(The following is a blog I wrote for the Paavima website. You can see the official version, with pictures, here
I arrived in Colombo exhausted. Jason picked me up at the airport and whisked me through the empty night streets of Colombo. I spent most of the next day in a stupor, waiting for immigration to extend my visa and wandering slowly through the streets. The next morning we were up before sunrise, before heat and traffick could choke us, and on the streets, making our way south to Madiha.
Jason is interpreting the landscape for me as we go, telling me about the tsunami, stories about the passenger trains, the government legislation, about people and houses and the path of the great wave. We breakfast at Galle and are installed at the Beach Inn while it is still morning. It's nice to have a place to rest for awhile. And rest is exactly what I need.
For the rest of the week, with the help of Indika and a local community member, Mr. Fonseka, we round up the troupes. This only takes a few hours out of every day, at the most, and the rest of my time, I sleep and walk the beach and go for long swims in the ocean. The waves are breaking metres from my door, the food every night is divine. There is always sand between my toes and a nap in the afternoon in the hammock between the cocount trees.
I propose to start work on Monday, so on Sunday we need to clear a space. Some women in the community volunteer to help me and so we find ourselves at the ruins of the Polhenna school, just across the way from the Paavima Dive Shack.
As you can see from the photos, parts of the classrooms have been completely laid to ruin by the tsunami. There is a new school being built next door and for now, all the rooms of the old school are empty and full of rubbish. It looks as if someone is living in part of the building. I select a long, open hall for the classes. There is a blackboard at either end. The floor is concrete, but missing in patches.
They tell me that it used to be the village green, where children played sports. Now there is a pile of rocks there and big machinerary noisily moving the rocks to cover the beaches and the turtle's egg laying places for some reason only the government really knows about. We have to climb over the heaps of jagged rock to get to the classroom.
One of the empty rooms seems to be a kind of wharehouse for the furniture. The women and I carefully extract rusty old chairs and broken tables from the piles and send them over to a tap where another woman does her best to wash them. I am soon covered in sweat and rust, walking carefully along the floor where panes of glass have broken to avoid accidents in my silly little sandals.
It doesn't take too long. In the end we have about thirty chairs of various sizes and we have salvaged about nine desks. The women set these up in rows as neat and orderly as the uneven floor and the rusted furniture allows. I smile to myself. "I'll soon be changing that," I think. We haven't really said much to each other, my Singhala is nonexistant. But we have smiled a lot and laughed in the sunshine, and carried things together.
It's a good start, as far as I'm concerned, looking around at this strange place where I will be teaching English conversation for the next two months. The first general meeting for all students is on Monday and I am excited and nervous to see who will come and what will result...
Monday, October 30, 2006
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Attack on Galle
On Sunday, I went on the first of my weekend adventures in Sri Lanka, boarding a packed local bus blaring Hindi top 10 hits, for a fast forty minute ride along the coast to the old French fort at Galle. It was a beautiful sunny day. My shoulders are brown from the sun. My friend Adam and I walked along the old ramparts, trying not to disturb the many couples cuddling under umbrellas among the old stones. The water below the old stone walls was clear: beautiful shades of blue and green, sparkling gold reflections, shimmering fish sliding through the cool water. We descended old stone steps down to a tiny strip of sand outside the wall and took off our shoes to wade barefoot there, skipping stones across the water.
This morning I was eating breakfast when the word came. The hotel owner came in shouting something. I heard him say "Galle" many times. At last, he came over to speak to us. "Galle has been attacked," he said, almost breathless.
The news trickled in slowly. I don't have CNN here and I don't trust the information that gets passed around by mouth in these kinds of situations.
Until today, we have been able to say, "the attacks are in the North, but we are in the South. We are safe here." But that is no longer the case.
Word of mouth (and I warn you, it is unreliable) reports that Galle was attacked by a coordinated effort from LTTE boats and guerrillas hiding in the nearby mountains. Smoke bombs were fired into the Naval base at Galle. While I had coffee it was reported that there was at least one death, with fighting ongoing. Sri Lankan men staying at the hotel gathered near the beach wall looking West towards Galle. It is far too far away to see anything. I could have told them that even staring directly at the wreckage, they wouldn't find many answers.
The road from Matara to Colombo passes through Galle, very close to the Naval base. I imagine it's closed today. It sounds rather ridiculous and overdramatic, but my route to the capital is cut off. The Eastern road has been impassable for some time now, the city of Tricomalee is also unsafe and currently closed. But, if all else fails, and it is extremely unlikely that it would come to this, I have, after all, my trusty little moto (which to be entirely honest, isn't really all that trusty,) and maps of the back roads, inland through the mountains to Colombo. I also have a safe house on the hill with good friends I can stay with and a huge library full of good books :)
LTTE attacks and government counter attacks have been intensifying. The newspapers reported that the military mounted an offensive one day. The next, the bombing of several bus loads of civilians by the LTTE made front page. One newspaper reported 95 Sri Lankan soldiers died yesterday in a suicide bombing in the northeast. It's strange to read newspaper reports, dated today, October 18th, reporting in the past tense about something that his happening or only just finished happening. Already some official is being quoted as saying that two navy boats were damaged and three rebel boats blown out of the water.
Whatever is going on in Galle, it doesn't mean anything good. The LTTE has sent a powerful message today: a message that speaks so many words to people all over the world. It tells the government that the LTTE's power is not limited to the North. It tells civilians everywhere that terrorism could strike at any time. It tells potential tourists worldwide, as if they needed another reason, that they should definitely stay away from Sri Lanka. Galle is one of the major tourist areas on the island and I doubt anyone will be flocking there any time soon.
I live in a small town of absolutely no strategic importance. There is absolutely no reason for any violence to take place here. For the most part, I live my life in a small circle between the beach, the Polhena school and the Rohanna school with occasional trips into Matara for the internet and grocery shopping. I am in a safe place, I want you all to know that. I am also being a safe person. I am registering online today with the Australian embassy and I will not hesitate to hop a flight home if things over here get messy.
Drinking the last of my coffee I watch large gray gunboats speed across the horizon far away, moving from the second naval base in Tangalle, west to Galle. I am wondering what I am doing here. It was never me who was interested in war. It was my brother who had all the books on World War Two, who was fascinated by the medals, who collected all the Desert Storm trading cards. Now he is happily married with a dog and a house is Saskatoon and I am out here, still on the edges of shadowy things.
This morning I was eating breakfast when the word came. The hotel owner came in shouting something. I heard him say "Galle" many times. At last, he came over to speak to us. "Galle has been attacked," he said, almost breathless.
The news trickled in slowly. I don't have CNN here and I don't trust the information that gets passed around by mouth in these kinds of situations.
Until today, we have been able to say, "the attacks are in the North, but we are in the South. We are safe here." But that is no longer the case.
Word of mouth (and I warn you, it is unreliable) reports that Galle was attacked by a coordinated effort from LTTE boats and guerrillas hiding in the nearby mountains. Smoke bombs were fired into the Naval base at Galle. While I had coffee it was reported that there was at least one death, with fighting ongoing. Sri Lankan men staying at the hotel gathered near the beach wall looking West towards Galle. It is far too far away to see anything. I could have told them that even staring directly at the wreckage, they wouldn't find many answers.
The road from Matara to Colombo passes through Galle, very close to the Naval base. I imagine it's closed today. It sounds rather ridiculous and overdramatic, but my route to the capital is cut off. The Eastern road has been impassable for some time now, the city of Tricomalee is also unsafe and currently closed. But, if all else fails, and it is extremely unlikely that it would come to this, I have, after all, my trusty little moto (which to be entirely honest, isn't really all that trusty,) and maps of the back roads, inland through the mountains to Colombo. I also have a safe house on the hill with good friends I can stay with and a huge library full of good books :)
LTTE attacks and government counter attacks have been intensifying. The newspapers reported that the military mounted an offensive one day. The next, the bombing of several bus loads of civilians by the LTTE made front page. One newspaper reported 95 Sri Lankan soldiers died yesterday in a suicide bombing in the northeast. It's strange to read newspaper reports, dated today, October 18th, reporting in the past tense about something that his happening or only just finished happening. Already some official is being quoted as saying that two navy boats were damaged and three rebel boats blown out of the water.
Whatever is going on in Galle, it doesn't mean anything good. The LTTE has sent a powerful message today: a message that speaks so many words to people all over the world. It tells the government that the LTTE's power is not limited to the North. It tells civilians everywhere that terrorism could strike at any time. It tells potential tourists worldwide, as if they needed another reason, that they should definitely stay away from Sri Lanka. Galle is one of the major tourist areas on the island and I doubt anyone will be flocking there any time soon.
I live in a small town of absolutely no strategic importance. There is absolutely no reason for any violence to take place here. For the most part, I live my life in a small circle between the beach, the Polhena school and the Rohanna school with occasional trips into Matara for the internet and grocery shopping. I am in a safe place, I want you all to know that. I am also being a safe person. I am registering online today with the Australian embassy and I will not hesitate to hop a flight home if things over here get messy.
Drinking the last of my coffee I watch large gray gunboats speed across the horizon far away, moving from the second naval base in Tangalle, west to Galle. I am wondering what I am doing here. It was never me who was interested in war. It was my brother who had all the books on World War Two, who was fascinated by the medals, who collected all the Desert Storm trading cards. Now he is happily married with a dog and a house is Saskatoon and I am out here, still on the edges of shadowy things.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Colombo
A Brit named Jason picked me up at the airport and drove me to his house where I fell quickly into a deep sleep. I loved his home immediately, even at midnight as I first arrived. It had a curving stairway in the foyer and a pool just outside.
In the morning, after a cup of tea, I took a trishaw into the city. I sat in the back of the little ricketdy contraption and loved the blur of traffick, heat, dust, crowds and signs filling my view. There were new sounds, new tastes, new smells, new textures to experience and I had a huge smile on my face.
I spent the morning in the immigration office getting my visa extended. It was fairly boring with very little to note except the moment when one clerk in the long line of clerks to be seen, entered the information from my form into a computer and paused. He said something to the clerk next to him in Singhala. The clerk looked at me and said calmly, "It seems your name is on the Black List."
They conferred and typed more things into the computer then gave me back my form and told me to go to a certain office. I went to the office feeling a little nervous. "But it's my first time in Sri Lanka," I said to the clerk. He nodded and motioned me towards the office.
It must have been a mistake because in the office someone hardly looked at me and certainly didn't look at my form before stamping it and sending me back into the line of clerks. I suspect there is some subversive woman out there who shares the name name, perhaps even the same nationality as me. Not only am I not subversive, but I am travelling on a brand new Australian passport. Australian Jen has hardly had a chance to break any laws yet.
I walked around Colombo a little bit but the heat and the dust and my fatigue got the most of me. I was walking along the concrete pathway by the ocean next to the "famous" Galle Face Green when a man engaged me in conversation. Galle Face Green was, perhaps, at one time green, but now it is a dusty patch of ground with hardly any grass, fenced in for some rehabilitation project that, according to the sign, should already be finished.
The man is chatting with me, the usual conversation about where I'm from and all that, and I'm only half paying attention. We get to the end of the promenade and we pause. "Where are you going?" asks the man. I'm not really going anywhere, but I point in one direction. "Don't go that way," he says, "there is nothing down there. Come here, I will get a trishaw to take you to the Cinammon Gardens. YOu will like that." And before I know it, he has hailed a trishaw and is giving directions to the driver. I thank him and get in, after all, where else do I really have to go, but as the driver takes off, the man jumps in too.
I'm not terribly comfortable with the situation, but I can always stay with the driver. Meanwhile the random conversation continues.
"You have travelled very far?" the man asks me. "Perhaps you are very tired?" I nodd my head absentmindedly. "Perhaps you would like a nice massage?"
"Massages are good," I say, "I just had a nice one in Thailand. But massages are very expensive."
"Ah, perhaps you would like a free massage?" He asks.
"No, I would not," I reply firmly.
"Why not?" asks the man.
"Because where I come from, we often say that nothing in life is really free."
"Perhaps what you need is a good massage from a very good friend..." he suggests.
Now I am definitely wary. It's clear where this is going. "No," I say very firmly.
"Oh well, at least, we can go to the Cinammon Gardens and drink a beer together. It's very romantic there..."
"I can't drink beer," I say. "I'm taking antibiotics. I have a very nasty infection."
A certain look crosses his face. Although I don't know it at the time, even by suggesting we drink alcohol together he is implying that I am a whore. Women in Sri Lanka, "proper" women, I mean, do not drink. Most especially alone with a man. If he thinks I am a whore, my random comment about having an infection must have hit a good mark.
At that moment, just as I am wondering what on earth I can do to get out of this situation, the trishaw enters some heavy traffick and luck is in my favor because for some totally avoidable reason, the trishaw then proceeds to crash, at slow speed, into the fender of a stationary car ahead of us.
"You know," I say, trying not to laugh, "I think I'll get out here." And I do, walking quickly down the streets in no particular direction, leaving behind the sound of traffick and shouting voices.
In the morning, after a cup of tea, I took a trishaw into the city. I sat in the back of the little ricketdy contraption and loved the blur of traffick, heat, dust, crowds and signs filling my view. There were new sounds, new tastes, new smells, new textures to experience and I had a huge smile on my face.
I spent the morning in the immigration office getting my visa extended. It was fairly boring with very little to note except the moment when one clerk in the long line of clerks to be seen, entered the information from my form into a computer and paused. He said something to the clerk next to him in Singhala. The clerk looked at me and said calmly, "It seems your name is on the Black List."
They conferred and typed more things into the computer then gave me back my form and told me to go to a certain office. I went to the office feeling a little nervous. "But it's my first time in Sri Lanka," I said to the clerk. He nodded and motioned me towards the office.
It must have been a mistake because in the office someone hardly looked at me and certainly didn't look at my form before stamping it and sending me back into the line of clerks. I suspect there is some subversive woman out there who shares the name name, perhaps even the same nationality as me. Not only am I not subversive, but I am travelling on a brand new Australian passport. Australian Jen has hardly had a chance to break any laws yet.
I walked around Colombo a little bit but the heat and the dust and my fatigue got the most of me. I was walking along the concrete pathway by the ocean next to the "famous" Galle Face Green when a man engaged me in conversation. Galle Face Green was, perhaps, at one time green, but now it is a dusty patch of ground with hardly any grass, fenced in for some rehabilitation project that, according to the sign, should already be finished.
The man is chatting with me, the usual conversation about where I'm from and all that, and I'm only half paying attention. We get to the end of the promenade and we pause. "Where are you going?" asks the man. I'm not really going anywhere, but I point in one direction. "Don't go that way," he says, "there is nothing down there. Come here, I will get a trishaw to take you to the Cinammon Gardens. YOu will like that." And before I know it, he has hailed a trishaw and is giving directions to the driver. I thank him and get in, after all, where else do I really have to go, but as the driver takes off, the man jumps in too.
I'm not terribly comfortable with the situation, but I can always stay with the driver. Meanwhile the random conversation continues.
"You have travelled very far?" the man asks me. "Perhaps you are very tired?" I nodd my head absentmindedly. "Perhaps you would like a nice massage?"
"Massages are good," I say, "I just had a nice one in Thailand. But massages are very expensive."
"Ah, perhaps you would like a free massage?" He asks.
"No, I would not," I reply firmly.
"Why not?" asks the man.
"Because where I come from, we often say that nothing in life is really free."
"Perhaps what you need is a good massage from a very good friend..." he suggests.
Now I am definitely wary. It's clear where this is going. "No," I say very firmly.
"Oh well, at least, we can go to the Cinammon Gardens and drink a beer together. It's very romantic there..."
"I can't drink beer," I say. "I'm taking antibiotics. I have a very nasty infection."
A certain look crosses his face. Although I don't know it at the time, even by suggesting we drink alcohol together he is implying that I am a whore. Women in Sri Lanka, "proper" women, I mean, do not drink. Most especially alone with a man. If he thinks I am a whore, my random comment about having an infection must have hit a good mark.
At that moment, just as I am wondering what on earth I can do to get out of this situation, the trishaw enters some heavy traffick and luck is in my favor because for some totally avoidable reason, the trishaw then proceeds to crash, at slow speed, into the fender of a stationary car ahead of us.
"You know," I say, trying not to laugh, "I think I'll get out here." And I do, walking quickly down the streets in no particular direction, leaving behind the sound of traffick and shouting voices.
Getting to the Jet Plane
Backing up a little between my posts from Australia and my posts from Sri Lanka...
I spent four days in Bangkok for yet another round of goodbyes to good friends. I was already tired when I was walking the streets of Sydney. I often had to stop and rest, even nap in parks, while exploring. By the time I left Bangkok I was nearing exhaustion, and the great parties we had over the weekend only contributed (though how could anyone possibly resist?)
I said my last goodbye on the street at the end of the alley outside the hotel. Before I could think too much about who I had left behind, the taxi had whisked me around the corner out of sight and into a sludge of traffick.
We inched forward and then ground to a halt. Cars filled in the gaps around us. We were mired. I tried to relax and practice good Buddhist thinking, abandoning myself to the moment. "What will be, will be," I todl myself, resisting the strong urge to swear. I had already left a little later than I should have. I needed all my minutes.
Minutes kept ticking by. I watched them on the meter. Still, we didn't move.
It took up 45minutes just to travel one kilometre. My thoughts were now entirely diverted from sentimental goodbyes, and fixated on the time. Would i make it to the airport?
One of the problems, you see, is that Bangkok just opened a new airport. Actually I flew into it from Syndey on the first day that it opened. The old airport was an old, ugly, place where it often took two hours to get from your plane to the outside world and which was voted the worst place for a layover of all the international airports. The new airport is this monstrously huge cavern of concrete and blue light. Only that morning I had read in the Bangkok Post an article begging people to stay away from the airport. So many Thai people were driving out to see it that there were serious traffick jams. People were parking on curbs to eat picnics and admire the view. The article quoted many people who expressed their pride in such a large, modern, international building. One man said he would now save up so that his family could fly on a plane and use the airport.
Not everyone is so happy however. Imagine that you are the owner of an "airport hotel" and the airport is no longer there. Now you just own a hotel in the middle of nowhere. Taxi drivers are happy to get huge fares to the very distant airport. In addition, there is a surcharge on all taxis leaving the airport. For the rest of us, there aren't even any public transportation options. And the airport is a long long way away.
And I wasn't even one kilometre closer to it. Buddhist mentality gone, I started to swear. Traffick began to inch. "This is good!" said my driver with a cheery smile. "Slow is good. Stop is bad."
I tried to smile back but all I could think was, "Slow is not good if I miss my plane."
It was agony. We got through the snarl and I started to relax, only to be caught in another jam, just minutes down the road. I tried to find solace in the bumper to bumper frozen pack of cars in the opposite lane which went on for over 5 kilometres but it didn't help me travel any faster.
When traffick opened up for good, we were still miles from our destination. The last twenty minutes (thank god there were no picnicers blocking traffick at that hour) we travelled at high speed down newly build wide paved roads. I could see the airport but it still took ages to get there.
The taxi dropped me at the terminal at 8:15. My flight was for 9:00. If there was no delay in the flight, I thought, I will have already missed it.
"Is this the place?" I asked. "I don't see the Sri Lankan Airways sign."
"Yes, yes," said my driver, kicking me out. Quite likely he was tired of my swearing.
I grabbed a trolley and raced inside, looking up my flight on the screens. No delay but the check in counter, located in area "R" was still open. I looked around the huge concrete warehouse of international departures. I was in area "L."
"Well," I thought, "there may still be a chance." So, I grabbed the trolley and began my wild race through the crowded hall. Though I couldn't see myself, in my mind, it was a thing of beauty. I dodged and weaved through hoardes of milling people, skidding to sudden halts, accelerating rapidly where possible, trying to convey this desperate sense of speed to those in front of me.
I was breathless when I reached section "R." I turned the corner to the airline counters, expecting to see the impatient faces of clerks checking in those last irresponsable stragglers such as myself with warnings of, "If you don't hurry you won't clear security in time."
Instead, my jaw dropped. There were three counters still open for the flight and they were all packed with people: a group of about ten men to be precise, all with the hugest amount of luggage I have ever seen. Large parcels wrapped in purple plastic were piled on carts filling the space in front of the counter. I got dutifully in line, my fear now very real. It was 8:30. The flight should take off in 30 minutes. I still had airport tax to pay, immigration to clear and security to pass.
After a few tense minutes, I approached a free counter person with what I expect was the most desperate of expressions on my face. "Is it still possible to make the flight?" I asked.
He took care of me personally and before long, I had rid myself of my bags and was darting towards the airport tax station with my boarding pass in hand. They opened a new immigration counter just as I arrived and I breezed through in minutes. It was silly for me to have worried about security, in Bangkok, it has always been a bit of a joke. At the gate, I went through a metal detector, but there was certainly none of the hysteria surrounding liquids or nail sissors or anything like that.
Never the less, I sat down in my seat and checked my watch. It was just 9:00. I had made it.
I spent four days in Bangkok for yet another round of goodbyes to good friends. I was already tired when I was walking the streets of Sydney. I often had to stop and rest, even nap in parks, while exploring. By the time I left Bangkok I was nearing exhaustion, and the great parties we had over the weekend only contributed (though how could anyone possibly resist?)
I said my last goodbye on the street at the end of the alley outside the hotel. Before I could think too much about who I had left behind, the taxi had whisked me around the corner out of sight and into a sludge of traffick.
We inched forward and then ground to a halt. Cars filled in the gaps around us. We were mired. I tried to relax and practice good Buddhist thinking, abandoning myself to the moment. "What will be, will be," I todl myself, resisting the strong urge to swear. I had already left a little later than I should have. I needed all my minutes.
Minutes kept ticking by. I watched them on the meter. Still, we didn't move.
It took up 45minutes just to travel one kilometre. My thoughts were now entirely diverted from sentimental goodbyes, and fixated on the time. Would i make it to the airport?
One of the problems, you see, is that Bangkok just opened a new airport. Actually I flew into it from Syndey on the first day that it opened. The old airport was an old, ugly, place where it often took two hours to get from your plane to the outside world and which was voted the worst place for a layover of all the international airports. The new airport is this monstrously huge cavern of concrete and blue light. Only that morning I had read in the Bangkok Post an article begging people to stay away from the airport. So many Thai people were driving out to see it that there were serious traffick jams. People were parking on curbs to eat picnics and admire the view. The article quoted many people who expressed their pride in such a large, modern, international building. One man said he would now save up so that his family could fly on a plane and use the airport.
Not everyone is so happy however. Imagine that you are the owner of an "airport hotel" and the airport is no longer there. Now you just own a hotel in the middle of nowhere. Taxi drivers are happy to get huge fares to the very distant airport. In addition, there is a surcharge on all taxis leaving the airport. For the rest of us, there aren't even any public transportation options. And the airport is a long long way away.
And I wasn't even one kilometre closer to it. Buddhist mentality gone, I started to swear. Traffick began to inch. "This is good!" said my driver with a cheery smile. "Slow is good. Stop is bad."
I tried to smile back but all I could think was, "Slow is not good if I miss my plane."
It was agony. We got through the snarl and I started to relax, only to be caught in another jam, just minutes down the road. I tried to find solace in the bumper to bumper frozen pack of cars in the opposite lane which went on for over 5 kilometres but it didn't help me travel any faster.
When traffick opened up for good, we were still miles from our destination. The last twenty minutes (thank god there were no picnicers blocking traffick at that hour) we travelled at high speed down newly build wide paved roads. I could see the airport but it still took ages to get there.
The taxi dropped me at the terminal at 8:15. My flight was for 9:00. If there was no delay in the flight, I thought, I will have already missed it.
"Is this the place?" I asked. "I don't see the Sri Lankan Airways sign."
"Yes, yes," said my driver, kicking me out. Quite likely he was tired of my swearing.
I grabbed a trolley and raced inside, looking up my flight on the screens. No delay but the check in counter, located in area "R" was still open. I looked around the huge concrete warehouse of international departures. I was in area "L."
"Well," I thought, "there may still be a chance." So, I grabbed the trolley and began my wild race through the crowded hall. Though I couldn't see myself, in my mind, it was a thing of beauty. I dodged and weaved through hoardes of milling people, skidding to sudden halts, accelerating rapidly where possible, trying to convey this desperate sense of speed to those in front of me.
I was breathless when I reached section "R." I turned the corner to the airline counters, expecting to see the impatient faces of clerks checking in those last irresponsable stragglers such as myself with warnings of, "If you don't hurry you won't clear security in time."
Instead, my jaw dropped. There were three counters still open for the flight and they were all packed with people: a group of about ten men to be precise, all with the hugest amount of luggage I have ever seen. Large parcels wrapped in purple plastic were piled on carts filling the space in front of the counter. I got dutifully in line, my fear now very real. It was 8:30. The flight should take off in 30 minutes. I still had airport tax to pay, immigration to clear and security to pass.
After a few tense minutes, I approached a free counter person with what I expect was the most desperate of expressions on my face. "Is it still possible to make the flight?" I asked.
He took care of me personally and before long, I had rid myself of my bags and was darting towards the airport tax station with my boarding pass in hand. They opened a new immigration counter just as I arrived and I breezed through in minutes. It was silly for me to have worried about security, in Bangkok, it has always been a bit of a joke. At the gate, I went through a metal detector, but there was certainly none of the hysteria surrounding liquids or nail sissors or anything like that.
Never the less, I sat down in my seat and checked my watch. It was just 9:00. I had made it.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Interview with Jennifer
The following are questions I answer a lot, so I thought I would write the answers down.
1. What brought you to Sri Lanka?
2. Where are you?
3. What will you be doing?
4. What are you doing to do for fun?
That's right, this is supposed to be some kind of vacation, so hopefully I do have lots of free time. Considering that everyone wants to work with me at 3pm, it seems I have all of my days pre-noon available, at the very least.
I am staying at the Beach Inn. Every morning when I open my eyes, I hear the sound of waves and every day when I open my door, I see them. They're right there, only metres away from my door. On my first morning, i went for a swim and yesterday a long walk on the beach.
In addition to learning sign language, I also brought along JoJo, my trusty guitar. I bought it and started learning about a year ago but stopped after work and my social life got me too busy. Now I'm hoping for some quiet afternoons practicing chords. Dont' expect a musician anytime soon.
In two weeks the seas will be clear enough to do some diving. The project has the equiptment and some guys from the dive class have volunteered to take me out. That should be fun. That is, after all, one fo the main reasons I'm here.
One of the guys, Indika, who helps me out with just about everything, has also volunteered to lend me his surf board. I think hours of spills and giggles are in store for me there. Yes, I know you need upper arm strength to surf, not to mention a million other muscles I don't have, but hey, I'll give anything a shot.
Now, I admit, I spend almost every afternoon sleeping. But, hey, I'm on vacation.
Between the teaching, the talking to people, the walking, the writing, the learning, the sleeping, the reading and all these water sports, I think my time will be full.
5. What next?
1. What brought you to Sri Lanka?
While hiring for teachers last February, I came across a posting on an ESL website for volunteer teachers on a tsunami project in Sri Lanka. For some reason, it just caught my imagination. I was planning to quit my job in Thailand in June and I was looking for something to do. I emailed the address on the posting and waited. No answer. Deciding to persue the idea, I googled volunteer teaching opportunities in Sri Lanka and finally got in touch with Paavima.
The Paavima project works mainly with local fishermen and acquarium divers, training them to become professional divemasters and dive instructors. This allows the people who are currently diving for acqurium fish to do so safely (previously they were blacking out and getting the bends, doing as many as five consecutive dives at a time without breaks at the surface) and also giving them an alternative to reef exploitation. By bringing tourist divers into the region, local divers have incentive to keep interesting fish in the water and not capture and sell them.
Needless to say the project appealed to me, I exchanged emails and we decided that October and November, months just following the monsoon, would be suitable times for my work here. The rest of the project won't really get underway until December, so, for now, I'm on my own.
2. Where are you?
The project is based in a very small town called Madiha. You probably won't find it on a map. Polhena is the nearest larger town. It's not as if these are discreet places, however. It takes me less than five minutes to walk to Polhena.
Madiha is on the southern coast of Sri Lanka, about a four hour drive, or 200kms, from the capital city of Colombo. There is no fighting in this region, nor has there ever been any bombings or LTTE conflict.
I will write more in deapth about the impact of the tsunami on the village later. For now I am still taking it all in, still processing what I see and fitting it together with what I hear. Two years later though and it is still a main topic of conversation, still very evident on the landscape of people's lives.
3. What will you be doing?
Initially I thought I would be teaching English to the fishermen learning diving with the Paavima project. Actually, they will be only one of the classes I will be teaching. With them, the goal is to get them comfortable having conversation with foreigners. As the project produces more dive masters and instructors and after the underwater memorial is built, the project will become more of a local business, with the local divers taking tourists on dives and training them for their certifications. They will need English to do that and that's where I help out.
In addition, though, trying to show that the project is interested in the greater community, we offered English classes to those interested in Madiha and Polhena. I got a list this morning of over 50 children who will be showing up on Monday. "Actually," I was told, "there is probably more than 70."
In addition to the children, I will also be offering classes to their parents, and I'm hoping here to work mainly with mothers. So much, for what I can see, of the tsunami work has been focused on men and their livlihoods and that's great. I'd like to see something given back to the women as well. My mission though, is to discover how using English can be meaningful in their lives. That is, of course, assuming that they show up and that I can keep their interest.
The other two groups I will be working with are at the Rohanna Special School, about two kilometres from where I am staying. The Rohanna school is a school for children who are deaf or blind or mentally disabled, although the majority of the students are deaf. The school has recently received a significant facelift from a local ex-pat and humanitarian who visited and was appalled by the conditions there. Although the teachers recieve government salaries, the children at the boarding school are subsidized about 50cents each per month... you can imagine that doesn't go very far towards even feeding them, even here, let alone maintaining facilities...
If you are interested in reading more about the school, I suggest you check out Adam's blog for more details. Adam is an American who is volunteering at the school and he has some interesting observations.
For me, it is a place that instantly captured my heart. I started learning Singhalese sign language immediately. My fingers are still clumsy, they are still learning how to speak, as it were, and I make lots of mistakes. Still, picking up the sign language is far more accessible to me than the spoken Singhalese. I'm having trouble just pronouncing names. And there is something about the children and the people I have met that makes me want to speak. Even more powerfully, that makes me want to understand how they speak.
4. What are you doing to do for fun?
That's right, this is supposed to be some kind of vacation, so hopefully I do have lots of free time. Considering that everyone wants to work with me at 3pm, it seems I have all of my days pre-noon available, at the very least.
I am staying at the Beach Inn. Every morning when I open my eyes, I hear the sound of waves and every day when I open my door, I see them. They're right there, only metres away from my door. On my first morning, i went for a swim and yesterday a long walk on the beach.
In addition to learning sign language, I also brought along JoJo, my trusty guitar. I bought it and started learning about a year ago but stopped after work and my social life got me too busy. Now I'm hoping for some quiet afternoons practicing chords. Dont' expect a musician anytime soon.
In two weeks the seas will be clear enough to do some diving. The project has the equiptment and some guys from the dive class have volunteered to take me out. That should be fun. That is, after all, one fo the main reasons I'm here.
One of the guys, Indika, who helps me out with just about everything, has also volunteered to lend me his surf board. I think hours of spills and giggles are in store for me there. Yes, I know you need upper arm strength to surf, not to mention a million other muscles I don't have, but hey, I'll give anything a shot.
Now, I admit, I spend almost every afternoon sleeping. But, hey, I'm on vacation.
Between the teaching, the talking to people, the walking, the writing, the learning, the sleeping, the reading and all these water sports, I think my time will be full.
5. What next?
December 1st I fly to London. I don't have tickets onward from there, although I'm hoping to remedy that soon. Ideally, I'll move onwards to Montreal by the 6th, and Calgary by the 13th. I'm aiming to be back on the border by early January, probably January 5th. But, hey, anything could happen.
Well that took quite a while, hopefully that filled you in. Any more questions, you can use the comment feature on the blog, or email me. I always love hearing from you, whoever you are.
Madiha
This ball has come to rest, for two months only, in Madiha. Madiha is a small, small town on the southern coast of Sri Lanka. You won't find it in the Lonely Planet or the Rough Guide. You will find the nearest other small town, Polhena, and the nearest medium sized town, Matara, where I am now using the internet.
My address, for anyone who feels post-minded in the next short period of time, is very simple:
Jennifer
Beach Inn
Beach Road
Madiha - Matara
Sri Lanka.
I welcome and return almost all my post.
There is so much going on right now and limited internet time but I promised to blog once a week for the project and will do so once things are up and running. For the last couple of days, a part from napping, we have been trying to round up the troops and see who is interested in my English classes. On Sunday we will try and do something with the classroom: an old school wrecked by the tsunami. On Monday things begin in earnest. Before then I have to learn at least the British alphabet in sign language, if not a few more sign vocabs. I've picked up about ten singahelese signs already and that's only the beginning. Starting Monday, two of my classes will be at the Rohanna school for the deaf and blind. So much to learn, so little time... more on all of this later, with links.
My address, for anyone who feels post-minded in the next short period of time, is very simple:
Jennifer
Beach Inn
Beach Road
Madiha - Matara
Sri Lanka.
I welcome and return almost all my post.
There is so much going on right now and limited internet time but I promised to blog once a week for the project and will do so once things are up and running. For the last couple of days, a part from napping, we have been trying to round up the troops and see who is interested in my English classes. On Sunday we will try and do something with the classroom: an old school wrecked by the tsunami. On Monday things begin in earnest. Before then I have to learn at least the British alphabet in sign language, if not a few more sign vocabs. I've picked up about ten singahelese signs already and that's only the beginning. Starting Monday, two of my classes will be at the Rohanna school for the deaf and blind. So much to learn, so little time... more on all of this later, with links.
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