http://whatsagirltodo.net/index.htmlNews from Lucyeninfo@whatsagirltodo.netCopyright 2006 Lucy Llewellyn Byard2006-01-12T22:02:19-08:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Fri, 10 Feb 2006 21:53:18 -0800info@whatsagirltodo.netNews2006-01-12T22:02:19-08:00http://whatsagirltodo.net/news/news.html#unique-entry-id-1http://whatsagirltodo.net/news/news.html#unique-entry-id-1Weligama, Sri Lanka

Chaminda Kurunero lost his wife and twin 4-yr-old daughters to the tsunami last December. It was a blow that he did not know how to handle. It crippled him. “I have no hope,” he said.

It wasn’t until he visited a Buddhist monastery and spoke to the chief monk that he first felt a glimmer of something other than despair. The monk told him it was his duty to earn pin (merits) for his wife and daughters by being a good son, a good brother and neighbor. If he could do so, his deceased family would have a better afterlife.

Since that day, Kurunero has worked at his hotel job, taken care of his mother and father, helped his sister get her broken house in order, built a temporary shed to take the place of his house that crumbled under the weight of the tsunami and helped others in need. With help from caring friends and strangers, he also has been hard at work building a permanent house. His cousin loaned him money to buy land – inland, for the sea still frightens him – on which to build a house. “I want to have it complete for the alms giving,” he said. The memorial would take place on December 26, Boxing Day, at the one-year anniversary of his family’s death. It was a giant task to undertake, especially since he only had funds for building the foundation of the house.

Slowly his story spread, via concerned foreigners and via the Internet. An English brother and sister living in a nearby village donated bricks. A visiting German woman who had heard of his plight donated cement. Help came from around the world, from a writers group in Santa Barbara, California, from a Swiss family, from the hotel where he worked.

Throughout the year Kurunero worked full-time. He coordinated the construction during his off hours. The foundation of the house was laid, the walls went up, the windows framed and the slab for the second floor was put on. There are no doors yet, nor windows and the walls in most of the rooms are still bare brick, but it is now a house, soon to be a home. Kurunero met his goal to have the house ready to be blessed by the monks for the alms giving on tsunami’s anniversary.

There were moments of course when he wondered “Why am I doing this?” but those thoughts were crowded out with hard physical work that left him tired at the end of the day – too tired to remember the screams of his daughters when the wave took them.

Boxing Day morning:
Alms givings took place around the tiny island. So many people had died that there was a shortage of monks needed to perform the ceremonies. Buddhist monks from the inland areas traveled to the seaside towns. Twelve monks arrived for the Kurunero’s alms giving. Close to a hundred friends and relatives poured in to pay their respect and share a meal in the new house. The chief monk spoke of Kurunero’s four-year-old twins and his wife – the lives lost, life as it is now for Kurunero and the afterlife as it will be for his family. It was an emotional morning.

Boxing Day evening:
Kurunero made the difficult journey to his seaside house, which lies across the road from the beach. The tsuanmi’s second wave leveled all but the kitchen. Gently Kurunero placed oil lamps, one for each child and one for his wife, in what was once the fire shelf where his wife had cooked his meals. Although thunder rumbled overhead and rain fell, it was a quiet time of prayers and saying what Kurunero needed to say to his family.

Along the beach, the soft gold light of oil lamps lined the roadside for miles. During the day one can still see the aftermath of the tsunami. That night, with lights burning for the dead, one could sadly see just how many lives were lost.

It was a day full of ceremony and memories, one that Kurunero had prepared for with hard work. With the help of friends and strangers, he earned the pin his wife and daughters need for a better afterlife. It was a sad day, but a good one.




]]>info@whatsagirltodo.netNews2005-09-15T09:04:17-07:00http://whatsagirltodo.net/news/news.html#unique-entry-id-0http://whatsagirltodo.net/news/news.html#unique-entry-id-0

For Immediate RELEASE: Sri Lanka – A Woman’s View - the work of photographer/journalist Lucy Llewellyn Byard will be exhibited at the Lionel Wendt Gallery, in the Harold Peiris Room (upstairs) on Friday 30th September - Sunday 2nd October. Exhibition times: 10am – 8pm.

The EXHIBIT OPENING will begin at 5:30pm on Friday 30th September. The Lionel Wendt Art Gallery is located at 18 Guilford Crescent, Col-7. 

Sarvodaya Vishva Lekha proudly presents Sri Lanka – A Woman's View. The opening will be attended by photographer Nihal Fernando. Chief Guests will be Ruwanmali Jayasinghe from Suriya and best-selling author Malinga H. Gunaratne.

The public is cordially invited. All photographs will be for sale. A portion of Sri Lanka – A Woman’s View will shown at Suriya on Fifth Avenue from October 3rd onward.

Ms. Byard’s popular adventure column, What's a Girl to Do?, plus various feature articles and photographs have appeared in numerous American publications. Most recently her photograph of Lakshman Kadirgamar appeared in The Sunday Times.

Ms. Byard says, “I’ve led a charmed life: I’ve jumped out of an airplane, was head-butted by a shark, learned to fly on a trapeze, tried hang gliding. I’ve driven a racecar, slammed a golf ball the length of a fairway, and learned how to stir macrobiotic food in a North-South direction. Amazingly, I’ve lived to write about it.

“Three Christmases ago I left California bound for the Maldives on what was to have been a simple, 9-day location story for Sport Diver Magazine. On the last day there, I decided to come to Sri Lanka for Ayurveda treatment and some shopping. Once on the island I fell madly for everything Sri Lankan and stayed.

I stayed because I could not stop taking photographs of the children with their giant, black-as-night eyes, of the Buddhist monks with their skin contrasting against their brilliant orange robes, the muscled arms of low-country drummers as they held a beat all night long, the ancient ruins of long ago kings, baby elephants hiding from the scorching sun in shadows cast by the hulk of their mothers, and the island’s pristine beaches.

Since Sri Lanka is a complex land full of many cultures that I have yet to explore, villages to visit and old people, children, fathers and mothers whose faces will undoubtedly capture my heart, there are many photography collections yet to come. Sri Lanka – A Woman’s View is simply the first.”

For information, please contact the Lionel Wendt at 0112.695794. Visit www.lionelwendt.com or email.
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