Amidst the carriage, suffering and overwhelming spectacle of thousands of lost lives in the wake of the disastrous tsunami that hit Asia last December, there are also remarkably heartwarming instances of compassion and support.

In the picturesque Monterey area that hugs the Pacific Ocean in Northern California, for example, unsolicited donations poured in before a Salinas, Calif.-based accountant even asked. A Monterey, Calif.-based pastor, experienced in bereavement counseling, called in and offered to travel to India to help. A building contractor and millionaire dairy farmer in Salinas went all the way to India and personally installed bricks to help build temporary housing.

Prakash “Peter” Shah, a self confessed “penny-pinching CPA, is still stunned by the outpouring of affection and support.

“The tsunami took place, I started receiving donations without even soliciting it, “Shah told India-West over the phone from his office. “Worldwide, people just unite when there is a calamity like this, and I think we are all a global village. Today, whether you are in India or America or anywhere in the world, people are people.

“I felt very moved that 10,000 miles away, people took such a great interest, and checks started just pouring into my office.”
One reason was that Shah had a good track record. Just after the earthquake in Gujarat, Shah spearheaded a project that constructed 200 homes in less than four months, each built at a miserly Rs.40,000 (less than $1,000).

Shah said that after he started receiving donations following the tsunami, he immediately got in touch with the Tamil Nadu government. The governor’s office helped identify the village of Akkaraipettai in Nagapattinam, one of the worst hit districts in the state.

As his Global Uplift organization decided to rebuild Akkaraipettai, it sought donations, and now, it has $80,000 more than its $100,000 budget.

In less than a month, Global Uplift, the nonprofit Shah founded with partner Jim Sloan and Wilbur Stevens in 2000, has completed 162 temporary dwelling units, a school, a police station, and a medical facility.

As a CPA, Shah kept an eagle’s eye on costs-each dwelling unit cost less than $145. Costs were kept ludicrously low because there are no administrative overheads and everybody volunteers their time.

“The fishermen were living as refugees in government buildings and schools, and this temporary shelter is a 10 by -12, it has electricity, it is a place to live,” Shah said, “and the government of Tamil Nadu, I want to give them full credit, because they have been very, very helpful. They’ve done an excellent jobs.”

The housing is temporary, because the state government plans to build permanents housing in a town of their own that will take a year or two.

“The dwelling units are good for a couple of years, they’re very sturdy, they’re made out of corrugated sheets and a family can occupy it, you can put a stove in it and have your own cooking and then they have a common community bathrooms.” Shah explained to India-West.

Shah is quick and vociferous to decline any credit for himself-but all his associates say he was pivotal to the effort’s success. He has a particular soft corner for Tamil Nadu, where he spent years in his youth while his father K.K. Shah was governor. The secretory to the present governor, Sheila Priya, was particularly helpful, he added.

Shah said the housing could not have been built without the spontaneous help of two Salinas volunteers who traveled all the way to India.

Building contractor Eric Liitschwager showed up at Shah’s office wanting to go and rebuild a village in India. “We want the entire village to be recreated by Americans,” he told the Monterey Herald.

Within a day he was in India overseeing the rebuilding work, until cattle farmer John Schoch, a millionaire cattle farmer, took over on Jan 20, 2005. “It’s been fabulous here, just phenomenal working with the people, seeing everything,” Schoch told India-West by phone from India. “It is a lifetime experience.”
Schoch said when he first heard about the disaster on Christmas day, he heard 300 people had been washed away by the tsunami. “By the time I woke up six hours later it was 15,000. I said ‘Oh, my God, this is a catastrophic,’ and I just wanted to help.”

His son had just returned from the Thai resort of Phuket a few months back, so it hit him really hard.
He said that going back and helping a community back on its feet was particularly rewarding.
“The nights before the units opened, they were all camping out in front of them, they were just so excited to have some shelter after a month of living in an open area,” he said. “It was just fabulous to see the people there wanting to be in those shelters. To see the kids on the first day of school when it opened, it was so heartwarming. To see that it really meant something that other people were caring for them, it would help them get started in life.”

Shah had a special word of praise for Schoch. “John Schoch is a millionaire but he laid bricks and he laid cement down there,” Shah said. “He was working with his hands down there. That’s the only reason we were able to finish this project.” Wayne Martin, a Vietnam veteran and a minister at the United Church of Christ, was a Monterey resident who simply showed up and offered to go to India.
“I was praying one Sunday,” Shah reminisced. “This gentleman popped up and said he would do a service in Hindu rites, Christian rites, Muslim rites, Buddhist rites because he was all versed, and I felt that if nothing else, if a man like him would even go and pray and start with a venture so that we would not have any problems, it would be a big help.”

Martin told India-West that his offer to help was an instinctive gesture. “I actually saw an article in the local paper about Global Uplift and about Peter Shah, and something led me to call him and I did,” he recalled. “And I said I don’t know if I have any skills that might be useful to you but I’ve been a pastor and a bereavement counselor and a hospice chaplain for 25 years. If you think that my skills would be useful, please take advantage of that.”

Martin kept a vivid journal of his 10-day trip to India. Nothing in my 25 years of ordained ministry, either in church or in hospice work, prepared me for what I saw in Nagapattinam in Southern India, a tsunami-dev-astated city,” he wrote in his journal, “Hundreds of fishing boats, stacked two- and three-high, thrown about the shore, hundred, perhaps thousands of small huts disassembled and scattered. Thousands of people, homeless now, slowly putting new pieces of their lives together. Endless streams of people waiting hours in gender-segregated lines for entrance into the one temple remaining upright in the battered neighborhood. “The overwhelming thought is: Where do the people of this disembodied community start in the rebuilding process?” Martin said it was an unforgettable trip. “It was astounding, it was life-changing,” he said. “I have an enormous appreciation for the nation of India. And I was deeply impressed by their courage, their will, and their help for each other. I never experienced any anger.”

Shah was full of praise of Indian assistance. “I have no words to express how happy I am with the local response,” he said. “The local people are extremely poor but very good. They are the best human beings in the world. I’ve cherished Tamil Nadu for a long time, people in the south are very humble, very nice.” Now with over $80,000 in surplus, Global Uplift will help the Tamil Nadu government with building permanent structures. “We are going to take up the Tamil Nadu government’s offer to build permanent construction and build as much as we can with the surplus money that we have,” he told India-West. Shah doesn’t know how much money will be needed for that, or if and how it will be raised, but he is confident of success. “I run all my charities on the Gandhian concept: Self-help.” he said. “I’m telling you, it works. None of my charitable ventures have I ever gone out of money.

“Because it’s the people. It’s the people who are giving two bucks; it’s the masses that make the nation. It was just pure volunteerism. “I’ve got volunteers lined up who are willing to help me even in the permanent reconstruction. And I’m pretty sure with everyone’s blessing, we will be able to get the best product at the cheapest price.”