Sri Lanka Tsunami, On the Road to Recovery: Back to Business Café in Telwatte
December 22, 2006 -- The World Bank's Chulie de Silva visited tsunami survivors a year ago to see how they were moving on with their lives. Now, as the two-year mark approaches, she revisits some of the survivors she met a year ago.
“Getting People Back to Work” was the second core area in the Tsunami Recovery. Two years later, much needs to be done to support hardworking people to economically strengthen themselves.
Mrs. L.W. Chandrakanthi and her husband Mr. Upulsriananda inside the cafe. Photo by Chulie de Silva.
A string of heavy trucks is parked on the seaside, opposite a little café in Daluwattemulla, in Telwatte – the place tragically marked in the 2004 tsunami. The sun is scorching at midday. The sea is calm, little waves roll on to the shore, spilling the white foam into a myriad of bubbles. The creeper outside the café has grown, straddling one corner of the wooden banisters. Inside the café, tables are full with truckers at lunch. Mrs. L.W. Chandrakanthi and her husband Mr. Upulsriananda are busy serving customers, but their faces light up with recognition as we enter.
This Sri Lankan couple got back to business in a week after the tsunami tragedy. A livelihood rebuilt by a passion for education. The children missed school for a couple of weeks after the tsunami but Chandrakanthi and Upulsriananda made sure they resumed schooling as quickly as possible.
“Money for uniforms, books, shoes had to be found, as well as for the extra coaching classes,” Chandrakanthi said last year when we first visited.
“This year I was able to educate my son and he passed the Advanced Level exam,” Chandrakanthi says proudly. Their second child, a daughter, is learning to be a seamstress and the third one is still in school.
“This is our only means of earning a living," Chandrakanthi says.
She has been successfully holding off the Coast Conservation Authorities, arguing that this was their only means of livelihood. Their restaurant and house was located within the 100 meter buffer zone, which was designated as a "no build" area. As with most families who lived inside the buffer zone prior to the tsunami, they couldn’t get any financial assistance to rebuild on their 20 perches of land.
Business is good. The home-cooked fiery meals are still popular with the truckers.
“Right now, we have come this far in developing our business with our own money," Chandrakanthi says."We have employed two women, Karunawathie and Padmini, to cope with the demand.”
The pay for the daily workers is LKR 250 [US$2.50] a day – small but better than the daily wagers of the tea plucking estate workers. Although business is good, the rising cost of living means they can save only about LKR.2000 [less than US$20] per month.
The couple at the entrance of the cafe. The water storage tank is in the background. Photo by Chulie de Silva.
Chandrakanthi is still paying back the US$500 [LKR50,000] loan which she took from Samurdhi welfare program to restock the restaurant/shop just prior to the tsunami.
“We need more tables to cater to the demand. At least four more tables,” Upulsriananda says. “Customers sometimes have to wait for a table and, if they are in a rush, they leave.”
The restaurant still has no piped water. They store their water in two huge tanks, but collecting water is time consuming, Chandrakanthi explains.
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