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 By Wahyuana
GALLE, Sri Lanka (Asia Media Forum) - For more than nine months now, S Dillum Sanjeewani, 29, has been living at the Seeb Rees temporary housing complex at Mahamodara in this district in southern Sri Lanka.
Another 70 families share the housing complex where Sanjeewani lives with her husband, child and her in-laws. Her "house" is a blue canvas tent, roughly 2.5 by 2.5 metres, that includes a sleeping area and a small kitchen.
"Most of my time is spent outside. It's very hot inside and impossible to stay for a long time," said Sanjeewani. "It leaks when it rains."
Sanjeewani and her family sought refuge at a camp at the Mahamodara Buddhist temple for about three months immediately after the tsunami swept away her home and a child in December 2004. The family also lost its fishing boat, forcing Sanjeewani's husband to do odd jobs to make a living.
Still, Sanjeewani is comparatively better off than many others at the camp. Both her neighbours, 26-year-old S Uchithra 27-year-old W P Niroshani lost their husbands, children and homes in the storm.
"We are lonely and jobless. This is very stressful," said Uchithra. Before the tsunami, the two sold fish on the streets around Mahamodara beach. "I want to restart my business but I need money to do that," added Niroshani. She does not have the 5,000 rupees (50 U.S. dollars) she needs to start up.
It has been more than six months since the government's emergency support to tsunami victims ended. Under the programme, each family received 375 rupees (3.75 dollars) per week. But the only direct support they now get are weekly health checkups.
"I don't know how long I will have to continue living like this. My life may never be normal as long as I live here," said Sanjeewani.
The Galle district administration had promised the victims land for building permanent houses about 10 km inland from the Mahamodara beach. Having waited for over a year now, the residents say they are unsure if the promise will ever be met.
MOVING COMES WITH A PRICE
 There is another issue related with resettlement. Almost all families living in the temporary shelters used to make a living through fishing. Moving inland would mean giving up the only vocation they practised through many generations.
The Sri Lanka government has banned resettlement within 100 to 200 metres of the waterfront and many of the fisher-families cannot return to the land where they had homes before the disaster. All land within the district is now to be a ‘buffer zone' without habitation.
In Peraliya, Telwatta, 75-year-old tsunami survivor W J Weerasekara waited a year for government and non-government organisation support in order to rebuild his house. But no aid came his way. The former government official lives in a temporary wooden shelter.
He has put up a banner on his "new" home that reads, "Come Please Come and Help Us to Survive." Everyday, hundreds of aid workers and tourists travel the road connecting Galle and Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital, from where the sign is visible. But help still has not come Weerasekara's way.
Telwatta, in southern Sri Lanka, was among the regions that were worst hit by the tsunami that killed over 230,000 people in about a dozen countries in December 2004. Its huge waves had trapped about 2,000 passengers about 200 metres away from Weerasekara's house, and many drowned.
M H Susila, Weerasekara's 46-year-old neighbour, lives in another temporary wooden house nearby. A former domestic worker who had worked in Saudi Arabia for three months, she had used her savings to build a souvenir shop at Peraliya beach. The tsunami washed away the shop and killed one of her three children, after which husband has left her and moved to Colombo.
Susila now spends her time walking around the beach selling pictures from her family album, including her old house, to make a living. "Please, a hundred rupees for an album for food for my children," Susila tells all visitors.
Her house was near the waterfront, now a no-building zone. "It is very hot inside, my children cannot do their homework," she said. "The officials said former residents of the new no-building zones would be preferred for new houses, but until now I have not received one," she adds.
Almost 260 families rendered homeless by the tsunami at Telwatta are still living in temporary shelters.
NO HOMES
Resettlement remains a major issue for displaced families. The no-building rule within 100 to 200 metres from the waterfront has prevented many from returning to areas where they lived before the storm. Following protests by the former waterfront residents, the government promised to prioritise them in the distribution of new homes. But the construction of new residences has been frustratingly slow.
Sri Lanka 's government task force for tsunami rehabilitation (TAFREN) has two reconstruction schemes -- the Donor-built Reconstruction Programme and the Owner-driven Housing Reconstruction Programem. Under the owner-driven programme, people whose houses were partly damaged were given 100,000 rupees (1,000 dollars) and those whose homes were fully damaged were entitled to receive 250,000 rupees (2,500 dollars).
According to TAFREN, about 23,800 new houses have been built in the past year and another 15,000 are expected to be completed by mid-2006. Over 51,000 homeowners have received at least one installment of the grant for reconstruction.
The media, however, has been telling a different story-that only 5,000 families have received permanent housing and about 93,000 are still living in temporary shelters.
LOOKING AHEAD
Those that have received new houses have begun to start new lives. Ten families that were displaced by the storm now live in new permanent homes in Pelene, Weliagama, Matara districts.
Sytus Dillimuni, his wife and two children have been living in their new, two-storey, fully-furnished home for about a month. Dillimuni and 200 others are were recipients of houses funded by the Belgian, Swiss and Italian governments under TAFREN's housing programme. Each house cost about 600,000 rupees (6,000 dollars) to build. The Pelena tsunami housing complex, about 500 metres from the beach, also has a community meeting hall.
"Before the tsunami, we used to live with my parents at a small house at the beach. I never dreamt to have a house like this. The tsunami brought me luck," Dillimuni said.
Despite delays, Sri Lankan reconstruction has been much faster than that in Aceh, the Indonesian province at the tip of Sumatra island where the tsunami caused the most damage. A report by the Indonesian Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Body (BRR) says it has built 16,200 houses in a year and another 16,000 are under construction.
Government estimates say Aceh needs to rebuild 120,000 new houses, while another 75,000 need to be repaired.
In end-December this year, about 67,500 of tsunami victims in Aceh were still living at refugee camps, another 50,000 at temporary shelters and another 70,000 with their families and friends. (END/AMF/IPSAP/W/BB/JS/06)
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