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| Tuesday, 11 January 2005 |
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Lanka improvises post-tsunami by David Fox Books are soggy, desks broken, classrooms home to displaced families - Sri Lanka improvised as children went back to school yesterday, with some classes even dished out in the canteen. At Vidyaloka College in the tsunami-ravaged town of Galle, hundreds of pupils and their parents mingled with teachers, ready to start a new term - and a massive cleanup. "Twenty of the 68 classrooms are damaged and we can't use them at the moment," said schoolteacher R.V. Ranan. "We are using other rooms temporarily, such as the dining hall and teachers' staff room, and we are having to double up classes." The sprawling two-storey school, just 100 metres from the beach, was engulfed by seawater on December 26 and most of the windows and doors were blown out by the force of the waves, which killed more than 30,000 people in coastal Sri Lanka. Broken desks and chairs still lie tumbled about in the classrooms. Books and other teaching materials have been reduced to a sodden mess. "Lesson one for today: How to clean up after a tsunami," parent V.J. Wickramsinghe, who said he and other parents had volunteered to help get the school back into shape. But there was also a serious side. "We have lost at least five pupils," said Ranan. "We don't know how many in total. We will only know after we have done roll call. Some children won't be coming back because perhaps their parents are dead." |
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