ABDF

(Begun on Friday the 19th)

I arrived in Batticaloa two days ago, on Wednesday. All went very well.

Some of the students your donations help!

I’m afraid that in this dispatch I’m not going to talk much about projects. I only just arrived, and so naturally there is little to tell. However I do have a lot to tell you about other things, all good.

Getting to Sri Lanka was fine and nothing untoward happened. All I can say is that the two flights were long, and I was happy to finally walk out of the airport in Colombo.

And walk out I did, smack into the wilting heat. This is the hottest time of the year in Colombo. The Western monsoons, which affect the western half of the island, are due in a month or two. Prior to that the heat builds and builds. My Colombo friends say that this year it’s hotter than normal (climate change?) but to me, just arrived from winter in the US, it all is just plain hot.

I ended up spending a week in Colombo getting things done; registering at the US Embassy, getting my visa extended, shopping, and so on. I did manage to spend one relaxing afternoon at Barefoot, my favorite café.

I have to say that in my years here, I’ve never seen Colombo more relaxed. As you (hopefully) recall, the civil war ended last summer, with the LTTE being defeated after a long hard fought war. Even last November, some 5 months after the end, Colombo was still pretty tense. I won’t say that things are unicorns and rainbows, but the checkpoints, always a good barometer of things, were fewer and in my running around with friends we were never stopped, even at night.

In fact, it was really nice seeing the police doing police things, rather than manning the checkpoints. I drove out to Batti on Wednesday like I said, and I left Colombo at 8 AM, right during rush hour. In the past, it’s taken two hours to get out of Colombo, the traffic is so bad. Now the cops are out on the street, directing traffic at the major intersections, and at crosswalks halting vehicles so that pedestrians can cross safely. The traffic discipline was a wonder to behold. So this year we were out of Colombo in 45 minutes. Very nice.

This relaxed security was particularly noticeable in the east. No checkpoints on the road; they even pulled down the roadside buildings they used to conduct searches. I’d estimate that about half of the earthenware gun emplacements have been taken down, and there are no longer constant road patrols. There are still a few military camps along the road, but other than at these places, I saw no soldiers. Very different from even five months ago.

Last year the government began to heavily invest in infrastructure, particularly along the east coast where I live. Work had begun in various places last year, but the scope has really become evident since four months ago when I left Sri Lanka. The road out to Batti is a prime example.

Polunawara is the last major Sinhalese town before you enter Tamil lands. While the road from Colombo has always been OK, during the war, once you drove a few kilometers east of Polunawara, the road conditions suddenly deteriorated significantly. At best it was a packed dirt track with the occasion patches of asphalt; at its worst points there were massive potholes, patches of sand, and deep gullies. The drive, about 100 kilometers (about 60 miles) from Polonuawara to Batti, took at least two hours and was not for the weak of stomach. I remember one time in particular when I got massively car sick, and almost asked if we could pull over to the side of the road so I could empty my stomach. I always dreaded that drive out to Batticaloa.

This time there was a huge difference. The road is being repaved and is now smooth as silk. Thus far they’ve done about 70 km of the total, and at this rate the improvements should reach Batti by the time I leave. As it was, the normal 2+ hour drive is now down to an hour and a half.

At several points the road crosses rivers. To cross, the road merges with the nearby railroad tracks, and you actually drive on the tracks across the railroad bridges. And this is traffic going both north and south along the road. Now, thanks to Japan, lovely wide bridges are being built to handle traffic flow. Two bridges still are yet to be built, but wow, what an improvement already!

Lastly, there is the main road through the Districts’ towns and villages. If you look at a map of the District, you will see the main highway runs north/south along the coast, and through all towns of villages of any import. Through all these places, the road is being almost doubled in width and repaved. In Batticaloa itself, the work began last October. It meant that a lot of shops had to be torn down, as they had been built (against regulation I’ve come to understand) with their fronts smack on the street. Last year there was a lot of complaining, as the folks who made their livings from their illegally constructed businesses had to abandon their buildings. All of these had to torn down, and the sides of the road dug up for new sewage pipes.

So Batti as well as other towns like Kattankudy are really a mess. Piles of rubble line the streets, and the dust is really intense. Driving is pretty hazardous right now, especially on a motorcycle. On top of that, streets tend not to be labeled, so personally I navigate by landmark. Now they are all torn down…

It’s rumored that the bulk of the work will be finished by the end of the year. I’m not convinced as, well, this is Sri Lanka. However, I do think that once everything is finished, Batti and the other towns will look a lot better, and driving will be a heck of a lot easier. Even the nay-sayers are starting to come around now they have an idea of what the results will be.

When the war ended last year I wrote that the government is at a crossroads. The Powers That Be could be could either reach out to the Tamil community and convince it that life is better under the government than under the LTTE, or it could not, and then we’d have another war in a generation. In terms of infrastructure and other quality of life ways, the government is definitely trying. All this road building, improved rail service, massive water projects, the visible pullback of security forces, all these things have really made a positive impression on folks here. Although the government has its issues, I do believe in giving credit where credit is due, and all the physical improvements are more than I thought would ever happen. So bravo! I hope this continues.

The caveat to all this is that as of yet there is no political solution in the offing to address the concerns of Tamils and other minorities. It’s my hope that once the Parliamentary elections are over in April and the political scene calms down, that there will be real efforts made in this area. The Chinese model of development, that is to say material improvement without concurrent political rights, is unproven in the long term. Will Sri Lanka follow this path or try for the proven success of material AND political advancement? Will Sri Lanka go Western or Eastern? Right now London and New York still make Sri Lankans starry-eyed, but the lights of ascending Shanghai and Abu Dhabi are a tempting alternative; increasingly so every day.

Now back to Earth. The last couple of days have been really hectic. I want to jump right into our project work, so I’ve been hustling to get my living situation in order. So it’s been a whirlwind of cleaning, buying supplies, restocking my kitchen, getting the motorcycle serviced, etc. All the while everybody is asking me to come for lunch, for dinner, for a visit to their house or work.

(Continued on Sunday the 21st)

On Friday evening I was invited to the wedding of Ashad, a buddy from Kattankudy, the Muslim town 7 km south of Batti. I’d never been to a Muslim marriage before and the contrast between it and Hindu weddings, which I described last year, couldn’t have been greater. For example, the actual ceremony was very short, whereas a Hindu wedding can take more than two hours. Family and friends gathered at the mosque, where there were special prayers said before and after the legal registration of the couple, which was done right then and there. In total it took about 20 minutes and voila! Goodbye Carefree Youth and hello Responsibility!

Actually, there is a bit more than that, but in terms of religion, that was pretty much everything. On Thursday there had been a ladies’ gathering at the house of the bride, which lasts all evening. I didn’t attend of course, but I’m told it’s primarily social, with gift giving, marital advice, and a lot of food. So to me it sounds very similar to out bridal showers. As far as I could tell there is no equivalent to our Bachelorette party.

The same applies to the men. After the marriage ceremony at the mosque, everyone went back for a party. Ladies went to one house (so they get TWO parties?) and all us men gathered at another. The mens’ party was quite tame and traditional. Ashad sat in one end of the living room, sweaty and uncomfortable in his heavy polyester grooms’ clothing while the rest of us sat about eating snacks and drinking soda. This part of the marriage is open to all men of the town who care to stop by, visit briefly, give Ashad their best wishes, and move on. I stayed for most of this, as I hadn’t seen Ashad in almost a year (he works in Qatar) and so we had a lot to catch up on. Thus I was able to watch the constant stream of well-wishers, in their sarongs, white shirts, and skull caps come and go.

There is one last part to all this, a lunch is given for family and close friends two days after the ceremony which, in this case, is this afternoon. I’m going, and I’ve been told that it’s a pretty casual affair, a way for the family to relax socially now that the wedding and all the planning and work is done. Aneesha, an old friend from tsunami times, is Ashad’s older sister, and matriarch of the family. She’s also known as one of the best cooks in Kattankudy, and so that alone is enough for me to want to come eat. Some of you will remember the brain curry from two years ago: that’s Aneesha. She’s also our partner in Olikulam, where we are building the road.

When I started writing this on Friday, I said I didn’t have too much to say about projects. This is still true, although there were some developments yesterday. I’ve mentioned Easwaran, my housemate here in Batti. He comes from Kaluthavelai (ka-loo-TAH-vel-ee) the sight of last years’ ronio machine project. This year he has brought a couple potential projects to my attention, and so he and I went to Kaluthavelai yesterday to check them out. (The trip took all day, as Kaluthavelai is some distance to the south. Between the heat and the dust I came back exhausted, which is why I didn’t finish this letter yesterday.)

The first involves building toilets for two families. The second involves helping a soup kitchen get some cooking equipment. I don’t have all the details yet, so no decision made.

In terms of the soup kitchen, I’m really of two minds. In the “con” column, the kitchen is really only active four times a year, for about a week or so each, during various local Hindu festivals. On the “pro” side, they do feed about 2,000 folks at a time, mostly the very poor, who have come to town for the various festivals. ABDF has a policy of not funding religious activities; religion is a divisive subject here and we don’t want to favor on group over another. On the other hand, the people who come to eat are probably getting better food than what they can afford at home, and in addition some Christians and Muslims join in the meal. So I don’t know. I have to think about it and consult with my Board back in the States.

Well, I guess that’s it for now. I know this has been a long letter; in the future I’ll try to write shorter ones more frequently. Hope you all are doing well.