It is hard to forget Boxing Day on 2004. I woke up to the news of the Tsunami, it was really one of the sadest incidents I have heard of. How hundreds of thousands were left dead in just a matter of few hours. It was incomprehensible. At the time I was in England, you could see the shock in the faces of everyone, Rafif, was in this state for a few days to the extent that we stopped watching TV because of this. "If God was there, why would He allow this to happen?"
I remember how I liked the English people, then, for being so compassionate and for the ammount of donations and appeals they made at every possible time. They outstreched the government, which prompted it to donate more for the countries struck by the Tsunami.
My other shock however, came six months later as I visited Sri Lanka, I saw the ammount of destruction that struck the coastal areas, I heard of people who lost the sources of their livelihoods, and I was shocked to see how, in our field- development, we go astray when we think numbers and dollars and forget to think people.
hundreds of agencies shifted their scope of work to meet the needs of the new trend. I still have to believe that any of these organisations had their intention focused on improving the lives of people rather than the funds that were flowing. I remember being even more shocked as I saw how the UN agencies were dealing with the matter, with their bureacracy, they imposed certain restrictions on their activities which created further trouble to those affected.
I remember that I was never more disenachanted with the prospects of development, and the development field in general than during that visit.