The Gallery
One thing that stood out was how deserted the beaches were. As if these once-idyllic stretches of sand were now cursed, a source of menace.
Stopping along the way, villagers appealed for help. “Actually, they were screaming for help. They'd lost everything. Their patience had simply run out.”
On their way back, just before Galle, Costa asked the driver to stop the car. “I caught sight of a fishing boat getting ready to put out to sea. And a boy in the water in high spirits, splashing about in the waves.”
Their driver went to talk to the fishermen, and found out that the boy's father had just signed on to work on the boat. His own boat had been washed away by the tsunami - along with the boy's mother and two sisters.
“Gavin had always wanted to be a fisherman, and even though his family had been decimated and his father's livelihood destroyed, here he was - the first one in the water, ready to face the waves.”
“After all the grief and destruction we'd seen, this boy's courage shone like a beacon. He seemed determined to show that the ocean held no fear for him.”
As the boat put to sea under a threatening sky, it was Gavin who led the way. The child had become Father to the Man.
All text and photographs copyright of Our Forgotten Children
Sri Lanka
The most powerful earthquake in 40 years erupted under the Indian Ocean near Sumatra on December 26, 2004. It caused giant deadly waves to crash ashore in nearly a dozen countries.
A long stretch of Sri Lanka's coastline was devastated, with more than 40,000 people killed and 2.5 million people displaced. The towering waves crashed with massive force into coastal villages, leaving a trail of destruction that extended five kilometers inland. It was the worst human disaster in Sri Lanka's history.
Gavindohansen lives in Galle, one of Sri Lanka's poorest regions. While tourists have come to enjoy its pristine beauty, its inhabitants eke out a hand-to-mouth living from small-scale agriculture, salt-farming and fishing. In the aftermath of the tsunami, Galle's fish consumption plummeted and many villagers developed a fear of the ocean that once sustained them.
“We visited Sri Lanka a few months after the tsunami,” says Costa. “As we drove down the coast from Columbo to Tangalle, we not only witnessed the extent of the devastation, we saw how - despite the worldwide outpouring of financial support - little was being done to help the victims.”