ABDF

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Hi everybody!

First, I want to tell you I met a lovely British woman named Susan last Friday.  She’s a friend of Kala’s, and like me can’t help but return to Batti.  She’s been in Sri Lanka six months, and will be returning to the UK next week.  Her husband, Jerry is also a fan (addict?) but he was not able to come with Susan this time around.  He will be in SL this summer, and hopefully I’ll get meet him.  The two of them work on several projects in the area as well as in Galle (in the south), mostly in education.  Susan has volunteer taught at St. Cecilia’s, the site of our English Lab project.  It was fun meeting her, and I think I can count her as a friend.

Well the rain has started to come back, although not in the monsoonal form it had previously.  So far, anyway.  Usually it’s clear, and then clouds sweep in from the west, over the mountains.  There is some thunder and lightening, strong cool winds, then fantastic rain for a short time.  Then the clouds break up, eventually continuing east out over the Indian Ocean.  I hope this weather pattern stops soon, because the Tamil New Year is on the 14^th, and there will be a lot of celebrating.

I’m also due for a little change in scenery at the end of the week.  I have mentioned Siva, my Sri Lankan friend who lives in Ireland, and built the house where I live.  He is due in Batti on Saturday, bringing with him two Irish friends, Pauline and Kieran.  They will be staying with me on the second floor of the house; there are extra rooms and beds and should be comfortable.

After a few days of partying it up for the New Year, Siva, his friends, the staff of the Sri Lankan Friendship Society (SFS) and I will be going by van to Kandy.  The SFS has just built a preschool there, and the opening ceremony is Tuesday the 15^th.  I think we’ll spend the night, do a little sightseeing the following day, and return to Batti.

I have not yet been to Kandy, so I wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity.

Kandy is a Singhalese city in the central highlands of Sri Lanka.  You can find it easily on any decent map.  It is one of the most politically and culturally important places on the island, being THE major center of Buddhist learning on the island since Buddhism was first introduced over 2,000 years ago.  The heart of the city is the Temple of the Tooth, a temple complex containing a relic; one of the teeth of the Buddha himself.  Politically, the Kingdom of Kandy resisted European invaders for over 300 years, maintaining its splendor and independence during the Portuguese and Dutch occupation of the coast.  Kandy finally fell in 1815 to the British. As you can imagine, Kandy is the symbol of Singhalese pride in Sri Lanka.

The city is said to be beautiful, nestled in a high valley and ringed by mountains.  The climate is cool, in a relative sense.  The people are said to be exceedingly friendly and more Tamil-friendly than in the south of the island.

So I’m very much looking forward to the excursion, as my personal budget will allow for little independent touring of the island.

After returning to Batti for a few days, I will hitch a lift from Siva and his Irish friends back to Colombo, where I will stay with Jeewan for a week.  I have several important tasks to do, the most important will be arranging trans-island shipment for our donated St. Cecilia’s books, which will hopefully have arrived around the 14^th, and have been cleared through customs.  If Fortune is smiling the boxes will be waiting for me at Jeewans’.  After this and various other errands, I’ll take the night train back to Batti.

I have mentioned my friend Nallaratne before.  He’s the fellow with the van who also drives a tuk-tuk. On Sunday he took me to have lunch with his family at his home.  He lives some distance north of Batti, near a kovil (Hindu temple) dedicated to the fearsome, if fascinating, goddess Kali.  His wife, Suriya, is a great cook. The food was typical small village fare; some fish curries, a couple of vegetables, and piles and piles of rice.  One dish in particular was really excellent.  It was a vegetable dish in a light sauce; the main veggie being the Bitter Gourd.  Imagine a very large, somewhat dark pear with deeply wrinkled skin.  To eat it, you peel the gourd and cut it into small, very thin strips.  It has a wonderful smoky, woody, almost meaty taste.  Delicious.  I’d had it before, but didn’t know what I was eating.  I wonder if it is available in American markets, ‘cause I’d like to get my hands on the recipe.  I’m not sure why it’s called “bitter” except maybe that’s what it tastes like raw.

Whenever I have lunch in a Sri Lankan home, I find the food fantastic, and I’m very vocal about expressing my pleasure.  This usually amuses the family, because I start asking all sorts of questions about the food, the ingredients, how it’s cooked, and comparing it, if I can, to what we have in America.  Naturally, the wife of the household, who does the cooking, is immensely pleased to receive such interest, as most people, apparently, take the food given them for granted.  This is especially true among the poorer of my friends, such as Nallaratne, were I get what could be called “peasant” food.  Sometimes the family will go out and spend extra money to buy special items to cook for me; now I’ve gotten into the habit of insisting I get everyday food when I receive an invitation, and say that I have dietary restrictions against mutton, shrimp and so forth.  These tend to be the more expensive ingredients.  I explain that while I do eat meat, I prefer vegetables, and for protein, eggs.  This is true; the only time I’ve gotten food poisoning in Sri Lanka was when I ate shrimp, and the sanitary conditions of the meat shops leave a lot to be desired.  Vegetables and boiled eggs (as in egg curry) are much safer.

I realize that my hosts are trying to honor me by providing expensive foods.  I know it’s a compliment and a sign of respect and friendship.  But what good is that if they can’t afford anything other than rice and lentils for the rest of the week?  No; I’m honored enough to be invited into their homes, however humble, and be a part of the family for the afternoon.  I mean, how many Westerners get to experience that?

In a similar way, I get a lot of surprised reactions when I tell people I’m working here unpaid, and as far as I’m concerned, my payment is the fact I get to live here.  Everyone here has met foreigners who come here to volunteer for a couple of weeks or a month.  But to live here, and not be paid?  It astonishes them. The only long-term foreigners they know here work for the aid groups like the U.N. and Red Cross, and they all get a salary.  But I get very positive response because, I think, they realize I’m here for them, not to make a buck off of them, if you see my meaning.  Then they open up and I get to do things and see things other Westerners don’t.  I’m sure my fellow SL volunteers understand perfectly what I’m saying.

While lunching with Susan yesterday (Monday) we met this very nice fellow from New Hampshire.  His name is Chris and he works for the Norwegian Refugee Committee.  He sat and ate with us and we chatted.  He’s been here since last November, and staying until next November. When he heard about our work and our living situations, he said he was a bit jealous.  All the NGOs (Non-Government Organization; the Red Cross, for example) provide very nice group living quarters for their foreign staffs.  As a result they tend to socialize among themselves, and know only a few locals who are fellow employees; certainly they become good friends with few non-staff Sri Lankans.  As a result, Chris said, he feels something of a disconnect between himself and the people he’s here to help.  They tend to be case numbers and statistics, not real live people.  I laughed and said that mine was the opposite situation; I only socialize with Sri Lankans, and hardly ever even see foreigners on the street, let alone hang out with them.

This is a very common complaint about the NGOs and their staffs; the good intentions are there and local folk are grateful, but they (the NGOs) never actually get to know and understand the community.

Chris, who is in his late 30s, is a very nice fellow and obviously is bothered by his disconnect.  He and I hit it off very well, and so I think we’ll end up being friends.  Yay!  A fellow American to hang out with, and I’ll show him some of the real Batti!  And through me maybe he’ll connect with some of my friends, and be able to see people, rather than just statistics and case numbers.

One of the aspects of the American-Batticaloa Development Fund’s mission statement charges me to help local Sri Lankans learn to write and manage their own grants.  You know: teach a man to fish rather than just give him a fish. The skills needed to write and manage grants is very much lacking here, as there is no real training for it.  Yesterday morning, before my lunch with Susan, I was invited to a grant-writing seminar by my friend Sasi, who is an SFS member.  This was the final session of a four day training course on the basics of grant writing.  The attendees were all from outlying villages, and are involved in writing various small grants for an assortment of small projects in their villages.  Sasi asked me to observe the seminar.  Naturally, I knew there was more to it than that, so Sunday night I wrote a few notes on basic hints and suggestions on grant writing.

Sure enough, I was asked to get up and describe my own experiences with grants and offer advice.  I’m glad I was prepared.  I’m getting good at being ready to “just observe” a meeting.

So I talked to the attendees for 20 minutes about the practical, real-world aspects of grants; no theory in my schpiel!  It took so long because each sentence had to be translated.  I then answered questions for another 10 or 15 minutes.  The sponsors of the seminar were happy with what I said.  And have asked me to teach at an intensive training course next month, which will be comprised of select participants from this seminar.  I could see it coming a mile away.  So of course I said yes, and not just because it’s part of the ABDF’s mission, but because I saw these men and women who were trying to make a difference in their villages and hamlets and need help and you just can’t say no to such a request.

xoxoxoxoxo

B.