First week at work

My bike

March 11 - I have been in Matara just over a week and it's been an interesting week where I have gone from despair (Ok a bit of an exageration) to total joy to a bit of clarity!  The despair part was not knowing what I was going to be doing.  After the first day of dancing and buying a bike I rode said bike to work and that was fine but then there was nothing to do!  We set a meeting for Friday and for the next two days I went to a peace and reconcilliation event  which is the joy part and which is the subject of most pictures.  This event was over 2 days - 53 Tamil families came from the East and joined up with an equal amount of Singhalese families.  They stayed with host families and they had 2 days of cooking together and going to different temples and building fences (literally) and singing and dancing.  These were poor people and the age range varied from young to old.  There were men and women and they just got on with it.  They were divided into mixed group on the first day and each group given a cooking task - this was all outside and they set to work.    the women mostly did the cooking and the men lit the fires and carried the water.  They produced a lunch for 200 people which consisted of all sorts of different veggies, fish, rice,special dried coconut something. I saw them splitting up jack fruits which were huge, scraping coconuts, wringing the milk out of coconuts. Its was amazing.  the next day we went to a school where we were met by a little troop of bearded boys - see picture- and had a litle procession .  Then we were presented with bundles of sticks and some string and told to build a fence round the school.  I didn't hold out much hope but hey just got down to it again and that fence got built - I helped but they found it a bit disturbing that I should do anything manual.  As I said these were simple, village people and I dont think they had seen too many white people so they were fascinated and I had my picture taken many many time   Now I know what the queen feels like.  One rather tiny, bent and wrinkled old lady kept coming up and holding my hand, smiling and laughing all along - someone then told me 'isn't she wonderful - and she is 63 years old' - I was stunned - I felt like some big white, overfed giant next to her. She looked twice my age -really , ok well she looked much much older than me!  Never let me complain about hard work again!  The fence got built with not such an obvious division of labour between men and women - but the women wielded the axes and split the coconut palms and the men took their turn at the string part.  Then there was the inevitable 'cultural event' lots of children and some adults singing and dancing  after the budhist monks had done their chanting and blessing .  It was so hot and I was exhausted.  I really believe this event made a difference to how the different groups perceive each other , there were some very emotional speeches by people who had been affected and it was, all in all,  a fantastic event. I think they have done something like it in Northern Ireland and if they haven't then they should!

The bearded dancers aged about 7

the dragon - cultural

the children - singing

more children - singing and dancing

ok  here are the sticks

I told you the women did the hard work

Look at that fence - it grows leaves eventually

 Back to work with a bump on Friday when I finally had a proper meeting with the CEO and we devised a plan of sorts .  So I will be doing some fund raising , refining some project briefs for women entrepreneurs and for young people in the plantations, looking at how to increase the membership and doing an analysis of the chamber and its staff !  So enough to keep me going for a while
  At the weekend the CEO took me to Mirissa and I actually got to swim - the waves were strong though it was warm.  You can go whale watching there but I am saving that for later.   So things are looking up all round . I am going to visit Hambantota to see another volunteer his week and will try out another beach there at the weekend .  I tell you its all go in the tropics .....

temple at Dongra - the most southernmost tip of Sri Lanka -