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“My dreams have been shattered once again.....Sometimes this life is a curse….” wrote 28-year-old Vijitha Mallika in her last letter home, which arrived on May 5. Having left the country in February to pursue what she hoped would be a better destiny in Beirut, Lebanon, she described in her letter how she had been beaten for an offence she did not commit, and spent the first three months in a strange country in jail. Now she had found employment in another house, she wrote, and hoped that in a few months she would be able to send some of her earnings to her parents and sister back home.

It was not to be. On July 21, Mallika’s family was called to the Police Station at Kosgoda to be told that the young woman had died in the recent Israeli attacks on Lebanon. Shocked beyond belief, they visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to find out if they could bring down her body-only to be told it was not possible.

Desperately they tried to contact Mallika’s sisters-Manori and Maduranthi-who were also in Lebanon. At one home they were told that Maduranthi was quite safe, since they were living away from Beirut. However, Manori’s employers refused to even let them speak to her, and she is still unaware of her elder sister’s death.

In their two-roomed wattle and daub hut in Nelligaskelle, Kosgoda, with its soot-blackened walls Mallika’s mother Sumanawathi and sister Namali, struggle to come to terms with the terrible tragedy. Denied of even the solace of giving her a proper burial, they lament the fate that led her to die in such circumstances. Through their grieving words of remembrance emerge a picture of a life of hardship, and the gentle spirit of the girl who died.

The eldest of the four daughters, Mallika had often been responsible for looking after the younger ones while her parents looked for odd jobs in the village. “She would bathe us, cook for us, feed us and play with us,” says Namali. The meagre earnings of their parents were barely enough to feed them all, and there were many days when they had to go hungry. Their single school uniform had to be shared between them, says Namali, only one at a time could attend school. Mallika left school when she was nine years old, and went to work in the cinnamon plantations surrounding their home.

As they struggled just to survive from day-to-day, Mallika would often express her anger and bitterness against their lot in life. She yearned for better things-a proper house to live in, three square meals for all of them, new clothes to replace the rags they had. Yet, with no proper education and no training for any sort of employment, she could think of only one resort to realise her dreams.

It was with many hopes that she first left for Kuwait as a housemaid just over two years ago. She had borrowed Rs.10,000 at a high interest rate to fund her trip, but was confident that she could quickly pay it back. When she returned a year later the Rs. 25,000 that she was paid as her entire salary was barely enough to repay the loan she had taken.

She tried twice more, going to two West Asian countries as a housemaid, but returned in a few months having suffered many difficulties at the hands of her employers. Still, she refused to despair and set all her hopes on this final journey to Lebanon. “All she wanted was to give us a better life,” says Namali, with tears in her eyes. “It was her greatest wish to build this house; she was constantly talking about it. She was especially fond of Manori, the youngest, and wanted to marry her off well, with a good dowry. She also said she would come back and get married after a couple of years-she had so many expectations.” Before they left the country, neither Mallika, nor her sisters had ever worked anywhere away from their village. Mallika was the quietest and most mild-mannered of them all, says Namali, hardly venturing even to neighbouring homes. She would often spend hours just contemplating under a tree. “Even if a quarrel or fight took place in the street, Mallika would run away and hide,” recalls Namali, “when we heard of the war, we thought she would run to safety, just like she did at home. We never, ever thought that she would be the one to die like this.”

Namali’s young daughters, who were eagerly awaiting the return of their aunts, cannot believe that their favourite ‘Loku Amma’ is dead. “She must be hiding,” says 10- year-old Nimesha. “I think Loku Amma will come back soon.”

Though Manori and Maduranthi had also been in Lebanon for the past two years, the three of them had never been able to meet each other. On July 19, Mallika had spoken to Maduranthi over the phone and said that all of them should plan to travel to Sri Lanka together. Now, they can only hope for the safe return of the other two.

“If we receive any compensation from the authorities we will use it to renovate this house,” says Namali. “We will name the house after our sister, because that was her dearest dream, that we would have a proper house to live in. At least then we can say that her wish was fulfilled.” Rs.10,000 which had been given by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the funeral rites was used for almsgivings in Mallika’s name, she says.

Driven by extreme poverty and destitution to seek her fortune in a foreign land, Mallika had to face countless torments and difficulties, only to meet death in a strangers’ war. In a moment of anguish, when the burdens at home became too much to bear, Mallika had exclaimed, “It would be better to die abroad than to suffer like this!” Little did she know that that was to be her fate.