Since returning home April 30 from the tiny island country of Sri Lanka, I have been searching for the words to describe my experience as part of a tsunami relief effort.

How can I explain a people who lost 31,000 of their countrymen in the giant waves? How can I portray the destruction resulting from the December 26 earthquake?

I don't have the words, and I can't seem to find them. Any would fall short.

In January, our pastor at First Baptist Church in North had announced that medical volunteers were needed to go to tsunami-ravished south Asia. Though my twin brother, Randy Boland, has participated in many such trips -- mostly to hurricane-hit Florida or to West Virginian coal mines -- I have never felt the calling.

But this time, I felt a nudge. For the first time in my life, I felt called to volunteer.

The contact at the State Baptist Convention said a group was going over to assess the needs in Sri Lanka, so I gave my name, address and that I was a pharmacist. They put me on the seventh team to go, along with a doctor from Alaska, several nurses and several child therapists.

With the support of my family and church family, I flew from Columbia Metropolitan Airport to Washington, D.C., where our team met, and proceeded on to London, then to Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Imagine if you will, flying 22 hours in all and landing on a tropical island that was once paradise. Upon leaving the airport, I traveled three hours southeast.

Our first stop was McDonalds! It was raining, and two employees with umbrellas met us in the parking lot, our first sample of the hospitality of these people.

A 45-mile bus ride took three hours due to the condition of the roads. When we arrived at our rooms,  we were given our instructions:

Our day would start at 8 a.m., following devotion and breakfast. We would visit several tent-cities near Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka, and treat patients, provide free medication, exams and counseling, through interpreters. We would distribute  mosquito nets for their beds to prevent malaria and other disease. We would see parasites, lice, respiratory infections and wounds.

Two well-refurbished teams would use portable generators, sump pumps and chlorine to put new life into their salt -infested well supplies. Fellow team member Bill Phillips of St. Matthews, as part of the water restoration plan, would visit a modern Global Positioning System to locate and mark wells for the teams. At night, we would "debrief" on what we had seen and accomplished.

It was 103 degrees.

We walked into the villages.

There is where we saw "IT".

The "IT" is what is in their eyes. The eyes of the survivors.

Look closely. Try to imagine what these people have seen. Try to "feel" what they see.

Look inside the many eyes of Tsunami.

<A TARGET="_blank" HREF="http://www.thetandd.com/pages/tsunami">Click here for the full "Eyes of the Tsunami" photo gallery.</A>

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