'When I climb the sand dune, I feel like weeping'

High on a sand dune outside the village of Manatkadu, northern Sri Lanka, is a graveyard. Seventy-three people are buried here, the crosses standing out against the darkening sky, crows cawing in the sunset.

‘We don’t know what happened to my mother and sister. We can only imagine,’ says Desilda Mary, 20, who now cares for her father and brothers and is learning to sew in a class run
by the Jaffna Social Action Centre so she can
earn a living.

‘I go to their graves often. When I climb the sand dune, I feel like weeping. When I reach the grave, I light incense sticks and strew the ground with flowers and say prayers.’

Many survivors lost everything: family members, friends and homes. In Manatkadu, most of the survivors now live in a temporary camp run by the UN. ‘For months afterwards, all you could hear in the camp was the sound of weeping,’ said one villager.

Across the countries of the Indian Ocean, up to 250,000 people died – more fatalities than in any other tsunami in recorded history. It will take years for people to come to terms with the magnitude of their loss – if they ever can.

'There is another face'
Some communities were so stricken that they virtually ceased to function. People would be speaking to each other and forget what they were saying; domestic violence and drinking were on the rise; children, especially, were unable to face their loss. They stopped playing and were afraid of the sea.

Our partners, who know these communities and understand their needs, started to offer trauma counselling in the first months of the disaster. Games, art, drama and storytelling have all been used to offer people hope and inspiration. We have also funded a team of medical specialists to help the most seriously traumatised.

Photographer Tim Hetherington visited drama groups run by Sri Lankan group the Active Theatre Movement to see how people were being helped to cope with their grief. He photographed children dressed up in costumes, dancing and wearing specially made masks.

'I was interested in the idea of drama, of theatre, of how trauma is hidden deep within people,’ he told us. ‘I have worked before in areas of conflict and I can see how deeply traumatised people don’t necessarily show it.

'The mask is a way of people giving you one face when really there is another face behind it.’

This slow, painful work has been a lifeline for thousands of people.