Relieve a Pain

JEN’s vocational training saw its third-term finish on 27th June. We walked down to our car to leave one of the four villages where we attended the commencement ceremony, and then it happened.

A guy was shouting at us. He was from the neighboring village across the road. The massive tsunami of December 2004 washed away his two children, his house, ship and all fishing tools. He lost everything he used to make a living. With a strong smell of alcohol in his breath, his anger and agony came out of his mouth. And he complained “JEN’s assistance reached my neighboring village, but not my village”.

JEN selected villages where JEN’s assistance could meet the needs of the affected people. The village size, the degree of devastation caused by the tsunami, the population, and the economic condition before and after the tsunami were the aspects examined in our survey, and his village was not among the targets.

He saw JEN’s vocational training actively conducted in the other village alongside the road. He heard people’s cheerful voices and saw their smiles in the gatherings and it made him feel uneasy and angry.

His words left us speechless and we apologized for what we hadn’t done for people in his village. There are always people who are left behind when we decide to support others, and it is us who left him in devastation. We learned what we couldn’t do did for him, and something visible, goods for instance, couldn’t relieve the deep sorrow brought by the tsunami.