Mission of mercy--Area man brings clean water to tsunami victims in Sri Lanka

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GMI

When area resident "Rooster" Smith - that's all the name he gives to anyone - declared a rural school's water supply ready for use by Sri Lanka tsunami coastal region survivors , he sensed some doubts.

To demonstrate the usable status of the school's water supply, Smith backed up his conclusion with action.

"I said this water is pure, so I will take the first drink."

He then took a long drink to the cheers of the people.

Smith obviously takes a great deal of pride in being able to utilize his city of Hempstead water works experience to help people such as these victims of natural disasters.

Despite Smith's limited use of one arm after surgery to repair a bicep muscle, he answered the call a few weeks back to join a Texas Baptist Men's volunteer group on a two-week trip to tsunami-devastated Sri Lanka to assist in restoring some of life's vital services to several rural villages.

He told the Baptist recruiter about having reasonable use of just one arm, but was assured his primary value "wasn't in lifting anything," rather utilizing his water quality expertise to return salt-water flooded city, school and residential water wells into service.

While not everyone in the two Texas Baptist Men's 29- and 31-person travel groups were involved with fixing water supplies, Smith was assured he'd have other hands around to do any lifting.

At the height of the activity he led, some 25 to 30 per day of these open-pit wells flooded by salt water were brought back into service; the people, though anxious, waiting their turn behind work on city and school wells.

The second slightly larger wave of Texas Baptist Men's volunteers came a week after Smith's group to finish up. Smith said he thought the group arriving his second week may have been the last of series of "staggered" groups arriving ever since volunteer crews were allowed into Sri Lanka.

"It's amazing how these people have lost everything and they still are smiling," Smith said. "One family invited us to have tea with them, and they served it with all of us sitting on a slab - all that was left of their home."

Working on a well in one schoolyard, Smith could see the place was surrounded by loosely-piled shallow graves, There, one old man came up and told him, "I have lost everyone else in my family."

Smith had a driver/interpreter to help him with his work, noting "being able to bridge the language barrier made everything so much easier."

Illustrating how bad things were, Smith recalled he also had a small supply of teddy bears to give out to children. Going through one village that looked poor, he suggested the driver stop and was told, "No, not here. We need to give the bears to poor kids."

And Smith soon figured out his driver/interpreter's $5 daily pay made him "one of the better off people" of anyone he'd meet in a rural area.

There were many places vehicles couldn't travel - with roads essentially destroyed - but Smith, befriending a man who owned a motor scooter, was able to witness devastation not seen by many outsiders.

"This man pointed to how all the fisherman had lost their boats, all the carpenters were left without tools, and the town's main industry - a linen factory - was washed away except for (remnants of) big equipment," said Smith.

Also noteworthy, Smith noted that the country had been in civil war before the tsunami - and there were still checkpoints at various places by either the rebels or the government.

One time, the rebels had made their encampment in the middle of the road and the only way around was to detour through a farm field.

Smith said it was also interesting that "the rebel soldiers were usually smiling, and the government soldiers always wore stern faces."

A specialist in municipal water supply, Smith has been working with Hempstead's public works department for 15 years and was promoted to that city's public works director some four years ago.

Two years ago the Smith family made the move to Hempstead, though each weekday three members - wife and mother, Carolyn; second son, Andrew, and youngest of three boys, Timothy, travel to Brenham.

Carolyn is registrar/secretary for Brenham Christian Academy and Timothy is a junior there. Andrew is a freshman at Blinn College.

The Smiths' oldest, John Travis, is a junior at Texas A&M University.

Especially with his distinctive name, Smith is likely remembered by many in Brenham as a big soccer volunteer here.

"I also worked (for shorter periods) earlier this year during Florida's Charlie and Ivan hurricanes - once delivering and then helping set up a kitchen and (in the other instance) helping to deliver food supplies," he said.

In more recent and more involved volunteer efforts like the complex business of going many thousands of miles, Smith thanks his Hempstead municipal bosses and the patience of his public works assistant, Anthony Stanley, in enabling him to perform such volunteer services.