ABDF

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Hi everybody!

Well I leave Batticaloa tomorrow evening, and this years’ season will be officially over. I’m taking the dread night train to Colombo. I will spend the rest of my time, about a week and a half, wandering the island, and fly out the Monday the 27^th.

Our first season as the ABDF has worked out as well as I hoped. I definitely learned a lot about how things operate here; valuable experience for the future. I’ve also made a huge number of contacts, which will also make things easier in the future. Furthermore, I have a great group of projects for next year. I wish we could have done more, but the number of projects is limited by the amount of funds we raise. Hopefully with this years’ track record we can raise a bigger budget for next year!

I’m thinking that eight months is about my limit for this place right now. The past few weeks, as things have come to a close, my personal energy has begun to wane, and my departure more real, I find myself more and more exhausted. Little and not-so little things that my energy and enthusiasm carried me through previously have been starting to weigh me down. I need a break. I need cool, nay, COLD, weather. I need a big bed to stretch out in and not worry about the mosquito netting. I miss “Torchwood.” I need a really good enchilada.

I’m also really looking forward to seeing my friends and family, especially my dad, who has been immensely supportive of my efforts here. I especially miss my dads’ oh-so dry sense of understated humor, which you don’t really find here in Batti, at least not with the English skills my friends here have.

At any rate, there hasn’t been a lot of ABDF activity in the last week or so. Most of my time was taken up with Claire’s visit from Ireland. Oh how I enjoyed having her! Alas, her stay was too short. But it was a very busy time nonetheless.

Originally Claire called her visit a holiday, and she was coming to see friends and see how things have or have not changed. Turned into a working vacation. I was able to introduce her to some of my project co-conspirators, and Claire immediately offered to support some of their projects. This was great, as our ABDF funds are exhausted, and we were going to have to wait until next year. Now some of the most urgent stuff is taken care of. She did a particular lot with the St. Vincent de Paul folks, with whom we had built the awning for the Widow Niasamany. Claire supplied corrugated tin sheets, wood, and building materials to repair the roofs of ten shockingly poor families, as well as material for a temporary shelter for a homeless family. This was rather urgent as the rainy season is due. The St. Vincent guys had decided that these repairs are the most important on their to-do list. All in all, Claire spent something between $1,500 and $2,000 of her own money helping folks here. Thank you Claire! Yer a Gawdess!

The thing about this place, as Claire and I discussed one night, is that it’s Pandora’s Box. If you come here for a holiday, the kind with a driver and hotel and lovely beaches, you leave here after a couple of weeks refreshed but unaware. (Not that you’d come to Batti as that type of tourist anyway – there isn’t anything for tourists here.) However, when you start to know people and hear their stories and see their needs, you become aware. And once you are aware, you can never go back to a state of blissful ignorance. Once the Box is open, there’s no putting things back in. And no aware person with any kind of conscious can leave here without at least trying to do something. So thus Claire’s jaunt to say hello became bigger than a mere holiday.

There were a couple of ABDF activities nonetheless. Remember our coconut seedlings? We had bought 2,000 of them at the beginning of the season, and they had been happily growing this whole time. Last week Claire helped me distribute them at Thiraimadu (TRY-mah-doo) tsunami resettlement village. These folks had originally lived in Kallady, near the Murugan Kovil, where I first lived after the tsunami. Now they live some kilometers to the north in a barren, sandy, dry village that is still yet to be completed. So it was nice to be able to help those who would have been my neighbors, if the waves hadn’t come.

We were also able to help a man I met named Sothilingam. He is in a pretty bad situation, having been displaced by the tsunami, but not qualifying for any sort of assistance. Since then he has been driving a dilapidated second-hand tuk-tuk to earn money for his family. It recently gave up the ghost for real, and so for very little money we were able to get the thing repaired and refurbished, and Sothilingam back to work. This is one of those quick-n-dirty small projects with immediate results I like so much. Came out to under $200, which is less that what an average family will spend going to Disneyland.

For those who have asked, things have been quieter that last couple of weeks. The rounds-ups have stopped for now, and while certain groups are still trying to provoke the Muslims, the Mosque Federation has been keeping control on any reaction. Right now things have shifted to in-fighting between the two factions of a prominent militia group. It will be interesting to see which faction comes out on top, as both are supported by the government. Sigh. It’s interesting, but endless. Every po-dunk leader wants his little fiefdom and is intensely jealous of all the other po-dunk leaders. And it’s the average Joe that gets caught between, as always. Sigh.

One ominous sign I’ve noticed is that in the last two weeks I’ve seen two honest-to-god tanks driving down the road. I’ve never seen actual tanks before, usually it’s these big tall intimidating armored personal carriers topped with machine guns. But these were tanks, all painted up in sandy-colored camouflage, turrets and all. Both times they were on the main north-south road, near Kallady Bridge. A sobering reminder that the East Coast is still a war zone.

On a larger level, the fighting up north has gotten very intense, with government troops just a couple of miles from Killinoche, the LTTE capital. Could this be the end of the LTTE as a conventional fighting force? Perhaps, but the Tigers have other weapons, and whenever there is a government victory, the Tigers retaliate through other means. There’s been a series of high-profile suicide bombings that have taken out a pair of prominent politicians, as well as a couple other close escapes. I hear Colombo is quite tense, but then it always is. Again, it’s endless.

I don’t mean to end this dispatch on a gloomy note. There is a lot we can be proud of, on the ground. Despite or tiny budget, and our newness, we’ve been able to alleviate a little suffering here, and provide a little hope and comfort to people. There is no way we can “save” the people here, and I’m not sure that as foreigners it’s our place to. However, if we can, as I said above, alleviate a little suffering and offer a little hope, then we are doing our job. There is a lot of darkness here, but there are also glimmers, sparks, of hope. These are delicate and too-easily snuffed out. It’s our job, as the ABDF, but more especially as human beings, to nurture these bits of hope, in the belief that one day, some day, they can take hold and burn brightly.

Are ya with me?

xoxoxoxoxoxo

B.