First visit

It was 28 December, two days after the tsunami, when Elizabeth and I arrived in Mumbai. This was our first visit to India, and several weeks into our two months of travelling. We started off as tourists, spending a few days in Mumbai and Agra – visiting the Taj Mahal – before we realized that we weren’t in the spirit of holiday making and decided to help the relief effort. We flew down from Delhi to Chennai, offering our services to the charity Aid India.

The affected villages
We spent five days in the field, visiting four villages, and a final day training volunteers in Chennai. Vijay and Nalini were our translators and new (dedicated and talented) friends who accompanied us throughout.

Two of the villages, Kovalam Kuppam and Mahabalipuram Kuppam, were near Chennai. There were fewer deaths in this area, but much devastation of property and livelihoods, and widespread trauma.

The other two villages, Kuttiyandiyur and Kesavan Palayam were further south. This region had suffered the worst devastation in mainland India and many people had been killed.

Vijay had spent several days the previous week in this area recovering and burying bodies with other volunteers. He had worked with his bare hands, since he had no gloves, and had himself been traumatized by the experience. I used EMDR to process his experience. The treatment didn't take many minutes and he was immediately able to eat properly (without being plagued by vivid images of the corpses) for the first time in two weeks.

Emotional trauma 
The majority of people – and perhaps everyone – directly affected by the tsunami had been traumatized to a greater or lesser degree. The following are symptoms common to people in all the areas we visited:

Chest pain and other physical pains; extreme tension; digestive problems.
Fear of the sea, of water, of the sound of water – even of the word water.
Fear during the night and of going to sleep
General feeling of being alone.
Fear of the tsunami coming again.
All but the first of these is treatable in groups. I used EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) with groups of women and children to dispel common fears.

Many survivors however needed individual attention. I used EFT, EMDR and other methods, including NLP and kinesiology, to help individuals and local volunteers. Most people experienced complete relief in minutes or (at most) hours – where traditional psychotherapeutic techniques can take months or years.

Individual trauma
When the wave struck one 16-year-old girl ran two kilometres from her village. She was later scolded by her parents for abandoning her younger sisters (who all survived). She didn’t speak for days. Local volunteers had worked with her for several days before I saw her. She was now able to speak, but was still severely traumatized.

I worked with her for two sessions, on two consecutive days, and she was back to normal. She agreed to tell her friends that there was no likelihood of another tsunami.
 
Her family insisted that we had lunch with them on the second day. They served us prized fish that had been caught using line and bait – all the nets having been damaged by the tsunami.

A devastated village
Kesavan Palayam is a village in south India over a kilometre from the sea. Many of the houses had been devastated, and some destroyed.

In this village I worked with a group of children who were now afraid of the sea. We did EFT together. Afterwards, the translator, Vijay, asked if they were still afraid of the sea. They each, individually, said they were not. Vijay asked if they would be happy to go to the sea now. They all roared affirmatively and were ready to rush to the water (but were prevented by the imminence of lunch, provided by volunteers)!

Community problems
The fishing villages suffered the loss of their boats and nets. But, even if funds are provided to replaced them, the villagers feared that no one would want to eat fish again. It was widely believed that fish ate the corpses, and people would refuse to eat fish that may have eaten the flesh of humans. The fishermen said that fish don’t eat the bodies of dead people.

It was also rumoured that government agencies were trying to take advantage of the situation to usurp precious seaside property from the fishing communities by promoting fear of another tsunami. If the fishermen – who were considered a powerful political force – could be dissuaded from returning to their homes and livelihoods, then their land could be seized for lucrative hotel development. While we were at one village – Kuttiyandiyur – officials arrived telling the volunteers and villagers to evacuate the area because another tsunami was on its way. How innocent this declaration was we have no way of knowing.

The problem for farmers is even graver than for fishing communities. The land within a couple of kilometres of the sea had been rendered unfarmable by the salt water for about five years. It is not easy to see a satisfactory solution to the difficulties of the farming communities. I can't help wondering whether such communities will be conveniently ignored by the government.

The villages we visited were all receiving substantial help in terms of food, clothing and water; and volunteers were helping to clear their houses of debris. The financial needs of the villagers are comparatively very modest; vast sums of money have been raised internationally. But how much compensation they will receive, and how soon they will be able to resume anything resembling a normal life, we will have to wait and see.

There are many very dedicated volunteers working on their behalf and representing their needs to the authorities. The provision of therapeutic help is another matter, of course; easily ignored or forgotten, it is a deep and widespread need.