By Hasanthi Jayamaha

Little Tsunami sits on a rock by the sea, watching the boats sail by in the distance. Every now and then, she pushes back the hair the evening sea breeze pulls playfully across her eyes. When a wave splashes close to the rock where she is sitting, Tsunami stands up in a flash and runs to her mother.

 "She loves the beach and the sea. Every time her father goes to the market, she goes with him just to get on the rocks and look at the sea, but she is terrified of the waves," says Sarojini, Tsunami’s mother.

"We have taken her many times to the beach to play, but unlike other children her age, she would keep away from the water and would not let a single wave wet her feet," she says, "I guess it is because I experienced the tsunami while I was pregnant with her and the fear I went through has affected her," she says.

Horrifying memories
Sarojini had already completed nine months of pregnancy and was due at the time Sri Lanka experienced the tsunami. Although Negombo (outskirts of Colombo) where they live was the least affected by the tidal wave disaster, it was still a terribly frightful experience for her family and the community.

"Even now when I think of that day, I am horrified," says Sarojini. "When I look at the sea, I’m still filled with fear. Until the tsunami, we had never experienced a disaster."

It’s been five years since the tsunami, but Sarojini and her husband Lucky talk about December 26, 2004, as if it were yesterday. The police alerts urging the community to vacate, the hydraulic force that broke through walls and houses, the boats in the fishery thrown up on the grounds close by…they remember all they heard and saw with vivid detail.

"Let’s die together"
"We couldn’t imagine what it was," says Sarojini. "It was such a massive disaster. I kept getting pains due to all the fears I went through but the baby wouldn’t come out. My husband wanted to admit me to the hospital but I didn’t want to be alone. I told him if we all must die, let’s die together."

Sarojini, Lucky and their two daughters (then ages 11 and six) fled the area and found a safe refuge at a relative’s home.

The nameless disaster was later identified as a "tsunami", a name and an experience unimaginable and foreign to the island nation, as it took away more than 30,000 lives and dragged and swallowed anything it came in contact with from trees to trains to buildings.

A child is born
Little Tsunami was born just a few days later while the death toll was still rising, and received her name—Sumathra Tsunami Tharanga (waves)—from her father Lucky. Every name is connected to the tidal wave.

"I was very upset when I learned that he had named our little daughter Tsunami," says Sarojini. "I didn’t speak to him for days. No one was happy with the name. The neighbours, the immediate family, the relations all were very annoyed."

But Lucky has an explanation.

"I didn’t give her that name in memory of the disaster, but to remember that big life-changing experience we had," he says. "The tsunami challenged the dreams, the longings and selfishness of people. I saw how people with houses like palaces had to abandon them and from all their possessions, carry only a few clothes in a small shopping bag. We were made to reorganize our priorities."

"People who take their neighbours to courts over a water drainage that overflowed into their territory could not take the sea to courts for throwing mud and sand into their houses," he says.

Annual reminders
Every year on the 26th of December when all the media channels remember the tsunami, the little girl wonders why her name is mentioned so many times on TV and her father has to explain to her how he gave her the name.

"Appachchi (father) gave me this name because I came with the tsunami wave," she explains in her own little five-year-old way.

 The little girl is known as Tsunami Baba (baby Tsunami) by her relations and as Sumathra by her friends. She completed her preschool education in November at the World Vision’s Pipena Kusum (blooming flowers) preschool and is getting ready to start formal schooling in January 2010.

Sponsorship opens doors
Just like her sisters, Tsunami is a sponsored child, supported by the World Vision Taiwan’s long-term community development project, Mangrove Area Development Program.

"Sponsorship has been such a big relief to us as it provides the children with all that is necessary to continue schooling," says Sarojini. "They also benefit from the annual health clinic. But most of all, the World Vision’s Child Society has had a tremendous impact on my two elder daughters. It has helped them discover their talents and improve them. I want Tsunami also to be a part of the child society from next year."

The little girl carefully jumps from one rock to another, running along the wall of rocks that separates the land from the sea. In complete contrast to the disaster, Tsunami has brought much joy and hope to her family.

"Tsunami is a very smart and intelligent girI," says her mother. "I hope she’ll soon overcome her fear of the waves too."