ABDF

Wow! Only one more month in Sri Lanka! Tempus fugit – time flies – as the expression goes.

We had a last minute project request that I finished up earlier this week. It was one of those quick-n-dirty little projects I like to end the season with. A cousin in the extended family with whom I live, Suhi, asked our help in setting up a Math Lab at his alma mater, Hindu College, here in Batticaloa.

First of all, a college in Sri Lanka is not a college in the sense we Americans know it. Students enter into one of a variety of academic streams (Math & Science, Commerce, Arts, etc) which means that while all students get the same basics, there is an emphasis in their subject area. Most high schools only have the resources to teach one or two streams, but a College offers all streams. This is the case at Hindu College, which is one of the largest and oldest boy’s schools in Batticaloa. (Except in rural areas where resources are limited, most school in Sri Lanka are segregated by gender.)

Suhi is something of a math-head, and recently took the Advanced Level exams, along with my friend Easwaran (the guy who lost his wallet a few days before the test); the results won’t be known until December. Suhi approached me for help; Hindu College is trying to set up a Math Lab in a spare room. The plan is for upper level classmen to be available for tutoring lower skill level students, as well as a space to have regular extra math classes in the afternoon.

The room itself is still being re-done, but I can tell you it is roomy enough, with big windows for light. On one wall is a large painted-in black board, which I think is very clever: it’s as functional as a chalkboard, but without having to go out and buy one. The walls are a sort of powder blue with a darker blue repeating abstract floral pattern that, well, (how to be kind?), uh, let’s just say I wouldn’t paint in my house.

The school had gone round-robin and collected enough money to clean and redecorate the room, as well as get some furniture, such a locking steal cabinet, as well as a table and some chairs. They requested that we either buy or have constructed a sort of display case, low with sliding glass doors and shelving.

I got an estimate for making such a case, which came out to Rs15,000 or about $135. On Monday last Suhi and I prowled around several furniture shops in town to see what might be available. The closest thing we could find to what was needed was Rs13,00 or about $115. I was leaning towards getting the case built custom made; it would adhere to the school’s needs, and provide a local person with a small job, when Suhi and I left the last shop and noticed that a small shop two doors down was closing. Out in front were two glass display cases, almost exactly as needed by the school. We went to ask the owner where he had bought the cases, when he offered to sell them to us for Rs9,000 each (about $80). We ended up buying one, and hiring a guy to haul it to the College.

It was exactly what was needed. In fact, Suhi and I ended up going back and I bought the second case as well. So now for only slightly more than it would have cost to get one case made, the Lab now has double the storage space. As a minor part, I also bought several reams of paper so that the math instructor could make copies of a practice math test for her students.

I will be the first to admit that I am NOT a math fan; I barely passed my classes in high school and am eternally grateful for the invention of Microsoft Excel. Computers and software are a godsend to people like me; I’m an expert at imputing numbers, and pressing the button that will give the answer.

Given that, I still recognize the importance of math, and I think everyone should at least learn the basics. So I told Suhi, the head math teacher, and the Principal that when I get back next year, I would like to be of assistance for the math lab if possible.

For quite a while I had an internal debate about the nature of helping various schools here. Hindu College and St. Cecilia’s, where I’m assisting Angela expand their computer lab, are large, relatively well-funded, established, schools in Batticaloa. Just a few kilometers outside of Batti, the resources and infrastructure decline rapidly and it gets worse the farther away you get; there seems to be an inverse proportion involved (Math concept! See: that high school math did pay off!).

Outside of Batti, Kattankudy, and the larger towns, there are dozens, if not a hundred or two, of small schools serving farming populations. The state of these school is usually one step above pathetic; normally one room with broken furniture, a critical lack of supplies, and often no electricity. Of course, the families served are at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder and really are the ones who need education the most, yet receive the least. Actually, sounds like a very similar situation to our inner-city school in the US, doesn’t it?

Given our limited resources, which is better?

Helping these tiny rural schools? The situation at these schools is usually so tenuous that almost anything is a boon. A stack of blank workbooks, a bundle of pens and pencils, a box of chalk and a teacher’s attendance book is considered a gift from heaven. But the kind of help we can offer can’t fundamentally change the recipient school, and school supplies and such are ultimately ephemeral. To help a rural school long term would require a ton of money and protracted effort, and would need to start with basics, such as functional facilities and water. If we had $100,000, we could really turn one of these schools around and help make it as good as Hindu College.

If you promote the bigger schools that have more resources, you are encouraging a “from strength to strength” situation. These schools already have an infrastructure in place to use their resources effectively and deliver quality education. Also, these schools have a track record of accomplishment, as well as the best staff. On the other hand, any resources we pump into a school like Hindu College, means we can’t spend it on rural schools, even if for school supplies or a new chalkboard.

If you “take care” of the schools yourself, are you allowing the government to avoid its responsibility to its citizens? If you start supplying supplies to schools, are you encouraging a cycle of dependence on hand-outs? Are you using resources to solve a problem only temporarily? All these questions about the nature and impact of aid had been going through my head for the past couple of years. Then I decided for myself.

There is no “right” answer to this issue. Both sides are correct and reasonable. So as in all things, I think the best way to handle it is to take the middle, moderate path. When the opportunity arises to supplement the strengths of an established school, then I think we ought to do it. Additionally, sometimes you just need a little help to tie you over for the short-term, and so I think that we should not shy away from assisting small rural schools, even if our help is not part of a long-term permanent solution.

OK, so maybe all the debate above sounds silly, given that we do help both, and will continue doing so. But it’s still important to think these things through, even if you end up not changing course. I get the impression that most Westerners doing this sort of work don’t really think about the issues involved. So many aid agencies come to the developing world with an agenda already in place, and they are going to stick to that agenda, come hell or high water. The result is often that recipients, desperate for any kind of help, accept the aid even if it isn’t a fit for their needs. Obviously, this isn’t an optimal situation, either for the locals, or the donors, who are expecting their money to work as effectively as possible but aren’t aware of what’s happening on the ground. It IS a boon to the big agencies, which can go back to the donors with sexy pictures of happy natives standing in front of the project. This has been a criticism of the development industry for many years.

Sorry. I went off on a theoretical tangent which probably doesn’t interest you to much. Back to projects.

With the help of friends of Angela’s who are local Batti folks, the parameters of the computer lab project are slowly coming together. Naturally it all takes much longer than either I or Angela would like. Time is different here, and if you can get one thing done; one estimate, one email or phone call answered, that’s an accomplishment. My goal is to have a Plan in place by the time I leave. Then, once the funds are raised by Angela, it would be a “simple” matter of getting the money here and getting the Plan carried out. That’s the goal, anyway; we’ll see.

Additionally, I’m trying to get several projects lined up for next year. One example is the school in Vantharamoolai where we installed a computer lab earlier this year. I believe that in a previous dispatch I mentioned all the damage done to the school when it was used to temporarily house refugees from the fighting in 2007; equipment destroyed, and school furniture broken up. To illustrate: the school is 230 chair-and-desk sets short because of this, and students are sitting on the floor in some classes, but the school hasn’t the money to fix the problem.

Now on to other topics.

I think I mentioned earlier this year about the drought which has hit eastern Sri Lanka. Last winter’s rains were meager, and the water table all around the District has fallen to all time lows. The place is littered with NGO-funded tube wells that are dry.

Normally rains start to reappear in mid September in the form of short but copious downpours every four days or so; the real rains start in November or December. Last year at this time I had the pleasure of watching a whole series of spectacular thunder storms, which I described at the time. Not only does this help with the water situation, but it breaks the heat, which right now is at inferno level. So far this year, bupkis. Nothing. Well, last week we had one half-hearted, desultory sort of shower, which lasted about 20 minutes and did nothing except raise the humidity level. The monsoons in India this year were catastrophic; some areas hardly saw them while other places were completely inundated. Sri Lankans are worried about this happening here.

On a larger level, the drought has caused the levels in the country’s reservoirs to fall steeply. The result is two-fold. First, there is less water for irrigating farms, and some areas have had no rice harvest this year. Additionally, a significant proportion of Sri Lanka’s electricity needs are filled by hydroelectric power. As the water levels have fallen, so too has the amount the dams can produce and Sri Lanka doesn’t quite have enough electricity in the best of times. So we have a lot of blackouts. The government is constructing a couple new power plants, but they will be based, I believe, on either coal or oil, neither of which is very environmentally friendly and only contributes to the climate problem. So Sri Lanka seems to be caught in a catch-22. It wants to produce green power, but can’t and so must become more reliant on dirty power.

On a practical level for me, it means I’ve been trying to conserve water, as the water in the household well is lower than I’ve ever seen it. I now do my laundry in the barest amount of water possible, and sometimes my clothes still have a little soap in them when the dry. I also have turned off the toilet, and pour my used laundry water in it to flush. I’m also a lot faster at washing my dishes, and taking a bath, although I haven’t yet resorted to military showers.

The Sunday before last I went to Passakudah Beach with Prabha, Balan, and a couple other friends. I’ve written about Passakudah before; the picture-perfect tropical beach that is perfect for swimming. It was a three day weekend, so there was a big crowd. It turns out that the majority, about 75%, were Sinhalese, mostly university students from Kandy. One group of guys had brought a Kandy drum, an oblong freestanding drum with a deep sound. They were drumming, singing Sinhala songs, and dancing around like madmen.

I asked my Tamil friends what, with all the sensitivities right now, how they felt about busloads of Sinhalese taking over the beach, singing Sinhalese songs. The response I got was uniformly positive. Prabha said it has been years and years since Kandy drums were played at Passakudah, and he was glad to hear them, he told me as he tapped his foot to the rhythm. He speaks Sinhala and told me that the songs they were singing weren’t political, but rather old folk songs or songs about either love or partying. It reminded him of when he was a kid. Other Tamils I asked were similarly enthusiastic.

As the only white person on the beach and in the water, I attracted a lot of attention from the Sinhalese students. I decided that I was on my turf, so to speak, so I didn’t hide the fact that I live and work in Batticaloa, as I do when I’m in Colombo or the South. The reaction was positive, although most questions centered on what it’s like to live in Batti, especially for a foreigner. The war, politics, Tamil-ness and such were never brought up; the guys just didn’t seem interested. It was all curiosity, and no hostility or suspicion. Of course most of them were from the Hill country, where Sinhalese and Estate Tamils intermingle on a daily basis. As I’ve said in previous dispatches, the Sinhalese of the Hill Country are different than their brethren in the Sinhala heartland South; they tend to be more open-minded and cosmopolitan and in many ways more Western in attitude. Relations aren’t perfect, but there isn’t the degree of nationalistic/ethnic hostility you find openly preached in the South.

So this episode seems to bode well for relations between the two ethnicities, at least at a local Batti/Passakudah level. The Tamils I talked to were all happy to see the Sinhalese, and the Sinhalese were very happy to be there. People intermingled with ease, even if they couldn’t always communicate. The drum really helped; music is universal in appeal and Kandy rhythms are infectious. It gave me a glimpse into what it was like before 1983, when all hell broke loose. And I really think the silent majority on both sides want it to be this way. Now if they can only get all their politicians into the same mindset!

As I said at the beginning of this letter, tempus fugit. I’m now starting to turn my attention towards planning my departure. While I don’t have a schedule in place yet, I’m thinking that I will leave Batticaloa around the 18th-20th. I’ll drop my stuff in Colombo and at some point during my remaining two weeks visit friends in Kandy and possibly Hatton, and I want to spend a few days at Shangri-La down in Galle. This, on top of my busy social schedule in Colombo, should keep me occupied until I leave November 2nd.