and TECH Japan members Suvendrini Kakuchi and Akiko Ozaki show off an apron made at a sewing center for tsunami and civil war survivors here in northern Sri Lanka.
Eight months later, still trying to overcome her grief, Ikehashi, 43, has returned to Sri Lanka -- this time as a member of a nongovernmental organization she helped set up to carry out relief projects in the north to help residents recover from the tsunami's destruction and cope with civil war.
"I really cannot understand why I survived. I keep blaming myself for not being able to save him," Ikehashi said.
She said the finger Whymant had held onto in the last moments before they were separated was numb for two months after the incident.
She had to let go of him to take off her snorkel because she was choking. Whymant was right next to her and she was clinging to a fence to keep her face above water when a strong wave knocked her upside down.
When she regained consciousness, she was holding onto a wooden plank in a huge lake and her husband was nowhere in sight.
When Ikehashi flew into Colombo in late August it brought back the horrifying memories of losing her husband.
But Ikehashi said she was glad she made the trip because she was touched by the determination of other tsunami survivors to recover from the catastrophe.
Ikehashi is a vice president at an aircraft leasing company in Tokyo. Her husband was a British correspondent who worked in Japan for many years for such newspapers as The Guardian, The Times and The Telegraph.
What she saw during the visit was that many survivors were still living in temporary shelters and that reconstruction and aid has been slow reaching many of those in need.
"It was surprising that many of the areas hit by the tsunami hadn't changed much -- the destruction I saw that day and what I saw eight months later were the same -- only the place wasn't wet anymore," Ikehashi said.
She still recalls every detail of the tragic event and the days that followed. She had to find shelter and search hospitals and beaches for her husband.
"I was like a refugee during the first hours. . . . When I became somebody who needed help, I realized how it felt," Ikehashi said. "It's morally depressing to be at the receiving end. Then I realized maybe this is happening around the world. Donations are important, but that's not enough."
So Ikehashi and several other Japanese joined Sri Lankans living in Japan to found a Japanese branch of The Economic Consultancy House earlier this year, with the aim of teaching people in northern Sri Lanka how to support themselves.
TECH Japan is headquartered in Tamil-controlled Kilinochchi, where it focuses on the estimated 50,000 women in the region who have become widows due to the war and the tsunami, Ikehashi said.
Many women in Sri Lanka are economically dependent on their husbands. When they are lost, they have no source of income.
In cooperation with TECH and a Canadian NGO, a learning center where women are taught how to use sewing machines has opened in Mullaittivu, one of the northern coastal towns hit by the tsunami.
"The basic project is to teach people to use sewing machines so that they can produce goods to be sold at the local market," said Suvendrini Kakuchi, a Tokyo-based Sri Lankan correspondent who was born in Colombo but whose family came from the northern region.
In order to help the women earn more cash, TECH Japan plans to sell aprons they have made at the center over the Internet and at fair-trade shops in Japan.
"When we visited the sewing center, we could feel that the women were very motivated and positive about the project, and they even came up with suggestions of what kinds of products they wanted to make," said Akiko Ozaki, 45, another founding member of TECH Japan who took part in the August visit.
The aprons, made from blue fabric bought in Sri Lanka and with embroidered yellow elephants, are expected to go on sale for about 1,500 yen on TECH Japan's Web site by the middle of December.
"Of course, my personal loss will take a lifetime to recover from," Ikehashi said after returning to Japan in September. "But this visit made me think I should not be grieving because (in Sri Lanka) I saw that people are struggling but trying their best to rebuild their lives."
During the trip, the group also found a site on Mullaittivu for a day-care center for children between 1 and 5 years old. Ikehashi said it would be completed early next year.
"Parents need a place to leave their children so they can go to work, especially women who have lost their husbands in the tsunami," Ikehashi said. "The day-care center is also a place where the children can get nutritious meals."
The nursery will also enable older siblings, especially girls, to go to school instead of staying home to take care of the younger children, she said.
In addition to monetary donations from businesses and private individuals, the group is also looking for volunteers with such skills as sewing with machines or managing nursery schools.
TECH Japan is also calling for donations of books from businesses and universities to help establish a computer and technology library in Sri Lanka as many books there are either outdated were destroyed in the civil war.
"Robert and I had read about the civil war and the orphans, and we were thinking about being foster parents to a Sri Lankan child. I know that Robert would have been supportive of these projects if he were alive," Ikehashi said
"This is not just to help the people in Sri Lanka, it's for me as well."
Ikehashi also hopes to introduce a banana-paper project to Sri Lanka. The paper can be made easily and at minimal cost from banana-stem fibers.
"That morning on Dec. 26, Robert had wanted bananas at breakfast," she said.
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