PHOTOGRAPH FOR TIME BY TERU KUWAYAMA

SEA CHANGE: Sri Lankan fishermen are returning to their trade

It Took a Village
	A Sri Lankan community tries to piece itself back together after the horror
	By Andrew Marshall

Posted Monday, March 28, 2005; 20:00 HKT
It's 11:30 a.m. in the village of Maligaikadu, Sri Lanka, and wholesaler M.M. Ajmal is waiting for his fish. In the old days, he'd sell up to 3,000 kg a day of seerfish, lamprey and a large local variety called galmalu. Fishing has not yet resumed in Maligaikadu—the boats are still damaged, the nets torn and there's debris in the water—so Ajmal now has his supplies delivered from nearby villages. Some days are terrible: he'll buy and sell just a couple of kilos. Today's catch—200 kg—isn't great, but as he watches his relatives pack the fish in cartons of ice, which will be sent to the capital, Colombo, Ajmal seems satisfied. Of all the fish shops that operated on this seaside street before the tsunami, Ajmal's is the only one to have reopened.

Ajmal's village, one of several that radiate off a town called Kalmunai, is Sri Lanka's ground zero. Kalmunai is on the island nation's eastern coast, where nearly 15,000 people, about half of the country's death toll, died. The coastline around Kalmunai was among the worst-hit spots: groups of survivors drove around the town for days, hunting for dead family members; the displaced had to cram into refugee camps or the houses of relatives; and no one went near the water. Now, the residents of Maligaikadu are trying to figure out if life can ever be normal again. A lot depends on Ajmal.

Ajmal's green house, part of a long line of shops, schools, madrasahs and homes along Maligaikadu's waterfront, still has jagged, broken glass in its windows. A wooden lattice inside looks like a pretzel that was chewed by the tsunami. Ajmal, a chubby, genial 37-year-old, lost two sons (one was only 4 months old) and about 20 other relatives in this densely packed Muslim village. When the waves receded, Ajmal took his wife and three surviving sons to stay with a relative who lives far from the coast. In the first few weeks after the tsunami, neither he nor anyone else dared return to the village either to live or to work the water. When some did venture near the sea, they thought they heard the ghosts of the dead crying, "Help me! Save me!" For about a month, every Sunday (the day of the week the tsunami hit) at 7 a.m., someone would shout, "The tsunami is back!" Everyone who had returned near the water would stampede into town—and all the ground that had been regained would once again be lost to the ocean and its ghosts.

Ajmal was the first to go back to the waterfront for good. He had heard that the government wouldn't allow people to rebuild within 100 m of the sea. But a fish seller must sell by the sea, Ajmal decided. His old stand, opposite the green house, had been obliterated by the waves, so he made the house where he had lost two of his sons his new office. He's also opened two tea shops on the street, and has found someone to run them. Sales are still lackluster, but Ajmal says that is not the point. "I want to show that this isn't just one man coming back. I want people to know that this entire street is open for business again, like in the old days."

Before the tsunami, the fishing street in Maligaikadu would be packed with fishmongers and their customers—Kalmunai, after all, was a key fishing center for Sri Lanka. But now it's largely deserted, with a few stragglers wandering about the wreckage of a fish stand, or a house, or the waterfront madrasah where some 60 children died, looking for pieces of wood, bricks or electrical wiring to recycle. When the fish arrive, a little crowd sometimes gathers; those who have moved back to houses near the water, or have half-moved back, or are thinking of moving back, come to watch Ajmal.

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