Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka.  The opportunity to visit came through an invitation to some youth climate change  workshops that the Sri Lankan Youth Climate Action Network (SLYCAN) had sent out. I had little idea about the workshops, but life is all about throwing oneself into new possibilities so I jumped at the chance..

I had one night in Dhaka after returning from Nepal before setting out for Sri Lanka.  Apart from the ritualistic sorting and repacking of dirty/clean clothes,  I was filled with a curiosity of what lay ahead.  A whole new country… Buddhist religion… years of civil war… string hoppers… I was curious about everything, and these musings almost got the better of me at the airport, where I dreamily left my passport behind on a shop counter after purchasing a ‘vegetable roll’.  Twenty minutes before my flight I was frantically searching as were airport security when it was found in safe keeping at the ‘vegetable roll’ establishment.  

After touching down in Colombo I caught a smooth 2hr taxi ride to 'Raveli Beach Resort' where some of the youth deligates were staying.  There I had the doubly novel experience of having a beer with an Indian, Jayasimha, who was not only vegetarian but was doing a presentation about the large impact meat consumption has on climate change for the Humane Society International (beer and vegetarians are rarely sighted in Bangladesh).  This is an issue close to my heart (and stomach).  I also met Vositha, a Sri Lankan activist who was finishing her legal studies and was the powerhouse behind the workshops and SLYCAN, running on few funds and even fewer hours of sleep. 

The next day we attended a journalists' workshop and I delivered a brief presentation on the Community Managed Disaster Risk Reduction (CMDRR) project that I am working on in Bangladesh. It was my first presentation on it, and I tried the hardest to believe all the words I was saying - conceptually my belief was there, but practically I had little exposure yet to the  CMDRR approach in action. Post workshop myself and Jayasimha were dazzled by slick brand shopping mall... where sunglasses in glass cabinets were selling for hundred of dollars, next to countless shelves of designer clothing... the silent mantra around us was to fall in love with the Image, and consume its material counterpart, the Product. It was a bit depressing to be reminded again of the pulling power of unfettered consumption, so the only remedy was some ice-cream consumption followed by a beautiful sunset dinner at the classic Galle Face Hotel, overlooking the lazy ocean rubbing up against the shore.  

The next morning I had some time to relax and spend by myself - precious time in a packed schedule of people people people.  Wandering along the beach and in the hotel I discovered some interesting facts about the way romance is negotiated here.  Like in Bangladesh, public displays of affection are seldom seen (though perhaps slightly more common here), and on the beach the canoodling is usually done behind a massive umbrella, or a rocky outcrop.  Meanwhile, at the hotel something else was going on... series of couples were presenting themselves to reception to then disappear for just a few hours. Later the hotel manager explained to me that the beach umbrellas were for people who 'could not afford to stay in my hotel'.  Aside from the lovers, the beach had considerable slum areas which were my first realisation of the poverty residing outside of the fancy hotels and shopping malls in downtown Colombo.

There were some more workshops over the next few days covering a range of broadly climate related issues.  I presented two - one on the crucial need for creativity in addressing climate change, the other on photography and social change.  An inspiring mix of young people attended the talks, and it was refreshing to speak about bold new worlds being created rather than dwelling always on the critique of the current.  I was particularly inspired by the two sisters behind the events - Vositha and Vishakha Wijenayake.  Polar opposites in personality, they somehow brought the events together, with particularly Vositha's persistence with getting things across the line.  Despite some disorganisation and some attendance issues - that is common when everything needs be done at the last minute with not enough people -the workshops themselves radiated a quiet authenticity and carved out a modest series of spaces for immodest ideas to be discussed and new worlds advanced.  I hope that the SLYCAN network was emboldened by the workshops and will organise more!


Socially too it was lovely to focus on quality, not quantity.  Spending time with the two sisters, and their friend Kaveesha, over cool drinks on quiet beaches, amongst the sway of palm trees and the nocturnal sighs of the ocean, was a beautiful relief to big dinners of Australian volunteers in dusty Dhaka.

There was a final, painful episode of the adventure that should be chronicled.  On the last day I was leaving for Kandy, a stunning town nestled in the forests above Colombo.  Running for the train, I slipped and fell on the railway tracks and ripped my right toenail.  Eheu! Bleeding and hobbling, I made it to the train brandishing my ticket (it was actually for the urging of someone on the platform that I needed a ticket which made me dash across the tracks in the first place), and tried to nonchalantly cover up the pooling blood.  This train lasted an hour, I then transferred to another train, this time for 3 hours.  I really tried to concentrate on the beautiful scenery passing by and not the growing pain in my foot.  However a very generous woman (who turned out to be a nurse) spotted my injury and insisted on taking me to the hospital in Kandy... which turned out to be overfull, so after visiting three private clinics, we found one that could take me in.  They prodded the toenail which was hanging on by about 8-12mm of flesh... meekly I said that we'd known each other for a long time and that could I keep the toenail... no it needed to come off apparently... I suggested that anesthetic would be a good practice, they said yes, they could provide it but its extra time and money, and by way of concluding the decision making they pulled off the nail then and there.  Words cannot really describe the pain, which was extended through forcible scrubbing of the exposed raw nail bed.  Bandaged up, I hobbled off finally to my actual destination - the temple of the Holy Tooth Relic (Sri Dalada Maligawa), which is said to have housed a tooth of the Buddha.  My mind was on toenails (or lack of them) instead of teeth, but it was nonetheless an interesting temple to explore.

When I arrived back in Colombo, Vositha, Vishakha and Kaveesha took me under their wing like the hobbling, bleeding bird that I was and treated me to lovely last dinner on the beach (on the way my contact lens blew out of my right eye into the sri lankan night yielding an otherworldly half-glow to my vision).    As the plane took off at early next morning (there was not a chance to sleep in between unfortunately), I could not help feeling grateful for the chance to visit this peaceful place, which seems like a little pocket outside of time.