My arrival at Nagapattinam, the hardest hit area on the east Indian coastline, was met with complete destruction and still smoldering funeral pyres farther down the beach. Amidst women wailing into the offshore wind, and a large swath of politicians, military and police making assessments, I noticed this treasure of a little girl walking towards me wearing a small smile and a pale green party dress. Together we walked to greet her mother as she sat on a broken slab of concrete, debris from what was once their home, crying like so many at the loss of her husband and a cousin, to the waves that struck in the early hours as they slept.
While I took photographs of her mother and brother, standing stoically and silent behind an offering of tea and a ceremoniously wrapped piece of bread laid out on broken cement, the child continued to prance in the sand in the only piece of clothing she had left. Like many children struck by hardship, the naivete of her youth made her oblivious for the time being to the tremendous forces that struck just a couple of days ago. She circled around me laughing and giggling and for a moment I smiled too - helping me to forget the great sadness surrounding me. We motioned our goodbyes, paid my respects to the mother and prepared to walk further down the beach, when she turned and gave me this parting smile, a small gift, then turning once again to quietly stand by her mother's side.
This would be the first of many photographs over many months while on assignment in India, Nias Island and Indonesia while covering the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami for Food for the Hungry.
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