My eyes - I can’t believe.

I was up late the past few nights, just thinking and absorbing what was happening around. It’s so depressing. What’s making it terrible is that unlike murder, war and crime - there is no one to blame.

Our motherland has been massacred by the uncontrollable forces of nature. As people slowly wipe away their tears and pick up the pieces to start over, we struggle to keep our aid efforts high and flowing not just for a few weeks and months but in the long-term as well.

We never pause a minute to appreciate the wonders of Mother Nature around us. The water cycle, the food pyramid, the planet rotation, the setting and rising of the sun, the seven layers of the atmosphere – how well it has been planned and designed. But the moment a disaster such as this occurs we all go around bad mouthing the terribleness of what has occurred. Man is so ungrateful. We have taken everything around us for granted so much that it takes such a large disaster to occur; for us to appreciate details that have been made for us. A little thing going wrong in the middle of the Indian ocean and such a terrible tragedy.

Our close relations and loved ones lost their lives last Sunday. They were on vacation A little boy of three was the only one saved from his family of five. There are so many such children wondering about crying for a lost mother or father or a sibling. I now keep thinking of those homeless folks, orphaned children – lost and deserted waiting for a grain of rice or a decent toilet to go to. I keep thinking what if we were chosen instead of them – in a place that cannot be reached, night after night and day after day waiting, waiting and only waiting...

The phone lines are always busy - from consoling loved ones to face their loss, to organizing helicopters to the lands which have no roadways. My heart hurts at the thoughts. People are dropping their stuff here to be given to relevant authorities. When I look at it, tears come to my eyes. Our brothers and sisters - all those dear people suffering from this - our prayers are with you and we are doing our best to reach you. Our friends from abroad are sending over whatever they can. We feel your pain too. Don’t loose hope… Hang on with whatever you have. Let us be patient and Better times will come soon, Insha Allah. Every time it rains there also is a rainbow somewhere that we often don’t notice. And we shall smile again…

Today there’s no salt in the markets, the fishmongers are struggling to make a living, disease and infection are spreading rapidly, there’s a shortage of stocks for medicine, the secondary effects of the quake are awakening. How important little things can be. Never should we ever take such details for granted. My dear friends and family though we may have made mistakes and even had arguments about various issues in various matters, let us remind ourselves that we at this time must join hands in this joint national effort. I guess we were all too emotionally involved to think correctly. Now as we wipe away the tears and bandage the wounds and pick up the pieces to start over for a new Sri Lanka the mind slowly takes over from the heart…