I LIKE taking a box of school supplies to a school halfway around the world from me

In December 2004, a devastating earthquake in the Indian Ocean caused a tsunami to hit South Asia, affecting Indonesia, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, and other countries. In June 2005, I went to Sri Lanka. A box of school supplies that my 8th-grade science teacher had collected came with me.

This woman was one of those who fight for the underprivileged and the hurt. Because she knew I was going to Sri Lanka in the summer, she asked if we would have room to take school supplies if she took up a collection. My dad agreed to it…and when we got to Sri Lanka, we realized that we would have to drive to one of the affected cities and deliver the school supplies.

After a day of driving, we finally arrived at the rest house we would be staying at, and then my dad suggested that we walk around the city. With our camera in hand, we went to see the damage that had occurred 6 months ago. There was no one on the beach because people were still scared of the water. Rubble from the tsunami still covered the area alongside the beach—the broken houses had plastic sheets covering the sides of them, and some people were living there. Every once in a while you would pass a newly-built building with a large sign that said that someone in Japan or another country had donated money for the structure to be rebuilt. There were also areas filled with little yellow-and-red houses that were built by UNICEF or another one of those organizations.

The next day, my father, sister, and I went to an army base and found a school to drop off the school supplies. After going to the school and talking with the man in charge, we gave the supplies and left.

It’s funny how easy it was for us to drive down there, spend one night being eaten by mosquitoes, deliver the stuff, and come back with our pictures and our “wow, we just witnessed the aftermath of an epic event” attitude. But those children still have to live with the tsunami. It’s their reality. A reality I can barely imagine even though I saw it with my own eyes.

That has made me so thankful to be who I am, where I am, regardless of all the petty FML moments I may experience.