The paper is a report on the findings of a research camp held in a village on the southern coast of Sri Lanka eight months after the Indian Ocean tsunami. The camp was part of a wider project of collaboration between the University of Colombo and the University of Ljubljana, and its participants were students from both universities working together as a group. The report is mainly focused on the views and experiences of humanitarian aid as expressed by people from the village. They keenly observed the distribution of aid and saw irregularities and abuses that only increased their distress. Among other issues, they questioned the methodology that caused less visible and socially excluded members of the community to be excluded once again from the distribution of aid, and they particularly resented being forced into submission.