I find myself unprepared for the emotional impact of walking through the leveled fishing village and obliterated tourist strips. The roads have disintegrated into ragged ribbons and the bridges are shattered as if by a giant hammer. Toyota vans and pickup trucks lie smashed against trees or half-buried in sand. Bodies wash ashore nearly every day; scores are feared to lie beneath the mucky silt. Entire houses, with cement foundations and masonry walls, are literally torn in half. The body of a German resident -- a friend of Jarvie's -- was torn from his hotel office and carried 3 kilometers inland; his wife, who had been on the structure's second floor, survived.

Some people are wandering around with vacant stares, while others have already begun the process of rebuilding. "The first contribution Mercy Corps received," says Jarvie, "was 10 shovels and a wheelbarrow  from the Arugam Bay Surf Club." We walk by its headquarters. In contrast to the rubble-strewn yards around it, the clubhouse grounds seem eerily well-groomed.

At the refugee camp of Atimule, 107 families wait for supplies. Distribution is polite and orderly, the families taking numbers and receiving their kits before moving away with a word of thanks. I'm taken aback by the graciousness of the process. One man approaches Harshanan with a shy request; he'd like to know if he might have the cardboard box the kits arrived in. This causes brief confusion; there's no real policy for this.

Watching the distribution, I ask Jarvie a convoluted question: What can Sewalanka actually do better, now that Mercy Corps is here?

"On their own, they'd have goods from individual donors," Jim replies, "but not these immediate relief supplies, like the hygiene kits and tarpaulins from USAID. But you might also ask, 'What can Mercy Corps do better, working with Sewalanka?' The answer is, almost everything. They're our eyes, ears, and often our legs on the ground."

Jim and I walk through the ruins of Ullai, the fishing village annihilated by the waves. We sink to our ankles in soft mud. Sewing machines and broken wall clocks emerge from the silt like fossils from a tar pit. I remove my boots and gingerly ford a stream, terrified of stepping on a human limb. Luckily, such encounters have become rare.

For our final errand of the day, I join Jarvie at a meeting with a local businessman named André Tissera. His hotel, the Hideaway, is nearly intact, one of the least damaged structures in Arugam Bay. Even the bookcases are untouched, the volumes stacked with surreal formality behind leaded glass doors.

Tissera is in his late 40s, a wiry character with graying hair and fast-paced, ironic English. He describes his surname as an acronym -- "T for Thailand, I for Italy, S for Spain, S for Sweden, E for England, R for Russia, and A for America." He reminds me of a young, somewhat darker Lenny Bruce. He confers with Jarvie about the most essential priority -- cleaning up the village -- and shares his exasperation with some of the relief efforts.

"We received an entire shipment of miniskirts," he moans, "and ties. Ties! And not a small number! Someone should tell these people to stick their old clothes in an attic, instead of unloading them on us." But the lion's share of his wrath is bestowed upon a humane society based in Colombo. Tissera says he could hardly contain himself when, opening up one of its relief packages, he found a shipment of dog food.

Mercy Corps will soon begin a "Cash for Work" program in this area, paying 100 local people for 21 days of full-time cleanup. Jim and André discuss the situation, trying to determine which 100 of the thousands of eligible workers they'll hire. The hierarchy, both agree, should start with those who have lost their entire houses. The next layer, Tissera suggests, should favor people "who will come back."

Not everyone will. Earlier, I'd spoken with a fisherman who had lost his son; his home was also destroyed. When I asked when he'd fish again, the man shook his head in a panic and clapped his chest in the universal gesture of fear.

"Never," he said. "I will open hotel, or make other business. I won't ever go into the sea again."

Tissera, in contrast, is determined to demonstrate that people can reclaim their traditional lives and vocations. Just 36 hours after the tsunami, to the slack-jawed astonishment of his neighbors, he piloted one of the only surviving boats into the lagoon. He has since made a project of rounding up vessels scattered by the killer wave and repairing their damage. Tissera reckons that a third of them can be saved. (It's estimated that 80 percent of Sri Lanka's entire fishing fleet was destroyed.) His motive is simple: If the people of Arugam Bay cannot overcome their fear of the ocean, their community will never recover.

"I'm going fishing at 6 a.m. tomorrow," he says defiantly.

When I ask if there's anything left to catch -- a question that not even the marine experts have yet answered -- Tissera replies with absolute confidence.

"The fishing should be brilliant," he says. "Nobody's been out for 10 days."

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For information about how you can help the victims of the tsunami, click here.

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