Our most recent travels took us to the Southernmost points of Sri Lanka, and the areas most affected by the 2004 Tsunami. At a number of places we got out to film and photograph the shattered homes, boats and businesses, overgrown by vegetation that stand as stark reminders of the loss of over 40,000 lives in 8 seconds.

 

While much was made of losses in other parts of Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka was most affected by that day losing more than 3 percent of its entire population. Sadly a majority of those killed were children.

 

Hearing statistics, numbers and even stories of loss while sitting as far removed from the situation as one can be, does nothing to help us visualize the horrific hardships endured since the disaster. But for my team, to speak to survivors who had lost everything, it brought the sheer enormity of that day into a more clear perspective.

 

One man in particular I will never forget. I was walking among a series of homes that had been ripped from their foundations. They were being slowly eroded by vines and weeds, some missing walls, roofs, and all in non-livable condition. With the steadicam unit attached to my chest, I had been able to take some amazing footage of these homes still sitting less than 100 yards from the ocean.

 

It was then that I saw a little man walking my way with a distant look on his face. He motioned me closer to one of the homes, one that had very little in the way of weeds and vines on it, and invited me inside. As we walked in this small home with a ripped off roof, he grunted out sounds as he pointed to an empty corner, an empty room, a home with very little left.

 

Then he took me outside and began drawing in the sand. I began to understand. This was once his home. On the morning of the Tsunami he was out fishing. His wife and four daughters were at home. When he got back to shore, nothing was left. He pointed to the drawing on the ground of his family, and then pointed at the sky.

 

Filming this man made me feel like I was invading his privacy as he shared one of the saddest stories I had ever heard, but then he looked at the camera and smiled. Motioning to the drawings, the house, and the empty rooms, he nodded his head as he pointed to the camera . . . he wanted his story to be told.

 

As I walked away I looked back in time to see him bending over to pull the weeds that had started growing from the cracks in the stonework. Though he no longer lived there, it was still his home.