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.
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