken to safety. They await their turns with confidence.

Where is Amma all this time?

At the dock. Until the last boatload is filled and sent across, she stays there, at the water’s edge, saying to everyone, “Perikkyenda.” “Don’t be scared.” As people are helped into the boat, she tells them to move to the rear, or the other side, making sure that each boat is safely laden and balanced. Then she waves it off and moves to the next one as it pulls into place. “Perikkyenda,” she says again and again, or in English for visitors, “No fear. No problem.” She speaks with the kind of strength that comes from—and breeds—confidence.

How are the people—especially the islanders who had survived the terrors of the tsunami in December, many of whom now live in huts or tarp shelters, or the temporary barracks put up by the math or the government. Are they screaming, crying, panicking?

No doubt they have fear, but it is tempered with confidence. They hurry to the dock, but it is not a mindless stampede; they enter the boats carefully, not pushing, not panicking; some are crying – terrible memories of recent tragedies are awakened – but many appear calm and courageous. They have been able to gather their families this time, and they know what comes next: they will be taken to the engineering college or the Amrita Institute of Computer Technology or the Ayurvedic College – familiar places. Many stayed there for several weeks in January. Their needs were met back then; they will be met now. They proceed with that confidence.

The last few boats to leave the docks are loaded with huge cooking vessels, rice, salt, oil, spices—the message is clear: the Math will continue feeding you, whether you are on the island or taking shelter on the mainland.

You can count on it.

The evacuation of the island was completed before three in the morning of 29th March. No wave came, and everyone was able to return to the island in the morning. What people saw was that the government's warning system (non-existent at the time of the December tsunami) is in place now, and that the island can be quickly and safely evacuated. This, too, will help confidence grow, and fear subside.

- Janani
Correspondent from M. A. Math

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