It is a long journey to Etipower Island, where ERD partner, the Church of South India (CSI), is building 50 houses with ERD support. Rice paddies and farmland stretch for miles, and our driving down the 24 km dirt road is stop-and-go as we wait for herds of goats to cross the road and veer to avoid water buffalo.
Etipower is a 9 km long stretch of sand off the coast of Andhra Pradesh and is almost completely covered in coconut trees. Its remote location has hindered aid in reaching the 20,000 people who call the island home. Almost all the people who live on this island are Dalits. The island, which rises only a few meters about sea level, was completely inundated by the tsunami, the mud homes washed away like sandcastles.
50 families who lost their homes have already been selected and the plots have been identified for houses to be built by CSI. The houses will be constructed using innovative disaster-mitigating techniques. The one-bedroom homes will each have a curved retaining wall on the side of the house facing the water which would help break the wave should there be another tsunami. The east-facing wall will be v-shaped to help break winds in this extremely cyclone-prone area. The bricks needed to build the homes would be costly to transport by truck and boat, so CSI has proposed a brick-making project on the island which would also help provide employment for island residents.
As the boat approaches the island it becomes quite apparent where we are to land. There is a huge banner with “Welcome to: Miss CARA (ERD) USA” hand painted in red and blue letters which are beginning to run in the rain. Children line the docking area holding signs saying “Welcome” in English and Telegu over their heads. They jostle for position as I take photos, craning their necks, some holding their signs upside down and backwards. I am only the second foreign female to visit this island, and the children are delighted.
After lunch we go to the local church-cum-school which is an open-air structure with a thatched roof. A group of children sit at my feet. One girl twirls my long gray skirt and pokes at the chipped polish on my toes. I am presented with a garland of flowers and wrapped in a ceremonial shawl and begin listening to the problems of the community. I learn that several of the children here are semi-orphans as a result of the tsunami, including the skirt-twirler, Ruth, 10, and her sister, Blessie, 5, whose mother succumbed to the waves.
Aside from fishing, the other sources of income for the islanders are from coconuts and pine trees which are one of the few things that can grow in sand. CSI plans to establish a rope-making enterprise development project here using the fibers from coconut husks, similar to the project already established in Kanyakumari, in the south.
One week later back home in New York I receive an email from ERD Tsunami Response Coordinator Kirsten Laursen who is now in Chennai. She tells me the foundation stone of the first house is about to be laid on Etipower Island. It gives me hope that through the hard work and dedication of the ERD and CSI staff, we will be able to realize the dreams of the Etipower Island villagers and the vision of the donors who have contributed to ERD’s South Asia Relief Fund by constructing 100 new disaster mitigating homes in Andhra Pradesh.
