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| Sunday, 31 July 2005 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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In Search of Serendipity : Emma Knights returns to Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami Emma Knights, who wanted to kick-start her career in journalism in a far
off land and, who jumped at the idea of an internship at the
Writing to the Norwich Evening News of June 24, 2005, she says "I drove from Colombo to Galle, one of the areas most affected by December 26, with friends who were helping at a local hospital. Memories of the idyllic palm-fringed beach road of two years ago collided with today's reality of people still suffering among the rubble they now call home. At first, I felt uncomfortable intruding on these people's tragedies. But they warmly welcomed my friend and I into their villages. At Peraliya, Telwatte, the site of the world's worst train crash where more than 2,000 people perished on Boxing Day, the battered train stands as a solemn memorial amongst a survivor's village of sheds and tents. There I saw scores of smiling children play among the rubble - including a pair of boys flying a Union Jack flag high. As they laughed at the photos I took of them and enjoyed the ice creams I bought, they highlighted to me how important it is for people to cast aside moral apprehensions and return to holidaying in Sri Lanka just as they would have done, half a year before". After a visit to the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage, and confident she is fully initiated into the ways of elephants, Emma goes on the "obligatory tourist elephant ride at the Millennium Elephant Foundation" on the back of thirty-year-old Lakshni, who decides to exercise the 40,000 muscles in her trunk by giving Emma a wash that would have rivalled any power shower. "Back in the crazy hub of Colombo" writes Emma " I enjoyed the wonderful way east crashes into west in a contradictory world full of crazy honking traffic and beautiful Sri Lankan fashions and traditions". As the sun fades and the city skyline lights up she gazes at the sea and concludes "Watching the evening spectacle I was starkly aware that this was the same cruel ocean that took the lives of so many". "But its time to look past the tragedy. Sri Lanka deserves to be enjoyed by it's people and tourists so that it can prosper again."Emma plans to return. Whenever this might turn out to be, she can be sure that the cultural kaleidoscope that she finds stunning and the endless warmth of the people she finds alluring, will be waiting for her. (AD) |
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Associated
Newspapers of Ceylon Limited, in 2003, returned to Sri Lanka, six months
after the tsunami, apprehensive of what she would see.