ABDF

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Hi everybody!

I don’t have much to report since my last dispatch as very little has happened.

Yesterday I took the Synergy kids out to lunch. It was Bathsala’s birthday and so I thought we ought to do something different. We went into Kattankudy to a restaurant known as the best food in town, the Taj Hotel. We had Briyani, which is a special rice with a side of roast chicken. Normally at these places you order the main lunch dish and it is served family-style with a host of smaller side dishes; vegetables cooked in different ways, as well as one or two sambals. A sambal is a side dish made from ground fresh coconut and chilies and one or two other ingredients, also ground or finely shopped. The other ingredients vary, which is why there are million different sambals. They can include anything from sugar to Maldive (Mal-dee-vee) fish, which are named for that island country. Maldive fish are usually dried then flaked and have a woody salted taste that is only a tiny bit fishy. Maldive fish sambal is really delicious and compliments a good spicy curry.

So when you walk into one of these hotels, you first notice that everything is one big room. There are tables and chairs and after washing your hands in the sink, you sit and order. In many Muslim hotels, rather than a sink, a large bowl and pitcher of water are passed around, and you wash with that. Plates are always covered with a Saran Wrap like piece of plastic, which aids in dishwashing (and hygiene!). Water is served with the meal, but since I don’t know where it comes from I usually order a soda or bottled water. Food is quickly served, as it has all been made beforehand. If you ask for a spoon you’ll get one but normally you eat with your right hand. The side dishes are normally served in small bowls while the rice is on a large platter. As each bowl or platter is emptied, it will quickly be replaced by a refill. However, if you arrive late and they have used up all of a dish, you’re out of luck. You eat until you are full, then fold the plastic wrap on the plate. This is the signal that you’re finished, and the server comes and whisks plates and remaining food away.

Most people immediately get up and wash their hands when full. There’s none of this waiting until everyone is done; when you’re finished, you’re finished. I eat more slowly than most, so I’m usually last. Afterwards the server will inevitably try to get you to have some ice cream. Actually, Elephant brand makes pretty decent ice cream. Or maybe it just seems that way after so many months away from Ben & Jerry’s. When the meal is actually complete, a small slip of paper with the amount due is placed in another small bowl and put on the table. Tips are usually very small, maybe 10 or 20 rupees. I try to give 10%. After all, you want them to remember you and think of you well.

So we had the Briyani lunch which turned out to cost me 1,730 rupees, or about $17. Not bad, to feed five people! The Synergy kids, who all come from poor families and get very little salary, were very happy to eat out.

Yesterday a reporter was shot in Kallady, just a kilometer or two from my place. She’s now in the hospital.

Now today the phone lines are all cut and there are security checkpoints all over, checking everyone. Even I got stopped. I was riding with a friend and when the soldier asked to see his ID card, I immediately stuck my passport under his (the soldiers,’ not my friends’) nose. We were quickly waved through.

I don’t know if the shooting and phone / security thing are related. Sometimes when a Bigwig comes to town the military clamps down hard, including cutting the phone lines. On the other hand, Sri Lanka is known as one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. They are attacked, abducted, and sometimes murdered with appalling frequency, often by pro-government groups. I don’t know if this is what happened yesterday, but it wouldn’t surprise me, and general consensus among locals is that a certain government-allied group was indeed behind it. Again, all conjecture and we’ll never know the truth.

Either way, I’m sure everything will be back by the end of the day. If it is related to the shooting, security will soon put an end to the charade of “doing something about it,” and if it is An Important Person, he will probably leave quickly once his business is done. No one important enough to cut communications for would be willing to spend any extra time in a “volatile” place like Batticaloa, and will scurry back to Colombo or wherever, ASAP.

But as always it’s the common people who must put up with these indignities. Any professional terrorist/liberator/thug could very easily avoid the streets with the roadblocks and while phones are convenient, I’m sure they have other ways to communicate. As I’ve said before, I wonder how many actual rebels have been caught by all the roadblocks and how many weapons or bombs have actually been seized in all the roadblock searches. Think about it. If you were wanted by the authorities, would you deliberately go through a roadblock when there are tons of easy alternate routes? Would you carry your real identity card? Would you hide any gun or bomb in one of those places always searched, like under your motorcycle seat, or a shopping bag? No of course not.

Ok, enough of the moralizing.

Two nights ago, after I had posted the previous dispatch, we had an astonishing thunderstorm. As I mentioned earlier, it seems that the rains have come a month early. Well, I was just finishing an email to my old housemate Sandra when the rain really started to come down, as did the lightening.

For this particular storm, my neighborhood seemed to be right under the center. I figured that the power would go out, and so quickly re-heated some leftover curry for a quick dinner. I also turned out the lights so I could watch the fireworks; recall that my veranda is completely open to the east. So I ate, and washed my dishes to the flashes of lightening. I then pulled a chair up to the edge of the veranda and for the next hour enjoyed the show. It was awful, in the old, original sense that it filled me with awe.

I noticed that almost all the lightening was going from cloud to cloud, with very little striking the ground. I don’t know why there is this difference; presumably it has to do with positive and negative charges, but why the ground wasn’t so charged is a mystery to me. At any rate the result was to light the clouds up from within. Also, there seemed to be little huge thunder blasts; perhaps because the lightening was inside the clouds, the clouds muffled the sound. Anyone know?

The lightening came fast and furious; at one point, for nearly a minute, I felt like Britney Spears in front of the paparazzi. And it came from all around. The effect was fascinating. When the lightening came from above or behind, everything across the lagoon leapt out vividly, so much so you could clearly see the green of the palm tress and the whitewash of the house directly opposite. When the flash came from either the right or left, the palms and houses across cast sharp black shadows one way or another. When the lightening was out east over the ocean, the sky flashed solid watery milk white, and I could see the palms as inky silhouettes. Since the lightening was coming from all around, the shadows too danced in every direction. And the optical afterimages were also pretty wow.

Twice there was an interesting phenomenon. Both times the lightening flashed, but instead of a crooked shard of electricity going from cloud to cloud, the bolts flashed out in all directions, like the spokes of some sort of disco wagon wheel. It was totally cool. I suppose that is what lightening looks like from directly underneath; usually we see it from the side.

As I said, there was little real booming thunder. However, the entire hour or so there was a constant low roll of thunder, non-stop. Even at the end of things, when all I could see were a few flashes low in the east, I could faintly hear the thunder. It sounded almost like distant surf.

It was totally cool, totally beautiful, totally amazing, and I will remember sitting there on my veranda in the dark, watching natures’ temper tantrum, for the rest of my life.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008 (next day)

Well its lunchtime and the mobile phone systems are still down. The latest rumor is that there is something big going down on the battle lines of the northern front. Yesterday the LTTE used its air force (such as it is - 2 Cessna-sized planes) to drop bombs in Vavuniya (vow-eh-NEE-yah), the northernmost government-held major town. So I suppose that the government has launched something big in retaliation. Or perhaps the Tigers have launched a counter-offensive, which is what rumor says. Either way, it could be the last gasp of the LTTE as a conventional military force. Last I heard a week or so ago, government troops were within 17 kilometers – about 10 miles, from the LTTE capital of Killanoche (kill-ah-NO-chay). So I suppose if the Tigers could counter attack, now would be the time to do it. And so, the logic of the grapevine goes, in order to forestall any guerilla activity in the East that might distract the government, the lines are all down. Curiously, land lines are still functioning, but then they count for less than 10% of the phones.

Unfortunately, my one friend who would know what is really going on, Izzadeen, is in Colombo for a meeting and won’t return until tomorrow.

So everyone here is semi-nervously waiting to see what is happening. I say semi because no one thinks anything will happen here, but that something major must be happening in the North. Could this be the end of the conventional war, or merely a new phase of it? Stay tuned folks…

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Well, the phones were restored late yesterday afternoon. It turns out there was a huge battle in the North. The LTTE did use their two little planes to bomb a major air force base and supposedly they caused a lot of damage (denied by the government) and they also launched a ground attack on the base, which was repulsed by the army. I’m not sure what was accomplished by cutting the mobile phone system here; everyone was getting their news via radio and internet, so I don’t know what the logic was. Anyway, the attack is over, and so we have mobile phones again.

On another note, the reporter that was shot is still in hospital. Turns out she is one of the few pro-government, pro-TMVP journalists in the East. So conventional wisdom is that she was shot by one of the recently reactivated sleeper cells of a certain organization heavily involved in fighting in the North. I wonder what the rumor will be tomorrow.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Yesterday I arrived early for class at Synergy. One of the kids, Shathan, also came early and we set about opening the office for business. Suddenly behind us we heard a long loud hissing sound. We both turned and slithering through our front door was a huge snake!

Well, in hindsight it wasn’t as big as our first impression. But it was still pretty big, about six feet long. Thin, it was a vivid emerald green which, after the fact, was actually quite beautiful. The hissing noise, it turned out, was the sound of it slithering across the smooth cement floor. Usually they are found in sandy areas, which provide more traction. Shanthan also later told me that this particular snake is very beneficial, eating rodents.

But of course at the time, we both panicked. Immediately hopping on a desk and a chair (he the desk, me the chair) we watched as the obviously confused serpent eventually wound its way into a back office and under a steel cabinet. Lovely.

It ended up taking about 10 minutes, but Shathan, with the aid of a very long stick, chased the thing out of the back office and into the main hall. Once the snake perceived the bright light of the front door it made a hissing exit out. When it hit the sand outside it moved with astonishing speed off into the grass. All of this happened before anyone else had arrived, so we were able to regale the others with our tale of grave peril and heroic bravery.

That was only the second snake I’ve seen here. The first time was a similar snake along the shore of the lagoon across from my house, and then I only saw that one from a distance. I would imagine that there are few snakes in such a densely inhabited area. I’ve been told that there are cobras in the rural areas of the interior, but I don’t know if this is true. I do know that many people are bitten by snakes here. This is a problem in rural areas, where getting to a hospital for anti-venom can take hours. I’ve heard there have been efforts, only somewhat successful, to establish micro-clinics in villages, where they keep a fridge with anti-venom. Ugh.

xoxoxoxoxo

B.