The nightmare was over. The waves broke and rolled back and the fields started to drain, but as the waters receded the full extent of the destruction was laid bare.

Death was in the air. Dozens of bodies littered the beach where just the previous day the morning’s catch had been. As the days passed, the dozens became hundreds. Hundreds became thousands.

But the nightmare was over. Homes would be rebuilt. Life would go on.

It was not to be. Eight months later, people are still scraping out an existence living in temporary shelters…

The village of Pandagasalai lays near the town of Nagoore, beside the Vettar, a small river which opens to the Indian Ocean. Its inhabitants are of a single caste – ‘Parayan’ – a Dalit group. These were poor people, predominantly daily wage labourers, but were able to find comfort and security in their community and the village that was their home.

This security has largely disappeared. When the tsunami hit the coast the water poured through the river mouth and destroyed most of the houses in the village. Now the approximately one hundred families of Pandagasalai are living in confines of the temporary shelters of Nagapattinam, beside the main road leading to the Collector’s office. Here they are beset with problems, mostly resulting from serious deficiencies in the design of their temporary shelters.

Housing & Health

The temporary shelters are made almost entirely of metal and as such they get unbearably hot during the day. There is no ventilation. People go out of their way to avoid going into the shelters during daylight hours.

Aside from the structural shortcomings of the shelters, another obvious source of misery is the actual location. A low lying area, inundated with sewage and rain water from the surrounding area, it is a natural breeding ground for mosquitoes. Sanitation is non-existent; open defecation the norm. There were reports of fever and other health problems amongst the children – given the heat the potential for disease is enormous.

This lack of proper drainage is a serious problem which will only get worse in the coming monsoon. Without it, the shelters are likely to be flooded or even washed away. Temporary shelters by their very nature are not designed to withstand the deluge of water that the monsoon will unleash. They were never meant to be a permanent solution to the housing problem, merely a stopgap.

In the mean-time, despite the abundance of standing water, there is a serious lack of clean water for drinking, cooking and cleaning. The shelter is supposed to be supplied with drinking water by tankers; however they often do not bring enough water and sometimes do not turn up at all. When they do, the water usually ends up in huge plastic containers without any shade – meaning hot water for thirsty people.

Employment and lack thereof

Most of the men (approx. 60%) are unskilled and do not have their own profession or trade, so they have to take whatever work they can get – as construction labourers, loaders, porters, fish packers etc. All they can offer to the market are their own bodies. They earn a meagre 80-100 Rs/day, which has to cover food, school fees, clothing, medicine etc. There are times when a man will spend all or part of his wage on drinking or gambling. In these cases the family has to go short – there is little in the way of support for these people. The gap between needs and means is as wide as the ocean. Hunger is ever-present.

Skilled workers are a little better off, earning around 150-200 Rs/day.

Women are not spared the gruelling yoke of daily labour. Many (40%) work as construction labourers and housekeepers. They earn less than men even though they work the same hours and there is no indication that their labour is less productive. The ideal of remuneration according to sacrifice and need is a distant dream here in Nagapattinam. Housekeepers earn a monthly salary of about 500 Rupees, which works out at a despicable 17 Rupees a day. Female construction workers earn around 50-80 Rs/day. Very few women are able to achieve a significant degree of independence.

The rest of the women stay at home, with very little to occupy their waking hours. These are mostly unmarried women, the elderly and those with young children. There are tailoring and basket weaving groups which are popular amongst the younger women, but the value of items made in these sessions has been lost amidst the deluge of cheap designer goods that have flooded the market. Nevertheless, these activities keep them occupied and offer brief sanctuary from the plaguing doubts and worries of everyday life.

There are around 25 widows who for some reason are not getting any sort of help from the government. These women sit outside their shelters, platting and unplatting their hair, watching the world going to and fro around them. Unnoticed by the moving people, they sit for hours waiting for the time to pass, listless, aimless, hopeless…

The suffering continues despite the efforts of the government and the countless hundreds of NGO programs. The lack of food, lack of water, lack of security and lack of laughter is mirrored by the many excesses: an excess of mosquitoes, an excess of boats and nets, an excess of intervention programs…

The odds are stacked against these people. They are suffocating in the stifling heat of the shelters, the last remnants of dignity about to be washed away in the torrents of the monsoon. Despite all this, they go on living, they go on fighting. They are hoping that some day soon this nightmare will finally be over.