Where I've been

[Regie]

I've been missing from here for about 7 weeks (not sure if anyone noticed )

My home in melb. was burgled, I lost pretty much everything and in the process cut my left hand up badly. Insurance has replaced most things (except a couple of heirlooms and photo & video archives that are priceless), my hand is getting better and I should have almost full function back in 6-8 months. I was really bummed and feeling sorry for myself but after the earthquake and waves in South Asia, including Sri Lanka (where I was visiting) has made me realise that my run of bad luck was insignificant, nothing I lost was irreplaceable or priceless - like a father, mother, brother or sister!

I spend some time every year in Sri Lanka doing some charity work with a school for speech therapy for hearing impaired children. I have also done consultancy in my chosen field of work for $$. I'd arrived here on the 24th to spend a few weeks here. When the waves hit on Sunday it was surreal, I was in the capital Colombo , and wasn't affected. We didn't find out till we heard it by word of mouth. There were rumours flying around everywhere. I've postponed my stay and will be here till the end of January (at the least) there are things i can do, being trained in first aid and having contacts in the heavy construction industry.

It is the rural areas that have been devastated. Also about 2 million people have lost their homes (pop. 20 million).

I might go out and about once the work dies down and take some images of the damage. I can't do it now as I feel that instead of lugging video and still camera gear around, I can use my hands for treating the injured. I do have footage of the villages and dead that I've recorded from the local media. Some of the images are horrific but if anyone is interested in viewing it I can digitise it to DV tape and compress it for viewing over the 'net - I'd need somewhere/someone to host it though.