Drumming on the beach

Friday morning I met with the GIS technician for the Humanitarian Information Centre an organization set up by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). For a final project for the GIS class I took last semester at George Mason University, I performed a geospatial investigation of post-tsunami relief efforts in Sri Lanka. Basically I overlaid information of how many organizations were working in various humanitarian sectors (food, shelter, water/sanition, etc.) in each subdivision of the country with statistics on death and destruction within these subdivisions, to get a sense as to whether areas that were hardest hit were really recieving the most aid. I wanted to give my data and report to the HIC and discuss with them what they were doing and plant some ideas about what they should/could be doing in order to utilize GIS to aid in relief aid coordination. It was a nice feeling to walk into a UN office and feel like I had something intelligent to say.

That night I went to Negumbo with Dinoushka, Nanda's daughter, and friends to see more of the drumming. It was a free concert on the beach... we saw the kandian drummers again, a group from Japan banging on gongs, and an amazing troupe from Burundi who came in with giant bongos on their their heads, jumping up and down for a good hour/hour and half... got exhausting just watch them get this crazy drumming workout. Looked a lot more fun that tai-bo.

Crashed in Negumbo that night.

View from hotel window

The Burundi Drummers

Fishing Boats

The Crew