Nets

A major development in the fishing village in Ratmalana while we were there was that a freind of della and don funded new nets for the village.

The nets are "pulling nets" which are pulled from te beach by up to 40 men. This is a big change from the standard fishing method used by Udaya and the village, which is line fishing from small boats. There are a maximum of 4 boats that can fish, so that's a potential step up from 8 men to 40 each day during the season. Usually, if large pulling nets are used, they are rented from commercial net owners, who take a sizable percentage of the profits from the catch. Our proposal is that after buying the nets, a proportion of the profits from the catch are used for purposes dictated by the charity. We'll see how this gets on when the season starts in November.

In the meantime, here is Udaya sitting proudly with the new nets:


In Trinco, we had a chance to see how successful the nets could be. The sight of so many men pulling the nets can be quite dramatic:

and they can catch some pretty sizable fish. Check out this stingray. They caught 6 of them in one catch from the beach.


and you can see just how heavy this guy was in this video clip. It takes three men just to pull it accross the beach:

An adventure in the East

Against the advice of Della who had been there just a couple of weeks before, we decided to brave the road to Trincomalee, a coastal town in the East that had only opened to travellers since the war a few weeks ago.

We'd heard that the road was too busy being built, and that there were too many army checkpoints, but that didn't put us off. In the end, the road wansn't exactly finished,

and it was quite tiring

but we made it and it was well worth it.

After a couple of months of raging waves and no swimming in the sea, here was the land of white sand and proper tropical sunrises:
Apart from hanging out on the beach, with Jacob swimming in the sea for the first time in his life, we took a boat snorkelling briefly around one of the few bits of decent reef that they have not destroyed in Sri Lanka. How great is snorkelling? Its been so long since we've done that in a tropical sea...

And the town was fascinating. Lines of fish drying in the sun by the road:


Trinco is Hindu. There were a couple of interesting temples, including one in a really dramatic position out on the rock overlooking the harbour. And we were loving the Hindu imagery:

We also ventured down to the town beach to see the hundreds of fishing boats lined up ready to fish overnight. So much had been destroyed in the Tsunami here that it seemed that most of the boats had been bought by international agencies. The fishermen were just hanging out with some preparing boats to go out that night. Of course, as is the case everywhere, there were children playing cricket and dying to be photographed, and Sophie was an immediate star with the locals.

Monkey Magic

There were a lot of them. Mostly in Habarana, at the hotel, some in Tincomalee, loads at the Kandalama, and then some scary ones on the way up to the rock temples at Dambulla.

J loved them of course, but they can be a pest. You have to watch out for your stuff when they are around. Still, they have such expressive faces and human-like characteristics, you can't help watch them for ages.

The best photo I did not get was of two monkeys hanging out on a branch in Habarana, then diving off on purpose about 30 feet into a lake and swimming to the edge. I had no idea they did that.

But my favourite was of course this one of a couple of them on our balcony at the Kandalama hotel.

Just for completeness

I should finish this off. There is a lot to say, as we've now been back 2 weeks and my last post was with more than a week to go.

So what happened in the meantime...

Monkeys... Trincomalee... Kandalama... Siguria... and farewell to Sri Lanka and our friends there.

I'll try and get through it all when I have a spare minute or two.

a 4 year old's view

In the absence of more text from me check out J's view of the trip as written/dictated in a letter to his friend Sebastian.



Note in particular how the most important thing on the trip was Mr Magoo, the old cartoon that he discovered on satellite TV out here. Sophie's bowel movements are also of course worth a mention.


Read it on this link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saulvenit/3797956387/sizes/l/

More Perahera

Got a bit behind on the blog as we did not have a any internet access for a week and we were just too busy having a good time travelling around the place, snorkelling, elephant riding, monkey watching and climbing ancient monuments etc etc.


Back in Colombo, and only one day left now, so I will have to post some more on the trip, plus the final visit to the school and "village" on the beach after we get home. There is a lot to say...

In the meantime, I have managed to upload the extra picture and the videos on to the Perahera blog below, so have another look at it for the full experience.

4 on an elephant

Not much more to say:

Perahera Crazy

Wed 29th July

Incredible. Tonight we saw the Kandy “Esala Perahera“. Its billed as one of the greatest spectacles in Asia, and it lived up to it, even though we saw one of the earlier of the 10 nights, and the each night is meant to build in spectacle to a climax next week. Still, a parade of two hours of about 50 elephants and thousands of dancers and drummers all illuminated by fire was just fine for us!

To start with, there was an amazing buzz in the town. Although the parade did not start until about 8pm, local people crowded the streets from around 3pm, reserving their spaces.

Fortunately, we had our position sorted well in advance. Some tourists had to sit in their seats for hours before the parade, while the locals crowded below

But we were able to see the whole thing from the balcony of our hotel room. In the picture below, our room is in the centre - C and S are just peeping over the balcony.

The Kandy temple is lit up brightly for the event, and I sneaked up onto the hill behind some of the preparations and took this view of an elephant with the temple behind, waiting to take part in the Perahera.

Later, a platform would be fitted to him, and then lights and robes also attached.

The parade itself eventually started with a line of men extravagantly cracking whips so loudly they sounded like firecrackers, followed by a troup of fire dancers. See the fire dancers (and hear J’s excited voice in the background - he made it through an hour and half and loved it):

From then on the dancers and elephants just kept coming:

The point of the whole thing is to parade one of the Buddha’s teeth, which is kept in the Temple of Tooth in Kandy. In fact, only a replica dentine cannister is used, and there seemed to be 6 or 7 elephants carrying caskets which could have contained a tooth, or fake tooth. Here are some dancers and one of those elephants, which would give you more of a flavour of it all (excuse the sideways camerawork):

Lonely Hotel

Tues 28th July

I’m writing this back in the restaurant where we saw the elephants a few weeks ago. It is about 9pm and I am in the restaurant area in the open air. The moon, although less than half full, is bright in the sky free of light pollution. Below me I can hear the sound of the river where the elephants come to bathe twice a day, watched by a at least a hundred or so tourists each time.

When the elephants are not around the river is beautifully peaceful, except when as we saw this afternoon it used by local people to bathe and wash their clothes (they are clearly not too concerned by the recent mass elephant droppings or the fact that this is a wide river, clearly having passed through many other villages, if not chemical plants, on its way to this point).

Our room has two large double beds and is reached through many staircases passing through spacious areas of the hotel (attached to the restaurant) which have the potential to serve as conference and function space, as well as a couple of floors of rooms.

But it’s a bit weird. We are the only people here. The staff seem as surprised to actually have guests as we are to be alone here. They hover around offering help, but although they are well meaning, they have limited resources available. It took three men about 20 minutes to serve their only conscious guest a beer just now. Another young guy spent about half an hour trying to fix our satellite TV without success.

But its worth it for some peace after Colombo, and because I know in the morning J will see Jack the elephant (and his friends Jack & Jack etc) again, hopefully with the same wide eyed excitement as last time.

I’m not sure why such a great spot is so empty, but I think its mainly because the manager has not managed to get on the standard tourist itinerary sold by the agents here. Most people arrive in the morning and then push on to Kandy or elsewhere, following an demanding schedule under which they must see all the major sites in the country within 3 or 4 days. We’re lucky to be able to take a bit more time, as to be governed by the needs of small people means not just that you can only travel shor distances in one go, but also that you can stop and savour a bit more, even if there is noone else around to savour it with.

Our friends… ?

Interesting interview with a schoolgirl about her photos today. Turns out that outside school she has been on a nursing course, which she will finish before she finishes her O Levels at the end of this year. She said that she will then be qualified to work in a government hospital. This is the first child at the school I have met who has actually arranged a career for herself, impressive at 16. But this does not necessarily mean that she will leave the fishing village. She says that she loves it there and wants to stay.

Later we went down to the beach to see Roshan, the boy who J played with J during the beach cricket match last month, and his mother Roshini. I ran into Roshini in the street outside the school earlier, and promised we would come down.

Its great to be so familiar with a group in the village now. We chatted with Udaya and his wife and his mother, saw Kishmi, and saw Roshini hurriedly finish preparing food for her husband to take fishing overnight. The boats (including the Boat that Della funded) launched for the night in pretty precarious fashion.

NB - for more footage of the boats launching, plus other great vids, see the FODAD blog:
http://wwwfriendsofdellaanddon.blogspot.com/2009/07/time-to-reflect.html

Are these people our friends? On one level, it’s a straightforward yes. People like Roshini and Udaya’s wife exude warmth and have invited us into their houses and lives very willingly. Its easy to joke with Udaya, and he’s so keen to help.

But this is of course a far from equal relationship. They need help and we have a lot of money (to them). Della has been generous over the years, helping to support many of the villagers. I am Della’s sister, and that is why we are here. Udaya is about to further consolidate his position as head of the village as a Friend of Della and Don funds new “pulling” nets for the whole village, that he will manage.

But however unequal, there is a real relationship here, and it is something that I value most from this trip. We have been putting faces and lives to the faceless sea of life in the third world, to people who suffered heavily in the tsunami and before, and who have to deal with all the problems of poverty the world over, but who are helping themselves and for whom we are contributing something that hopefully will make a real difference.

Finally, children of course create their own relationships free of all this baggage. J and Roshan seemed to have developed a rather odd one today, with Roshan repeatedly presenting his bottom to J for J to hit with a cricket bat. Won’t even start to try and analyse that one…

Random Festival

We took a taxi this morning through a mostly closed Colombo to a department store where they had what is probably one of the few soft play areas in Sri Lanka, in which we could leave Jacob to play while we bought a few bits and pieces for people at home.

On the way, one side street was packed with people celebrating a Hindu festival. We haven't seen many Hindu temples here, although there are a one or two which the Buddhists attend as well. There was even one just next to the venerated Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, which quite a few Buddhist pilgrims also seemed to pop into after seeing the tooth relic. Buddhists seem happy to access spirituality through other people's styles of worship also - something that sounds quite healthy for multicultuarism in a Buddhist country like this, at least in theory...

Anyway, it was the full experience, with face-pierced celebrants, and lines of men and women pulling extravagantly painted floats depicting a variety of gods. I'm not sure what this young lad thought of his role in the whole thing:

But we couldn't stay long enough to find out any more, as of course all of this was no competition as far as J was concerned compared with the prospect of a small windowless area in a shop covered with coloured plastic mats, a "ball pool" of small plastic balls, and a medium sized indoor coloured slide.

Nice dress

Went over to Udaya's for lunch today with the kids. As mentioned on previous posts, Udaya is the main local fisherman who has been helping Della with the project over the past couple of years.


Although he prefers to spend time by the beach, his real home is the block that 192 families that lived by the beach have now been rehoused in. These men are fishermen, but now live at least a 5 or 6 kilometres from their livelihood, further inland. Udaya's wife is deaf and dumb, but still managed to communicate with us and cooked great food. His only daughter Kishmi (aged 8), is v cute.


Anyway, as usual, S was the main attraction, being doted over all afternoon by Udaya's extended family. See her dressed below in Kishmi's 1st birthday dress, with Udaya's neice in the middle and Kishmi on the right:

Teletubbies Everywhere

Never one to shirk on spreading the good works of my employer, I stopped by the nursery we are helping here yesterday to distribute some books and also some BBC Worldwide kids magazines that had been donated by my colleagues.


Check out the unbridled joy on these childrens faces on their first introduction to educational magazines/ character merchandising based on four colourful characters that currently have no television platform in Sri Lanka, unless you have the satellite coverage from India that these kids definately can't afford.


Seriously, they really seemed to love them, and the stickers that came free with the magazines will go down well in any language.

Fame at last

Popped down to the test match on Thursday. Sri Lanka v Pakistan - 4th day. Not the most exciting afternoon of cricket and it was hardly full, but C appreciated the chilled atmosphere, J had some space to run around, and we sat in seats that only cost 80p.

More to the point, we were on TV! The camera lingered on the whole family (it was right in our faces) and apparently Sophie was a natural, acting just like she did not even know she was on television. Amazing for one so young. We learned all this from our friend Jonty watching the match in Northern India.

At stumps for the day we popped down to the Galle Face Hotel for a sandwich and a sundowner. The hotel seemed to have more of an atmosphere of the troubled country that this is. The view one way was of the sunset (and me and S),

and the other way was towards the swimming pool, with an unfinished building behind it, on top of which was a fairly prominent machine gun encampment. You can just about see it below:

My name is Wesli and I want to be an artist

I think that the most intesting project I have started since I have been here is to give some of the children cameras, ask them to take photos of thieir lives, and then talk about the photos to me.

It is a real way of getting an insight into the children's lives. Most strikingly, its very rare for a child to be living with both of his parents. Some have died, others work abroad. One girl's mother and father had worked in Dubai since she was six months old, and she only saw them once a year.

Then there is the standard question, "What do you want to to do when you leave school?" The most common answer amongst the boys is that they want to join the army. This is probably partly a route to a career for poor children the world over, but in Sri Lanka it is primarily the result of the fact that this has been a country at war for 30 years. The army, particularly in the last few years and the final months of the war, are promoted as heros to most people. Posters like this of smiling soldiers with machine guns are common all over the place, including in people's houses and taxis:

That is what made Wesli stand out. He is a softly spoken boy of 13 who lived with his mother and whose sister had been given to a hostel when she was very young as his mother could not afford to look after her. He saw her twice a year. He told me he wanted to be an artist. You could see from some of his photos that he had a real eye. Here he is with one of his paintings,, which he brought in to show me yesterday.

Bad Education

Some thoughts based on the school that we have been working with.

The poorest always lose out. Just like anywhere, if you are working with children from families with the sort of problems that serious poverty brings, there are real challenges. Also, the poorest rarely have access to the resources that the rich can access. Three examples from this week so far:

1. On Monday I went into the school to find that not only had they been burgled last week (no insurance), but that they had no water supply as their water tank was leaking and they had no money to fix it, and apparently the government would be unlikely to cough up for months, if at all.

We could fund fixing this for what turned out to be less than a tenner, and it was done on Tuesday afternoon.

2. Then yesterday I dropped in at the school to see a separate lesson in the afternoon taking place in a separate building just opposite the school (school finishes at 1pm here). These were free English lessons given by local church members, to local children. They seemed really well organised and the children were really engaged.

But there was only one child from the school there, all the others were from other schools. in our small fishing village (just a few yards from the school), it is likely many of the children or childrens parents are not so interested. But could it be that the children are not made to feel welcome? Surely not the latter, as the school principal's elderly mother was one of the teachers at this class, but...

3. Next to the room with the lessons is a well organised library. This was funded by the Friends of Della and Don for the school children, and is staffed by a volunteer librarian, also from the church. But the library is only open outside of school hours, apparently because when children from the school were lent books, some did not bring them back. So a resource intended for the whole school was effectively closed to the school because of a few bad apples.

The principal and I persuaded the librarian this morning to give the school another chance, and open the library during school hours once a week for the children that the books were intended to help.

We're doing some real good here, but every day I learn a little more about the background and motivations of the people involved.

Beach Life

A few things to do on the beach in Colombo, all of which I saw today.

In the morning, there is some kids boxing practice. As you can see, its tough stuff, no head guards for the kids, and they were really going for it:

Or you could get married on the beach in front of the Mount Lavinia Hotel. If you do you will probably need an elephant to arrive on. Here is one strolling down the beach into position for a wedding this afternoon:

And of course there is cricket. Yet another picture of J playing. Here's Papa bowling to J in his latest innings:

Finally, C and I sneaked out while her parents babysat for a candlelit dinner on the beach, just 10 mins from our apartment. The table was perched way out onto the sand. I picked out a pretty good fish for grilling, although I've no idea what it was called.

Cool Colombo?

Thurs July 16th

Hardly anyone at the school this morning as they all got back around midnight from the trip yesterday. C and I went in and spent about an hour with the few kids that were there playing word games.

So we spent the day in Colombo with Steve and Val checking out the small block that houses the few attractive places to hang out in what generally a mess of a city.


Here are Sophie and I asking directions just off the main “Galle Road”




And Sophie hanging out in the soft toy section of “Barefoot”, a rather nice shop and café.

We then cruised over to the Gallery Cafe, housed in the architect Geoffrey Bawa’s former offices. Probably the coolest building I’ve seen in the city.

And finally, the Cricket Club Café, where I caught some of the test match at Lords, while confirming just how far we are away from home.

Sleeping through dinner

Wednesday 15th July


No school today, they are on a trip to some historical sites in the north. But we learned that the school suffered a break-in overnight and lost their (non-functioning) computer, a DVD player, the mike and amp used in the sports day, and some money collected from the kids for the trip. The money was in particular drawer - the robbery was clearly an inside job and all the sadder for it.


It was also Della, Don, Steve and Gav’s last day here. J spent about 5 hours in the pool at the hotel in honour of this fact, then collapsed during an early dinner at the hotel with everyone. But the restaurant staff were not phased, the simply made a bed out of two large chairs for J - v comfy:

Help to Grow

14 July

Before the sports day I went with D&D on an interesting trip to meet some children that the charity sponsors this morning. It is managed through an existing church organization which is very well organized, and appears to assess the claims of needy children and their families carefully before giving them support to help with their education, and in some cases, their health.

A great example is Merrenage Fernando, a boy who could not afford the drugs to help wih his growth hormone deficiency, but which was funded through the Friends of Della and Don along with a contribution to his education. Check out these photos of how he was a few years ago, and then the photo of him today. He no longer needs the drugs and has just got 7 As and a B in his O Levels.