RALEIGH - Ever since I heard myself say to my husband that I had to tell my "tribe" what I witnessed when the tsunami struck Sri Lanka, I have needed to report to N&O readers on each of my subsequent trips. It is an urge I do not understand but cannot deny. I did not even know I had a tribe until the word came out of my mouth. Maybe I am afraid that if I let my tribe forget, I will forget myself.

In any case, I am back, 27 months on, my fourth trip since the disaster. I came expecting to find that things had improved for tsunami victims, but that is not the case for many. Even those who are lucky enough to have been rehoused often find they have swapped one set of problems for another.

Madusha and his four-generation family, who lost a wage-earning son, are no longer living, all eight of them, in a sweltering lean-to in a refugee camp. They are in a good house owned by a friend who is willing to sell it to them. What's not clear is whether the friend has the right of conveyance. What's clear is that Madusha has no money.

Fortunately, Father Charles has agreed to help sort out the legalities if we can find the money. This is the kind of thing he, like Sister Alex, does daily for those who line up to see him. In his nonexistent spare time, he tries to find sponsors for children who lost one or more parents -- $30 a month is all that is required.

Niwas still lives in the fragment of his house that survived the tsunami. One of his sons is in school faraway in Colombo, unable now to sleep by the sea. The other does his neat school work on an upended wooden fruit crate. Since we were here over a year ago, Niwas has been able, with the income from a donated three-wheeler, to buy a plastic table and chairs so his family no longer eats on the floor. Some say that Muslims come at the bottom of the housing list. Our Buddhist and Christian friends say they hope it is not so.

But new houses are not necessarily the answer to the tsunami victims' problems. Dilhani has been rehoused. In contrast to the shaded seaside house she lost, her new one is perched atop a barren red hill. It has running water but the water is not running. And while her original house was five minutes from the center of Galle, the new house requires a 2-mile walk to the paved road and an expensive bus journey of 30 to 40 minutes.

A widow with no education, her options are few. Perhaps she can convert her sewing skills into a small income -- or perhaps she can sign on for a more lucrative stint as a domestic in the Middle East -- but who will care for her daughter?

Rina too has a new house, but no furniture. She and her children sleep on the floor -- difficult for her since she lost a leg in the tsunami. Some of her former neighbors blame her for the disaster, accusing her of prostitution, which was plied by the sea and, they reason, angered it.

She is lucky in two regards. Her new house is with people who do not know these rumors, and it is close to a market in which she can sell the rice parcels she makes. One of her children is top of his class but has no money for school supplies.

Maleni, who lost her husband in the tsunami, is the exception to what seems the rule for the former residents of Lovigahawaththa. Her new house, which she got by lottery, backs up to a tea plantation. Her vista is lovely and her neighbor, quiet. She has planted flowers and vegetables and trees that will soon provide her with shade as well as food. Water is not such a problem here. And if her son Pubudu, a brilliant engineering student, is careful with the money a Meredith College sponsor provides him, there is a little for her as well.

It is a miracle, really, that despite a civil war, some of our friends have new houses, but new houses are not necessarily homes. We tell ourselves that these are still early days, that more time is needed -- and more money. The tsunami may not be the disaster on this evening's news here -- but it continues to be a disaster for those who survived it. Perhaps what I most need to say to my tribe and to myself is that we must not forget them.

(Betty Webb is a professor of English at Meredith College.)

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