Kataragama and Pera Hera Festival

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently made a very quick trip to the southwest of the island to join 275 other Sewa Lanka people as they ended their one-week pilgrimage to Kataragama. The actual pilgrimage starts in Jaffna (northern most province) down the east coast to Kataragama and obviously takes much more than a week to complete. The pilgrimage is enjoyed by both Hindu’s and Buddhist as Kataragama, the deity, is believed to be a son of Shiva that came to Sri Lanka from India and now resides in the town with the same name. The Pilgrimage ends the Night before the Pera Hera Festival begins. So, unfortunately I wasn’t able to join on the pilgrimage due to work commitments, but it was nice to join in for the festival. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera. Big thanks to Tom for sending me these pics!

(photo by Tom Ramsson)
Raja (my boss) and I at the festival.


(photo by Tom Ramsson)
No I did not sneak off to Burning Man... These kids were actually pretty good fire-spinners.


(photo by Tom Ramsson)
They like to dress up the elephants for the festival. This one reminds me of El Nacho, the Mexican wrestler… There were two that were magnificently adorned with rich tapestries and decorations. One elephant was sooo tall with huge tusks that nearly touched the ground. This was an intimidating animal. Before the festival the walk the elephants down to the river (which is, of course, sacred) and lovingly bath them. Then the elephants are marched to the temple grounds and they will bow to various shrines.
(photo by Tom Ramsson)
I just like this pic looking down the parade route on the temple grounds. It really was a nice setting.

Housing Project

Ok, this might not be too interesting to all you, but I thought I would throw this up here anyway. As I keep saying, our housing project is getting under wa,y finally. We have built 20 foundations so far and my goal is to build all 100 foundations and 3 model homes by October 1st, the official start of the rainy season. To do this we need to hire 50 skilled masons and ~ 50 laborers. The trick is to find these guys and keep them on site. Everytime the conflict heats up, they want to leave for obvious reasons. So, my goal may not be achieved but you have to have goals, right?

Before computers, everything was drafted by hand. And in Trinco, everything is still drafted by hand... This a draft drawing for our house design. I designed the structure with input from several people here and gave a sketch to A. Swaminathan, one of our experienced engineers. He drew this up in about 3 hours. Pretty good I'd say. There are many mistakes on this draft but I think it hs a lot of character (the sketch, not the house design). This is the first house Ive ever designed. It was a challenging process to incorporate things that are important to villagers. We actually had to dull-down some aspects of the house because the people will reject too much change.


Here is a site photo of one of the foundations brought up to the DPC level (where the wall begins). Our design has 4 reinforced columns located on the corners. Tsunami proof??? more likely bomb resitant... 

Just checking in....

Hi everyone, just a quick note to say hello. I have not had much time to add to the blog lately, which is a good sign I guess. Things here have been OK in that we have been able to work and to get to the sites. We are building foundations for our 100 homes and making slow, but steady progress. I will try to post some construction pics later this weekend.

I’ve been here for 10 months now and the one-year mark feels like it will be here before I can blink. Many people have come and gone from Trinco since I arrived in Oct last year. I’m starting to feel like a bit of an old hand here. I have met many great people so far and am sure that I will continue to meet more as time goes on.

So whats new? Not too much I guess. Its still hot here and the rainy season is coming in a few months. Im worried that it will start early and put the kibosh on my housing project! This week I went to the south of the Island for a Buddhist and Hindu festival called the Pera Harah (blog entry coming soon), which was a 3-day trip (17 hours of which were in the car…).

The-coolest-news-ever is that my friend Doug (crazy-doug) decided to fly back from London to San Francisco to donate a kidney to our friend Hetal!!!!!!!!! WOW. Im so happy for them and really wish I could be there to support them! Many cheers to Doug for this courageous and selfless act! You are an inspiration to us all! And congratulations to you Hetal! Speedy recovery to you both! I will be pulling for you. { UPDATE: Unfortunately, Hetal and Doug were notified that the surgury has to be put off for a few months due to some test results. Hopefully everything will work itself out and we will celebrate in a few months. Hang in there guys! }

Also, wanted to send my congratulations to Craig and Jessica who got married last weekend! Man, Im really missing out. ;)

Ok, I have to get back to work but wanted to get out a quick post to let you know Im ok. Hope you all are well and thanks for the emails and calls. I haven’t forgotten about you and it is really nice to be remembered occasionally. :)
~Peace

Trip to Polanaruwa

Here are some pics from my trip to Polanarwa, a cultural center about 3 hrs from Trinco. Several of us visited here during one of the evacuations from Trinco this spring.

Tatiana (CESVI) in front of an ancient buddhist Stupa. They still construct these things today but the will be plastered smooth and painted perfectly white.


semi-interesting statue carved in stone.

Monkey enjoying some goodies - stolen, no doubt.

Buddha image carved in stone. Really nice granite here. would be perfect for sport climbing! 

Oddities... cont'

I figure it was time for another installment of oddities. Ok, it hasn't been weekly, but I will try to keep them periodically. Enjoy!

Imagine sitting on the toilet, minding your own business but then you start to feel like someone, or something is watching you. This is what happened to me when I was staying in Colombo with some friends. I can tell you, after looking over and seeing this guy I felt a little vulnerable with my pants around my ankles and all. Scale: the tiles are 6 inches wide.

This is one of my favorites and I know some of you have already seen my dung beetle but I figured he should be up here for posterity. To get an idea of scale, the ball o' dung is about 1.5-2 inches in diameter.

You can find previous oddity posts here and here.

Rest and Recuperation

I can honestly say that this work here in Trinco can be quite stressful and you can feel it building up at times. In fact many organizations including the UN (and the dozens of branches they have spawned e.g. UNICEF) all receive "Hazard" or "Hardship" compensation. This means that they get something like an extra week's vacation every few months and a flight to leave the country. They also receive additional pay for enduring their hardships... Hmmm... sounds pretty nice and yes, I am jealous but not resentful...ok, maybe a little. Anyway, my point is we all make a point to try to relax and have some fun and get your mind off the situation and the work from time to time. For example, last week when my friend Tom was visiting from Colombo, we decided to take a friday afternoon off and hit the beach. Its really amazing to be the only ones on the beach, save a few fisherman!
Kickin it in the pool, enjoying a sundowner on our makeshift beer caddy cum pool bar. We are literally the only ones at this hotel other than the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM) folks that have been living here for a couple of years now. This place used to be busier with expats but many have left and most of the others (me included) have stopped coming here so often due to the horrendous service. I sure miss the pool though...

One of the ubiquitous beach dogs spaced evenly down the beach. I want to come back as a beach dog... This has to be one of the greatest existences. Your only responsibility is to chase away the beach cows that threaten your turf (the second best existence?)!

My First Visitor

After being in Trinco for 9 months now, I finally received my first visitor. My friend Tom (another Sewa Lanka volunteer) came up from Colombo for a few days to visit and check out Trinco for the first time. It was fun to have a visitor, because it makes you see your surroundings through fresh eyes. We visited a few places that I have not seen since my first days in Trinco. I forget what a beautiful place this really can be!

Tom standing near a prayer tree at Swami Rock. Not exactly sure what the wooden boxes hanging from the trees are. Steep granite cliffs right on the edge of the Indian Ocean. Their is a nice hindu temple up here that is quite famous but no one visits it. Perhaps it is because you have to travel through a large army camp that is located immediately at its base.

Temple monkeys chillin on the rocks. I have to say these are some of the calmest monkeys I have seen in Sri Lanka. Unlike the ones that stole my cell phone, disconnect my power lines, and wake me up at 530am by playing on my tile roof.

Tom making friends with a Temple cow. Yes, this little heffer is actually in the temple.

Before the BOSS 808 (hell, before the 303!) there were drum machines. Now I have a better idea how these temples can make so much noise! 

Speaking of Sri Lanka and Journalism....

Ironically, as I was uploading the previous post, news of the bus attack in Anuradhapura this morning was just making its way around here. And, of course the government responed by shelling the ltte controlled area outside of Trinco again today. So this is just a quick update to let everyone know I am fine and safe. It is not clear who was responsible for this horrible attack on the civilian population, but surely it is not going to help the peace process.

You can read about the incident here. And there is a decent analysis of the "not war, not peace" situation here if you are interested.

Peace!

Trouble in Paradise - April 2006

Ok, so some of you may have heard about the recent troubles that have been brewing in Sri Lanka over the past few months. I thought I would share some stories from the events of April 2006 in Trincomalee before they are potentially eclipsed by future events. Things have been heating up in Sri Lanka and Trinco for months now but things in April really exploded. For example, on April 12th, a bomb was detonated within the main vegetable market in the center of Trinco town. Civilian riots ensued and over 20 shops and several vehicles were burned. There were reports of looting of shops and rape of civilians during these riots and approximately 20 persons were killed. Several days of civil unrest followed the 12th April bomb attack including neighborhood mobs attacking and setting fire to houses in the areas surrounding Trinco town and there were several grenade and claymore mine attacks. I decided to leave Trinco for a few days to let the situation calm down and went to Colombo.


A vehicle and shop that had been burned out during the riots that followed the market blast.

Ouch.... A hand full of vehicles and ~ 20 shops received this fate.

This is a shot taken looking up Central Rd five days after the blast and riots. It was strange to see the bustling center of town to be so deserted.

The day I returned to Trinco, the LTTE bombed army HQ in Colombo and then the army started aerial bombing and shelling the LTTE controlled area next to Trinco. Yes, it was an experience; sitting on my veranda watching rockets fire over the harbor and listing to 135mm artillery guns fire every few mins. Jets were even turning over my house (not bombing here) to return to their targets 10 miles south. After a night an exciting night of shelling, I decided to move into a hotel in town next to my boss’s because he figures it is safer for me there. The cool thing is that I keep meeting these journalists there that are finally coming to cover the things happening in Trinco. The reporting has been pretty bad in terms of being balanced and fair. Most of the information coming from the international news agencies seems to be reported from the gov. Until recently there have been very few reporters coming to the district. Most of the reporters are from Colombo. Anyway, this guy was staying at my hotel and I ask him if he is covering blast at the market (two weeks before this now). He said yeah. So I asked if he new about all these nasty things that happened (that everyone in Trinco knows about) but aren’t getting reported? he said “uh, no... but we cant just print rumors because people say it”. At this point I want to throttle his neck. I mean, isn’t this the job of reporters: to go and in-vest-i-gate potential reports of wrong doings; talk to the people etc? So, I told him that these are not rumors, these people exist, you just need to go talk to them. I hooked him up this a man that had a "real story", and it made it to press the next day (London Guardian)! JUSTICE. The first 5 paragraphs pertain to the atrocities that were not being reported previously.

This is the view from the hotel that I stayed in for a week following the aerial attacks. It actually was a nice place to be. I could watch the boys play cricket in hte afternoon before the curfew was enforced. Also watched (painfully) as the army harrassed and beat some civilians traveling down the road...ugh. 

Tamil Wedding

In late March, Florian and I were invited to a Tamil Wedding ceremony for the brother of Shanti, one of the administrators at Sewa Lanka. It is a really intricate affair and is very colorful as you can see by the pics. There is not to much action though. The ceremony mainly consists of the Hindu priest performing a ritual blessing that requires little or no participation from others. It is very important that the couple is wed during an auspicious time. For example, this wedding was scheduled between 10:36 AM and 11:52. The times are dictated by ancient charts I suppose. After the wedding there is a reception that consist of a luncheon at a wedding hall. It was really nice to see everyone dressed so nice and so elaborately. And for me it was a rare opportunity to wear Armani pants with flip-flops (thanks again bryan!).

During the ceremony….
During the photo shoot, Florian and I were asked to join in the photo. It is strange to be a little bit of a celebrity at these functions.

This is as good as rice and curry gets! The green pea and prawn dish was my favorite but unfortunately this was the first and last time I have seen it available. Also on this plate is chicken deviled, fish ball, and dal. They wrap the plate in plastic to ensure that it is clean...a nice touch.

And this is Shanti, one of our more enthusiast administrators. She is a little more sassy and out spoken than most of her female colleagues.

Trip to Nuwar Elliya

In february, I headed south to meet my friend Tom in Nuwara Elliya and be a bit of a tourist in Sri Lanka for a few days. It was a nice break from Trinco as the climate is quite cool in the central highlands with an altitude of ~ 6,000 ft. In fact it is down right cold at night. To be honest I dont really know what this means, maybe 50 degs? All I know is that I was wearing shoes a lot and borrowing a jacket from Tom's friend, Brian, that was visiting from NY. He was well prepared with fleeces and shells (hmmm... must be cold in NY in Feb). We traveled around a fair amount but I would have to say one of the things I enjoyed most was the market in town. There were no tourist there, only locals, and the variety and quality of fruits and vegetables was much better than what I can often find in Trinco.

Thanks Picasa!

We (Brian and I) decided to try the popular if not fashinable, chewing of Beetle Nut. In reality, you are chewing much more than just beetle nut. The whole package consists of beetle nut (small red nut), a dried leafy plant that seems like it could be tobacco or one of its cousins, and lime (or lye) paste. You basically take the mix and rap it up in a small banana leave and shove it in you mouth. The result of this stimulant coctail is a big head rush and a lot of red spittle. (Photo by Tom Ramsson)Is this going to kill me? (Photo by Tom Ramsson)


Beautiful sunrise on the way to Worlds End... (Photo by Tom Ramsson)

Oddities...

...of the week?

This is a signboard posted near the entrance to Worlds End, a beautiful park reserve with rolling grass lands that lead to a stunning vistas. It is surely one of the main points of interest in the central highlands. The Of course it sits next to a Singalese version of the same sign. You have to love translations.

We found this little guy while walking back from the market in Nuwara Elliya. He decided to jump onto my foot as we were trying to get a good photo of him. Handsome fellow, eh? (note: this is probably the second time wearing shoes in Sri Lanka, the central highlands can be quite cool.)

Oddities...

Its amazing what can be transported by bicycle. Ive often seen people carrying (dragging) 20ft sections of re-bar and even pvc pipe!

Maybe I will do an Oddity of the week or something... I have some pretty phone pics...we will see.

Still trying to figure out how to post multiple images...
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Welcome to my new blog

Hello All,

After a long hiatus from the cyber world, I have decided to return. My former website had not been updated since December (sorry!) due to a number of reasons, and now, the company that was hosting the site has closed its doors. So it is gone forever. Thanks again to Jesse for allowing me the opportunity to post a website on his account (for free). Thanks Jesse!

This is my first post and I am just figuring the site out, so bare with me. I hope to do shorter, but more frequent updates and post some pics. This new site should be easier to update, although it means I have to compose online. Keep in mind I have pretty shabby dial-up connection here.

Ok, in short I am doing well and am healthy (now). I have been here for 8 months! Can you believe it? Not sure what pics I will post today but just want to get started. I miss you all and hope you are happy and well and enjoying spring/summer! Ciao!

Housing Beneficiaries in Our Village

Here are some of our housing beneficiaries. Use of this term still bothers me…they are people right?! Bloody NGO speak!

This man’s house was destroyed in the war in the late 80’s- early 90s and has been living in various shelters and refugee camps or relatives ever since.

This woman is waiting patiently for us to build her house - standing with her family on the land where her new home is to be built.


This is a typical temporary (read: up to 10 years) shelter from one of our beneficiaries. The low ceilings are what kill me, but I guess most people here are not as tall as I.
Scare crow or just cool factor???? You be the judge.

Soil Testing at our Housing Site

Back to work…

After returning from my 3-week stint in the hinterland, I finally made it back to Trinco and was able to get back to work. The main project that I am working on is a housing and livelihood project in two villages north of Trinco, Thiriyai (sounds like teary-eye) and Kattakullam. We are beginning construction of 100 homes, several domestic and community wells, and road improvements. These people were affected by the Tsunami but their story goes much deeper than that. Most of the people in this village were displaced one or more times in the 80s and 90s due to the conflict in Sri Lanka. Many fled to India as war refugees and eventually returned to Sri Lanka only to live in refugee camps. Many of the refugees from this village were placed in a camp that was located very near the sea and have lived there for approximately 10 years. The conditions in the refugee camps can be quite poor with minimal shelter given by simple block wall or corrugated steel buildings with cadjan (palm leave) roofs. The 26th December 2004 Tsunami only seemed to add insult to injury for these people.

I have included some pictures of the soil-sampling program to get soil bearing values for foundation design.

Mobile drill rig and support truck.

The vehicle is called a crew cab. They are pretty common here and we have one for our project too. Its actually the vehicle I am driving around in this week. They are fun to drive!

The drilling tool is pretty simple but does just about everything that big rig would be able to do. It has a cathead with two speeds for driving the hammer and hoisting the drill string. They drive a split spoon sampler by dropping a weighted hammer from a specified height (for my geo-geek friends..cough..jim…cough).
The soil was really loose sand and the hole was not staying open so they used bentonite slurry to keep the hole open. Screwed up my plans for grabbing a water sample…

Our site office: Eating lunch and trying to stay cool with the project coordinator and field officers. The office is lacking some furnishings.

We had difficulty finding a standing building in these villages of some 500 families that we could use for our site office. Finally, we had to rent a mostly finished house that was built be another local NGO that did not have the funds to complete it. The owner was not staying in the house as it was not finished (no doors and windows) so he was happy to have some income generation. We also offered to complete the house for him as part of the deal. Unfortunately, we cant seem to find the owner to pay rent as he left to the Vanni (LTTE controlled area) due to the recent events in the district (for example...).