Seven-year-old Chaturangini Kumudamali has painted a bright crayon drawing in green, red, brown, yellow and a little bit of blue showing what she says was her home and the world on the sea shore of Sri Lanka.

"Now I am scared of water and the sea.," says Chaturangini Kumudamali

There is a little, tiled home, a neat garden with flowers skirting some water, and in the distance the sun is peeping from behind a mountain. Chaturangini is even playing gleefully in the garden.

"This was my home. At least, some part of it," she says. "The house and the garden are gone."

But what about the mountain? Where did that come from?

"Now I am scared of water and the sea. So there's a mountain in the background," says Chaturangini, who is staying at a relief camp for tsunami victims in the south-western town of Payagala.

We ran away and survived. You see, my painting is now blue all over - it's water everywhere Srinath Pattuvila, homeless child

Children like Chaturangini are cheering up things in this camp of 81 homeless people in an audience hall of a local Buddhist temple.

Tempers are frayed among the elders in the camp, who grumble about inadequate rations and powdered milk, but the children seem be picking up the pieces and moving on.

A social worker there, Jagat Ranavir, hit upon the idea of giving the children in the camp crayons and paper.

"They need to get over the tedium of camp life," he says.

All the 30 children came up with bright, evocative drawings, mostly depicting their memories of the killer waves that struck their homes on 26 December.

This is possibly a catharsis for many of the children who say they still cannot sleep, even with their parents, and are scared to go anywhere near the sea.

This, after several generations of them have lived on the sea and lived off its bounties - fishermen, boat owners, fishing net repairers, fish sellers.

Survivors' stories

Thirteen-year-old Srinath Pattuvila is one of the children who is furiously drawing his memories on paper.

He is putting together a blue-washed drawing detailing his home, the embankment, two cars toppling on the main road and a submerged railroad track, which ran behind his home.

The drawings may help as a catharsis

"I was there. I saw it all. We ran away and survived. You see, my painting is now blue all over - it's water everywhere," he says.

His mother pulled out Srinath and her two other children from the home as the wave battered it, and ran across the road. The children's father was deep sea fishing, and he sent a radio message later that he was fine.

Ten-year-old Sanduni has drawn the waves lapping over the railway tracks behind her home, overturned boats, and a pencil drawing of a baby floating in the water.

"What I drew is what I saw," she says. "I saw the little baby floating in water, the toppled boat."

Sanduni says she still cannot sleep properly and has nightmares about the roaring waves.

"I was at the beach playing when I saw the waves hit my neighbour's home. I held on to a tree with my mother and we all survived," she says.

Now she wants to go back to school, but her school did not survive the savage sea.

Language classes

In Payagala, the killer waves swept up the shores destroying the mostly illegal beachfront homes and shops, crossed the key road linking Colombo with Galle and lashed at least 500 metres inland.

What is left of this once idyllic town is a few surviving sea-washed houses, heaps of rubble, rotting palm leaves, pots and pans and other personal belongings.

The waves advance towards houses

The main road, dotted with food takeaways, seedy movie theatres and shops, is a maelstrom of traffic with tow trucks lugging carcasses of automobiles and fishing boats for repair.

The railway track has been contorted and bent out of shape.

There is nothing much else for the children to do but stay huddled in the camp.

As well as drawing, the children are undertaking new activities introduced by social workers.

Jagat Ranavir now plans to give Tamil language classes to the children, who are all Sinhalese.

"I will take the classes. There is no shortage of teachers," he says.

There is no shortage of enthusiasm either. The children of Payagala are keen to move on quickly with their lives and return to their books.