Does anyone have advice about how to kick ass and take names on the organizational front? I am basically trying to a) create a forum for volunteer sign-ups, ideally so that they can organize among themselves to do brute-manpower type stuff like trash cleanup, also so that Sarvodaya and other relief-orgs can reasonably manage their volunteer offers; b) figure out what the hell the higher-ups here are doing.

I realize that it is Grand Hubris to march around getting the relief coordinators to tell me what they are doing, as if I have any power or authority. However as Indi says, there is no structure, no one has any authority. Or to put it more nicely, the organization is not set up to handle information flows and planning efforts on this scale; no one is looking at the big picture. For example, there is enough NEED out in the field that trucks should be leaving Colombo every ten seconds and yet this place feels half-deserted.

Stuff is happening but it could be happening faster.

People are getting angry at the politicians, which makes sense--the Health Minister actually had the temerity to turn down offers of foreign doctors coming in. They are desperately trying to make it seem like stuff is happening smoothly. I can't get a sense of how untrue that is; Dr. Ari's recent open letter (read here) to the government and people here is devastating in its description of the non-action in the affected areas. Supplies not distributed, bodies not removed.

As we say here: what to do?