In September 2003 we returned. Women and children were sweeping the sunbaked ground outside their huts as we drove down the road to Tanthrimale. More huts, lots of new brick houses, more land cleared, more people, many more people … said Christopher Silva astonished at the difference that two years had made. Two years of relative calm after years of strife and people of the region had begun stepping out into the open again. Chena lands were being cleared, trees being cut, manioc being planted, bricks being made, stones being laid on the road, whitewashed brick houses replacing tiny mud huts, boutiques strung with bunches of plantains and tiptip and bus loads of pilgrims. Children came rushing out to the fence to have a better look at us. A ten year old girl clad in white lama sari was waiting for the bus. A bag of books in one hand, a bowl of flowers in the other, she was on her way to daham pasal. Tantrimale was alive again.