Date: January 7, 2005

Activity: Field visits with CASA (Church's Auxiliary for Social Action)

Objective: Distribute identification cards to recipients for relief distribution

I visited three villages with CASA as they distributed identification cards for relief distribution (to take place the next day). These villages were harder-hit than the villages I visited yesterday so there is greater need and psycho-social impact. In one village of 600 families, 110 people died and more than 250 houses were completely destroyed. Here people are not ready to return to fishing. In fact, many of the women I spoke to refuse to even look at the ocean right now. They are still sleeping in a nearby village's school and only coming home during the day to begin clearing the debris and rubble. Even if they had temporary shelters in which to sleep in their village, they aren't ready to do so. They think if the wave can kill 110 people during the day, it would kill everyone at night.

In one of CASA's villages I saw the tension growing between people on the government lists for assistance and those not on the lists. CASA staff spoke to those not on the list and personally inspected their housing sites. It turned out that most of those people not on the list who should have been were Dalits. So after CASA distributed identity cards in the main part of the village, it stopped in the Dalit section and issued a separate set of cards there.

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