Development is not, as the adverts may have it, about saving people from immediate starvation, but setting up systems, providing infrastructure, resources, and training to hopefully improve quality of life.

The Area Development Programme I saw was near Batticola and targeted a community of Tamil people affected by the civil war. Years of fighting had left the people poor and the community lacking in resources. With funds from the sponsors, World Vision had since built a library, a pre-school, a dentistry, wells, and toilets. WV also provides crop assistance (donates seed), helps implement various income generating activities, helps the community obtain loans, and initiated a group saving plan. Money donated directly helps the sponsored child who receives regular medical checkups.

The development is not meant to be a “welfare” or handout based approach, but a collaborative relationship. Importance is attached to community ownership of donated resources and projects, and sustainability. The programme is planned to run for so many years and then WV pulls out, hopefully leaving the community with more resources than before and the skills and desire to manage them and other initiatives started under WV supervision. The development is run like any other commercial enterprise with business plans, targets, budgets etc.

World Vision is a Christian based organisation. To work for World Vision employees must be in agreement with the organisation’s Christian ethos and participate in devotions (the day’s visit started with a devotion). It did not seem at all an evangelical organisation, and provides aid and development assistance to people of any religion.

[begin spiel]
I think it is easy to get caught up feeling bad for the world’s poor, but this may be merely a Western perspective. Although materially poor they can be a enthnically distinct, unique people, with their own skills and identity created in relation to their situation. They themselves do not play the sympathy act but adverts portray them as such. They should be allowed their own atonomy and make their own decisions in concert with the developed world, as opposed to the developed world thinking they need help and walking in willy nilly. The Christain missionaries assumed they were doing the good by “bringing the natives God”, we shouldn’t be too quick to automatically assume we are doing people in the developing nations good by bringing them the modern God of Western development and its ideals. When and where is development appropriate? What are appropriate ways of providing development assistance? What do the people really need, if anything? It is indeed a sensitive, political, emotional, complex issue.
[end spiel]

The Day’s Visit

The day began with a Christain devotion at the World Vision HQ. Afterwards we went out to the project. I was shown a new avenue of trees lining the road planted by WV, a pre-school, dentistry and library built with WV funds.

Where the family lived, and indeed most of the village, the ground was covered in sand like a beach. They had a small fenced off area. A tour around the premises revealed the smallest of kitchens, which was no more than a concrete slab on the ground, one wall and a roof. The sleeping quarters were also very small – a concrete slab for the family of 5, with a roof and four walls. The flashest building was a toilet newly built by WV – and my money! Whoa hoo. I should have made a point to use it.

As I approached the house I was greated by a crowd of the family and lookers-on. They placed a huge flower necklace on me and invited me in. So this is what it’s like being treated like a king – I wasn’t expecting such a grand welcome at all. Inside a tarpoline had been set up and a very spicy meal prepared. We ate and I spoke to the family through one of the WV people – the family members didn’t speak English, and I hadn’t picked up any Tamil (the majority of the island being Sinhgalese).

Elephants! Orphaned elephants! Yes, the Pinnewela Elephant Orphanage. And look, they even have baby elephants too:

Elephants are my latest favourite animal, how can you not like that little cutie? During one of the bus rides we had to pull over on the small road to let an elephant and his keeper pass. The bus service is great – you can stop anywhere or get picked up anywhere along the route – and very frequent, I pretty much could rock up when I wanted and catch a bus.

Sigiriya – an ancient rock fortress. Sights include some beautiful bolder gardens, the Lion’s paw sculptures, and palace ruins atop a huge rock formation. An impressive construction for its day and even now.

The South & West parts of the island, which contain all the major tourist attractions, are populated by a majority of Sinhalese and are controlled by the government. A Sri Lankan army presence is quite visible in certain parts of Colombo and elsewhere, but other than this there is little current evidence of an ethnic conflict.

That is until you get to Vavuniya. Beyond is Tiger country, or Tamil Eelam to be exact, a small part in the North of the island controlled by the LTTE.

My destination was Jaffna via the A9 highway, but on the way I had to pass through Tamil Eelam. I caught a bus from Vavuniya to the Sri Lanka army checkpoint of Omanthai. My bags were searched and my passage recorded. I then had to walk through No-Man’s Land, a 300m wide patch of land declared free of guns and controlled by neither side. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) acts as a go between, sending messages between the sides.

On the other side of No-Man’s Land is the LTTE controlled area. I picked up an entry form and hopped on a bus that took me to the LTTE checkpoint a short way down the road. As a foreigner they just waved me in, the Tigers didn’t bother to search my bags or put me through the registration process that nationals went through. I hopped on another bus that took me across Tamil Eelam to Muhamalai, the end of tiger country and the beginning of Sri Lankan army/government occupied territory. To exit I had to pass through two more checkpoints, one LTTE, one Sri Lankan army.

Tiger country, from Omanthai to Muhamalai is less than 100km, but including all 4 checkpoints it took about 6 hours by bus. The LTTE taxes commercial goods going through this area it controls. I noticed a lot of the women in the Tiger army. There were lots of NGO (donor funded non-government organisations that carry out usually humanitarian type tasks) billboards advertising the dangers of land mines, as well as LTTE propaganda posters. It looked a very poor area, no doubt mismanaged under arbitrary LTTE rule.

North of Omanthai is a former battle zone and relics still remain – buildings, skeletons of their former shelves. Barbed wire protects current military installations. I saw a mutilated armoured vehicle of some sort.

Jaffna was nice and so was a trip out to the most northern part of the island, Point Pedro. The beach was covered with barbed wire and army encampments.

There was a particularly impressive Hindu temple just outside of Jaffna where you not only had to take your shoes off, but if male, your shirt as well.

I left Jaffna with the memory of an encounter with a stranger in the street, who approached me and asked “Can you solve the problems?”

Sri Lankan life is family based. Most will live with their family until marriage. No independent living. Women are socially chastised far more than men, for example a divorced lady, particularly if with child, is looked down on, but a divorced man is not necessarily. She may have trouble finding a good school for her child.

The Sri Lankan people are very friendly. Going beyond initial contact, I felt they were less easy-going and less of a modern people than the Thais or Cambodians. Thais and Cambodians were more likely to dress in a Western style than the Sri Lankans, who have probably had their fair share of Western influence during colonial times.

The views of an upper class-educated and English speaking couple that I met were that Sri Lanka was a dangerous place (this has certainly been true of the past), one should watch out for the useless illiterates who scam you for money, and that English colonisation was the best thing to happen to the country. They regularly contributed to the local orphanage. They weren’t the only ones I met who looked down on their fellow man, a guesthouse I stayed at actually charged the locals more than tourists in order to weed out those ‘undesirables’ with less money.

The less educated people I met spoke less English and wanted me to get them a visa for New Zealand but they didn’t understand the system. Without education, family in NZ, or money they had no hope in hell of getting a work permit. If they wanted to visit they had to apply for a visitor’s visa, the main requirement was to show proof of funds to support oneself. I became all the more aware of the relative ease with which I could not only move through the developed and undeveloped worlds, but work there too.

With no pre-arranged accommodation I booked myself into the Colombo YMCA in the early hours of the morning. My lodgings were a bed in a dorm on a balcony overlooking Fort, a suburb of the capital Colombo.

I headed out into the city the next day after waking late and taking breakfast in the YMCA cafeteria. I wanted to find some better accommodation. Sri Lanka is unique in that people operate guest houses out of their own homes. So the next night I ended up staying with a well-to-do (you can’t exactly open up your home if you are poor and live in a small room) Sri Lanka family. The son was a flight engineer on his way to work in New Zealand, so that night we ended up having drinks and chatting.

Being a previous English colony, it seems most people speak English in Sri Lanka, which makes it a lot easier for the traveller.

Wandering through the markets in Pettah, I found that everyone wanted my attention:

“Hello, sir, what country?”
“New Zealand”
“Do you like cricket?”
“Uhh, yes, of course!”

All the while shaking their head from side to side (a trait I recognised from New Zealand Sri Lankans) in apparent agreement.

With so many offers of friendship, which was at first flattering and later annoying, I settled on one particular group of guys from the market. The next day we hung out at the beach – Mt Lavina.

A pity Galle wasn’t as nice as the train ride to it. I stayed in Galle (watch out for the touts!) and made a day trip to Unawatuna, but staying in Unawatuna with a day trip to Galle would have been better. The places to stay in Unawatuna are much nicer than Galle.

Unawatuna earns the honour of being the most beautiful beach I have seen. I recommend renting a mask and snorkel and taking two logs of wood called a catamaran out to the rocks to look at the coral. I didn’t but its a good idea!

In Galle I was invited to a local school to talk about computers. So I spoke to the kids about that great thing called the Internet.

The bus service is really good, I was able to go pretty much wherever I wanted when I wanted.

From Galle I went to Deniyaya. The drive from the beach into the hill country and tea plantations was beautiful. I stayed with Palitha (mentioned in the Lonely Planet) a very funny easy-going guide who took me into the Sinharaja rain forest. The idea of a “rain forest” sounded cool, but it was pretty much the same as “the bush” in New Zealand. Exceptions: locals would drive motorbikes up and down the walking track, snakes and damn leeches. Palitha knew everything about the forest and pointed out hidden creatures of the jungle I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

Next to Ella. A beautiful place with nice walks and views, particularly from Ella Rock. You can make a nice day-trip to the nearby Badulla by train. A little down the line, Haputale is also a nice place to stay and do much the same -walks & views.

By train to Hatton, and up Adam’s Peak at 4am in the morning. 2 hours up and you’re just in time for sunrise. At the top of the mountain there is an indent in a rock that looks like a very big footprint. Is it the Buddha’s or Adam’s?

Frequent/surprising English words used by Sri Lankans:

“….. and all”
“shit”
“fellows”
“cricket”