Curious Brew Sri LankanSupreme

Driving down a dusty road near Trincomalee I gaze at the homes and wonder what it is like to live inside. Most of the structures are made of concrete, a perfect material for this climate, or of clay or dung depending on how rural the area is. The priority of course is to deal with the heavy heat and strong sunlight, so windows are few and covered by shutters or porches. In the evening, light shines out and it reminds me of home.

I love looking at the light coming out of homes in the evening. There is a glow that is universal, the sense of home and family that one can imagine living within. I try to imagine a family, sharing dinner and conversation- the laughter falling out into the evening air. Idealistic-yes but it is my wondering and so I imagine that this is what is happening in Sri Lankan homes as well. I hold these thoughts as I approach a home stay in Trincomalee.

Upon arriving the lane is dark. Two large dogs are barking from behind a gated yard. Security is an issue here and most people who can afford it have personal security to protect their homes. After several calls a light goes on and a servant answers our call. We are escorted into a world that resembles my own but also is a world away. It appears that my host has been delayed on business so my colleague and I are left to the hospitality of his grandmother.

This kind woman welcomes us and we are shown to our rooms to wash up- always a treat after a long, hot day of site visits. She is wearing a beautifully colored sari and a gorgeous gold necklace that turns out to be a wedding necklace given to her by her husband. The cord is of thick gold and it holds important charms symbolizing their union. These necklaces are similar to wedding rings and are traditional in this part of the nation. I notice the next morning that all of the women in our meeting are wearing similar necklaces.

It is obvious that this family has wealth. There is an abundance of furniture and a television. My room is comfortable despite the lack of air conditioning, a strong fan keeping my room cool. It seems that I have been given the master suite, as a lavatory is attached. Alas, the shower and water has been turned off- not uncommon in a region where water is rare. I share a small bathroom with my friend and try to wash off. The shower has very little pressure so washing all of the sweat off my body will be impossible. I do the best I can and then shuffle off to dinner.

We are escorted to a kitchen table. Our hostess doesn’t join us; her servant serves us a meal of small rolls and curry. I am still recovering from “Buddha belly” and I have to force myself to eat the meal which is quite spicy. Following the meal we rinse our plates and are escorted to a sitting room where we read quietly, there is no interaction between our hostess and ourselves except when she informs us that she is going to bed- surprised that we chose not to watch television.

I sleep in my clothes, lying on the bed covered only with one sheet. It was surprisingly comfortable and despite the situation I get a good night sleep. In the morning we are served breakfast- bananas, coffee and the leftovers from dinner the night before. The coffee is delicious! I make friends with the dog, Dinah and that breaks the ice with our hostess. She proceeds to talk to us about her various pets-parrots, fish, and some cats. We discuss our families and then she brings out the family photo album and shows us her Hindu home shrine.

My visit ended on a high note so although covered with sweat and dirty from the day before, I feel great when I leave. It was quite the experience and gave me a bit of an idea of what is behind the lit windows I pass on the roads of Sri Lanka.

Meg

Sri Lanka is a noisy place. It is as though everything is competing for a small space of recognition in this busy world. The temple with its drumming, the took-took with its honking, the shrieking of crows, the constant chant of a Buddhist shrine. You might think this makes Sri Lanka unbearable but it is one of the charms of the place.

It isn’t disorderly instead it is layer after layer of sound that makes the country so interesting . Where else can you hear an elephant call, the speaking of three or four languages, the crash of the waves, and the call of a muezzin in one day.

My weeklong voyage across the country has allowed me to experience a lot of the voices and sounds of this diverse and vibrant nation. In Dambulla we experienced the story of Buddhism with trips to Sigiriya and the Dambulla Caves. Monkeys added their voices to the tale watching each visitor carefully and plotting to separate them from their food.

In Trincomalee we heard the crash of the waves upon a crystal clear beach. Spoke with Buddhist monks about Michael Jackson, and the giggles of school children curious about the white people visiting their classrooms. The hum of a ferry and fishing boat guided our trip and deposited us at a town where the sound of learning had been silenced by war. Citizens were just returning to the town after its destruction, a make-shift school bell rings across an empty school yard and the hum of electricity had finally returned after the torment of war.

In Arugam Bay the lingo of surfers from around the world entered our lexicon of sound. This welcome sound heralds a sense of return to normalcy for this beach community that has been rocked by Tsunami and political unrest. Sitting around a table, beneath a palm thatched hut drinking Arrack we share the stories of our voyage and learn about the experience of our host who has had to hide his ethnic identity from his neighbors in order to survive economically.

Making our way back to Colombo we hear the influence of colonial powers- the English, Dutch and Portugese with the ringing of church bells and the clock tower at the Galle Fort. Once again, crashing waves help to define the place as they emphasize the size and strength of the stone walls that protected the fort and its inhabitants from the wrath of the Tsunami.

This short essay is a feeble attempt to describe the experience of sound in this lush and thriving land. The return to the sounds of Colombo are welcome to my ears. Perhaps I have become Sri Lankan?

Meg

Video in a Hindu Temple: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrhVe3gvOpo
Unawatuna Beach: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyeX48VlJyg
SL v Pakistan Cricket match: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxDMN4Hb4Wc
Kandy Esala Perahera parade: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtFXQgmMc5k
Coast of Matara from Buddhist Monastery: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deMgWANcUy4

We had quite a full schedule today.  It started with a visit to Equal Ground, a gay rights organization based in Colombo. While the law has never been inforced, homosexuality is actually illegal in Sri Lanka. Equal Ground is working to get this law changed and improve the situation of the community across the country. We had the opportunity to meet one of the members of the 18 that visited us back in March. It’s really cool when we get the chance to reunited with our Sri Lankan friends.

Our second stop took place at the Business for Peace Alliance. Their mission is “to encourage understanding and tolerance of diverse cultures and environments through inter-regional business networks and Corporate Social Responsibility, to create a sense of ownership and responsibility within the business community to spearhead the process of conflict transformation and regional empowerment, and to be the voice of regional business and a platform for dialogue with policy makers. BPA is a partner of our host organization and led the selection of the 18 that went to the U.S. one of which is a spirited member of their staff. They are also involved in the planning of our two day symposium during the third week of our trip where Meg and I will teach sessions on civic engagement, advocacy, and free internet technologies. We worked on the symposium’s schedule today as well as enjoyed a tasty Sri Lankan spin on a steak and cheese (definitely not on my low cholesteral diet, but it was delicious and just what I needed).

We then moved on to the University of Colombo where we met with a political science professor to learn more about the political and governmental systems of Sri Lanka. Such conversations are always quite interesting here. I won’t  go into detail about all we discussed. The most surpising thing I learned was that while military service is not compulsary in Sri Lanka, a term of service lasts for 15 YEARS!

Our final business stop was with the staff of the One Text Initiative. This organization was founded by the political parties of Sri Lanka to gather members of the parliament from all parties to discuss their various perspectives off the record. Their rules include no publicity, no press, and no names on the record. America or any other country could use an organization like OTI!

The day concluded with a truly unique experience.  We had the opportunity to attend a major cricket match between Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Wow! These guys know how to have a good time! About 30 friends of our host took over practically an entire section of the Colombo cricket stadium and bought tickets for and hired a papare band which in this case was made up of trumpets and drums. It was similar in sound to mariachi music, but was definitely its own thing. 

The whole section was on its feet, dancing and waving flags from start to finish. Wait till you see the video! All of her friends were very friendly, some of them too much so! After about an hour and a half Meg and I moved to another section to take a break and breathe a little fresh air. Cricket is the national sport of Sri Lanka, and they’re a lively bunch. It was such an awesome experience!

Visit http://sundaytimes.lk/110227/Plus/plus_01.html to read more about papare bands and music.

Tomorrow we start on a 7 day trek across much of the nation where we’ll visit projects that the March participants started with small grants from our host organization plus some visit some tourist sites along the way. The projects include an Eye Care Camp, an engagement program for tea plantation community youth, an internet technology program for youths, a health and social program for marginalize sanitary laborers, and the implementation of a youth empowerment program based on the Youth Leadership Initiative’s Democracy Corp.

Our internet access while on the trip will be inconsistent if it exists at all. Please check in on the blog but don’t be surpised if we are incommunicado for a few days. To our loved ones, it’s likely we won’t be able to make any phone calls. We return to Colombo on Saturday, August 15th.

Thanks to everyone for keeping track of us!

Daman

Cricket Match video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxDMN4Hb4Wc .

Parade scene

Wednesday, August 5th was a travel day that consisted of two events. The first was participation in a discussion with university professors from the University of Peradeniya in the central mountain city of Kandy. The second was attendence at the Kandy Esela Perahera, Sri Lanka’s most important festival and parade of the year.

We went to the university just after lunch.  The format and content of the discussion was a mystery to us as well as our host. We were just guessing it would be a round table or something like that. I jokingly mentioned to my roommate, Dov Wilker, that we would probably get there and find out we would be serving as panelists in a room full of people. That is exactly what happened.  We all introduced ourselves and organizations. Discussions that resulted compared civic engagement in the U.S. and Sri Lanka and well as the differences in our systems of government. It was quite an interesting discussion which lasted about 2 1/2 hours. On an amusing side note, when I arrived the name on my tent card had been misspelled.  I’ve seen it spelled in numerous ways, but this version was a first. The second “a” in Daman missing!

We returned to the hotel to relax a bit before the evening’s event. Dov and I were sitting near the window of our room. At one point we glance outside and saw a bunch of monkeys running around on the neighbors roof! People around here apparently have to be really cautious about keeping a watch on their windows and doors. The monkeys are known to be excellent thieves.

One of the Sri Lankan participants from last March who owns a computer/cell phone shop on the parade route met and took us there at about 8PM. His shop is further down on the route so the parade wasn’t supposed to be there until between 10:30 and 11PM. We had a lot of opportunity to meet his family which was cool. The sidewalks were packed with Sri Lankan with no other westerners in sight. It was such an amazing scene. All the street lights were off. Some of the shops had strands of lights on them in honor of the event, and a few businesses had lights on inside. The parade was lit, however, by torch barers. They were shirtless with red scarves wrapped around their heads with all but their eyes covered. This was apparently so the ashes and coals of the kerosene soaked coconut shells wouldn’t fall and catch their hair on fire. We had to look out to make sure none of them landed on us. The scarves also help them keep from inhaling the fumes and smoke which made me a slight bit nautious after two hours of parade.

The parade started with men dressed in regalia with long whips. People would throw change into the street which the men would collect, then get in a row and loudly crack their whips. A police officer was a little too close once and got nicked. The next performers to come along were older boys with balls of fire at the end of cords which were attached to their hair. The cords seemed to be around 6 or 7 feet long, and they would spin them round and round with their heads. I’m telling you, you had to see this stuff to believe it. All of the costumes throughout the parade were very detailed and well made. We later saw guys with spoked wheels about 6′ across with fire at each spoke. They spun them with gave the appearance that the fire was continuous. There were three men on stilts doing the same. These examples are just the tip of the iceberg. There were 60 elaborately dressed elephants throughout the parade including the largest which carried a replica of the Sacred Tooth Relic. The Palace of the Tooth keeps what is supposed to be a tooth of Buddah (refered to as the Sacred Tooth Relic) which is the reason for the entire event.

The Perahera went on with continued amazement. Words just can’t fully describe all that I saw. Drums were beaten, songs sung. The instrument I enjoyed the most was the snake charmer’s horn which sounds a lot like a high pitched bagpipe. We saw young men pulling others with 4 lined metal hooks piercing the skin of their backs. It was performance, dance, costume, decorated elephant, and song after another. I could go on and on. Never have I seen such a spectacular event as the Kandy Esela Perahera.

Check out my YouTube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtFXQgmMc5k

Daman

Children from the Hindu Temple w/ Politics is a good thing! bracelets

I step out from behind a Buddhist shrine, chanting filing the air and at once I realize that I am white. The crows sitting several feet from my face seem to stare and gawk as I pass them nervously on the street. It isn’t often in the United States that I am aware of being different but as I walk down a busy Columbo street I know that I stand out for the color of my skin, hair and dress. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing- the people here are fabulously friendly and courteous. It is just different and it is a good thing I think, to have this experience. Wherever we go children look at us curiously and smile. We smile back and they giggle. Sometimes it would be nice to be able to blend in a little bit, it would be easier to just observe rather than be in the center of attention but it is what it is. All of us are curious about others.

Part II. I Travel to Kandy
I decided to tell this story despite it may be my most embarrassing moment ever. The trip to Kandy was long but very interesting with lots to view from the van window. Upon arriving at the hotel I began to feel a little queasy but thought nothing of it and took a nap prior to attending the Perahara.

Everything here has a distinct smell so that I think pictures and video won’t be enough to convey the culture of Sri Lanka. Usually this is a wonderful part of the experience but this evening it seemed really annoying. Progressing down the street we had to stop to let an elephant pass and I still felt queasy but since I had just taken some medicine I thought it would go away.

It didn’t. Upon entering the store of a friend where I intended to watch the Perahara, I immediately fell violently ill. It was the worst I have ever felt. I had to walk back to my hotel covered with vomit. I just barely made it back where I was ill for several hours.

I did get to see some of the Perahara- which was phenomenal and beyond description (Daman does a great job) –fire and elephants and drums and music. I will never forget even what little I saw.

Luckily, I felt better in the morning. It isn’t often I say this but getting ill actually made me like Sri Lanka even more. I felt safe there and comforted and can say, “that which doesn’t kill you, actually makes you stronger.”

Meg

Upon arrival at 4AM one of the very first things you notice is the military and police presence around the city of Colombo. It begins with the heavily armed police and soldiers of various kinds.  On the 45 minute drive to the hotel we were stopped three times where one of our hosts had to show ID and explain what we were doing. In addition to these stops we had to pass numerous checkpoints. Cars and people just coming to the downtown Fort area where we’re staying have to be tending to business of some sort just to get in. The road our hotel is on in the heart of Colombo is practically shut down due to the president’s house and other government buildings being nearby. If a dignitary is about to drive through, not only do they shut down the street, but barricades are put up at the driveway of our hotel and we’re not aloud to leave. This has already happened multiple times. So far these complete closures haven’t lasted very long, but it’s an odd feeling to know you aren’t allowed to leave the grounds of your hotel.

We were told that our driver’s ability to travel was greatly improved by the fact that we are from the West. Our van with gear arrived at the hotel 15 minutes after us because they were pulled over 6 times and had to explain what they were doing, where they were going, and why they had a bunch of heavy suitcases in the van.

Here in Colombo there is a minimun of at least one soldier or policeman every block. In our part of town there are a lot more that that. From the view of my hotel room at 5:30PM yesterday on four blocks I counted over 30 police/soldiers in uniform. To their credit, with the exception of yesterday’s experience in the Bajaj they have been friendly with us. If we give them a wave and a smile, they generally do the same in return. How it must affect Sri Lankans on a regulary basis must be quite palpable. People are constantly watched by the police.

Meg and I went for a walk on our own for the first time yesterday outside of the “green zone”. As a Westerner it’s obvious we’re not from around here. Everyone notices and looks at us which is another story that Meg will tell in a future blog entry. We feel quite safe walking around. The people are very friendly, and there are so many police that about all the crime that we could be victims of might be being pick pocketed. Even that seems pretty unlikely with all eyes on us. Of couse we keep a close watch on our surroundings.

On our return to our hotel we tried to get back through a different cross street. We were denied access at each street apparently due to the proximity of the president’s house. All were nice about it. So we went back to the street/checkpoint where we exited the tight control area earlier. All I see are exit signs and a pair of men and women’s bathrooms. I tried to go through the exit but was told to go where it said “men”. Turns out those weren’t restrooms at all but the place you would go to get frisked before entering the controled area. We got a laugh about me thinking they were bathrooms.

While the police might be mostly friendly to us Westerners, the story isn’t the same for Sri Lankans. They don’t get smiles and waves.  In reality all movements are controled and freedom of speech in practicality does not exist.

Daman

Video from the Galle Face Hotel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOIvLmVBJOU

What a day yesterday was!  We operated on very little sleep, but we’re getting used to the time difference. It’s about 8AM on Aug 3 here and 10:30PM Eastern on the 2nd.

Yesterday we went by bus and by foot over the Pettah bazaar area not too far from here. We mostly looked around and then went on to do a little shopping for groceries, postcards etc. On the way back to the hotel we decided to take a Bajaj which is basically a three wheeled cab with no seat belts.

The four of us are piled in on the single bench and we hit the road. Cars, trucks, buses and humanity are flying by as we go. It was really amusing all of us packed in like sardines driving through the maelstrom so I decide to shoot a little video of us and the world around.  Turns out I accidentaally had the camera out while we went past the presidents’ house (did I mention Sri Lanka, especially downtown Colombo is a police state and constantly under lockdown?). Suddenly we hear a loud voice screaming at us! The police saw the video camera and pulled us over.

He was apparently yelling, probably cursing, at the driver saying he’ll take his registration etc. for allowing us to shoot video. Our host jumped in to help the guy out saying we were Americans and that we didn’t realize what we’d done and that we’d be glad to delete that video. He then started cursing at Joseph in Sinhala saying basically screw America, the U.S. didn’t help them with the war,  we always side with the Tamils, etc. and threatened to arrest him. After about 5 minutes he ended up letting us go without consequence. I guess that was our first bit of excitement.  Something tells me there’s more to come. Check out the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tay4Qvs6zDs .

More to come later on the police state…

Daman

Daman and Meg were involved in a police incident with a Bajaj- three wheeled taxi. Daman will be adding a story so be sure to check it out.

View from Hotel in Colombo

Sunset over Saudi Arabia

For Daman and myself the small step involved boarding a Virgin Atlantic flight on Friday evening. During the trip many thoughts ran through my mind. I find that air travel gives me the space I need to really evaluate and take time to think.

As we were flying along I couldn’t help but think about all of the places we were passing over along the way. Daman was kind enough to point out the area of Austria where he lived. Even from such a high altitude the Alps were amazing. We flew over Iraq and could see a large dust storm progressing across the landscape. I couldn’t help but think about all of the military personnel and civilians below and what it would be like on the ground. From the perspective of thirty thousand feet it looked calm and tranquil despite the cloud of dust billowing in the air. We passed over Qatar- it is amazing to pass over these places that I only know from atlases. I thought about what might be going on, who was living there, and what they were thinking as our plane flew by. All in all I probably spent about thirty percent of the travel time looking out the window daydreaming. What a !

I remember dreading the nineteen hour travel time prior to the trip, but now I am really thankful for having that time to reflect, observe and be grateful for this experience.

So we landed at 2am Columbo time stepping into a world that I had imagined but had not imagined enough. Wow. There is so much here that is fascinating and unique that I can’t sleep. While everyone else is sleeping off jet lag I am here writing this blog. Only here twelve hours and I can tell stories of humidity (not unlike Baltimore in the summer), military checkpoints, tap-taps and oxen carts, markets opening in the early morning hours already attracting large crowds of shoppers. Shrines to Jesus,Mary, Joseph and of course Siddartha Guatama- the Buddha. I promise to take pictures today and upload them- my words aren’t doing this justice.

So this small act- the act of stepping on to a plane has taken me on the beginning of a great journey. Lying in bed this morning I examined my faith and realized that the stronger it grows the more confident I am in purpose.

Tomorrow: Shrines, Shrines and More Shrines…

Meg