I have always known Sri Lanka from the back of my hand, missing sleepovers and high school dances in exchange for traveling and helping war-stricken orphans. Voices speaking in my native language on weekends, pushed aside by my weekly interactions with my English classmates. But it was a culture separated from a certain situation and this would only have been possible if it had been a separate nation. I only married the two from a safe distance, reading the morning headlines describing the bloodshed pouring from my country. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayWhen a colleague asked me to help develop a leadership program with her parents for war-affected orphans in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, I said yes, because I wanted to help. Fresh out of high school, I wholeheartedly embraced the promise of volunteer tourism: one-part rewarding, two-part adventures, with the added potential of self-discovery. Traveling across the island with a bus full of volunteers, I had come to save lives and, perhaps, change my own. We passed through the center of the town, the one that had once been destroyed by the war. Just before getting off the bus, one of the volunteers asked me: don't you think it would be useful to send the money we spent to get here, to improve the lives of these children affected by the war? I couldn't believe it could be true. Anjuli was one of the participants in our adventure to help the needy. She was 14 when I first met her, one of seventy-eight girls living on an acre of land located near the ocean. At the orphanage she, like many others, did not fit the definition of an orphan, as she told me, “I am here because my amma (mother) wanted me to live in a safe place.” Safe from whom, I didn't want to know this yet. I arrived only to easily jump to the task at hand, but I was concerned by their traumatic histories. At least a dozen times a day, my mind was disturbed and I wondered: why am I here? Marilla saw me as one of her own, a familiar alien. Marilla's father had left her to join the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), freedom fighters in a movement fighting for a separate Tamil nation against the government. His father was captured by the Sri Lankan army and brutally tortured. He was a broken man when he returned to a war-torn home, only to sink deeper into poverty. The violent outbursts she was experiencing frightened Marilla. I had to run away from there, he says uncomfortably, in silence. For a complicated problem, could there be a quick and easy solution? The safe space of a home filled with childlike joy seemed insufficient, but by whom? My appa (father) called the church home one evening. How is it? he asked anxiously. I thought for a moment. I feel... uncomfortable but peaceful at the same time. Throughout the evening many kids told stories. Clippings and pieces of their stories would forever be etched as memories in my mind. In all of the children, the pain was evident in their eyes, even as they laughed, communicating what you needed (and yet didn't want) to know. Anjuli carefully stirred the pot of stew and said, “If war breaks out again, I will join the free fighters.” In the orphanage such strange comments have no value. It was a moment in history when I saw the pure emotion of shock, from everyone in the orphanage except me. As I constantly responded to my parents, a part of me was frozen, watching the first death tolls.