To take up where we left off, Saturday night and the first of the four farewell dos this week, brought us to Ruvanthi’s house. She  is one of the programme managers at VSO. She has worked for VSO since the 1990s and so has a vast network of contacts all over the world. What is remarkable is how enthusiastic she is about the work of VSO and the role they can play. She reminded me that the foreigners that most Sri Lankans come across are either tourists or expats so to meet people who are willing to live the local lifestyle is amazing to them. Its very humbling to receive their gratitude even when we feel we havent done anything. Anyway a great meal at Ruvanthi’s with more home cooked food and shared with our friends Fiona and Gary, Tim another VSO,  a friend of Ruvanthi’s who is a lecturer in linguistics at the university and a former VSO now married to a Sri Lanka – who came on an education programme. A reminder of how much the VSO programme has changed. The street was intriguingly called Bird Park. Its very near the Parliament fields and we were treated to a spectacular firework show from there, by far the best we’ve seen in Sri Lanka.

Tuesday night and Joe’s leaving do at BPA. The BPA staff made it a lovely occasion with caterers supplying  tables out in the garden and lovely food. They had prepared a presentation about Joe made up of photos and comments on his liking for Roti and Cake which was very funny. His new name is Mr Cool!

A few photos below show the scene. The presents had to be opened as everyone hadn’t seen them. Some very ‘stylish’ plates and bowls made to look like banana leaves made out of fibre glass and a a king cocount punch bowl.  Never fear you’ll all get a chance to see them when you come for a meal . The question is now, how to pack them?

Joe’s pile of presents!

Nurushan ( finance manager) Kapila ( Comms Manager) and Subhashini ( programmes)

The BPA team!

Now I’m writing this after my leaving lunch. It was touching so see the extra effort they had put in to preparing lunch, the staff made the salad and the welcome drink. It followed the traditional Sri Lankan format with quite a few people standing up and giving a speech. One thing struck me very forcibly, both listening to people at my workplace and Joe’s how important it is to be a role model. All the speeches talked about the way they had observed particular attributes and how they could all learn from that. We are influencing all the time even though we don’t know it.

The president and the treasurer at DOJF – couldn’t get them to smile!

Preparing the salad in the office kitchen.

Mr Kularatne gives his speech of thanks – he always likes to have his say. His was the fifth contribution – all in sinhala.

It’s hard to say goodbye to people when you know you may never see them again, for most of the people we have worked with UK is way to expensive for them to visit.

It seems fitting that most of this last blog is about people as after all thats what VSO is about and ofcourse its the people who make the experience worthwhile.

Sarah who has come to BPA to do a fundraising strategy came around for a meal on Monday to see where we live and to case the joint so she could see what she could inherit of our household goods when we leave.

Tuesday was the last  Scottish Dancing, sadly it was a quiet night and there weren’t enough people to dance, but I had a good chat with some of the regulars. Whilst Carol was doing this I was busy practising accompanying Irene (the soon-to-be redundant director for the North for CARE International) singing some of the songs of Rabbie Burns for our upcoming gig at the Mount Lavinia hotel – details of which are still very sketchy.

Thursday was the signing the registry day for Rasanjali. The day before, I had a shoe crisis followed swiftly by a handbag emergency. Luckily I was able to buy some silver shoes and matching handback at a bargain price , on the wednesday. Carol rang me about 5 to tell me that she was going up to the Crescat Shopping Mall to buy some stuff – knowing full well that I would immediately suggest joining her as it is next door to the Cinnamon Grand where you can get a very nice coffee and sandwiches for a fiver in the pleasant surroundings of a five star hotel.  It was also an excuse to go to the book shop there and buy a last book at bargain prices.

We were picked up by Rasanjali’s regular trishaw  driver who drove us to the office where the marriage registration took place. There are certain designated places and this was just an office at the side of the house of one of the groom’s friends. We, of course, arrived about half an hour early, but in fact all the Sri Lankans were in good time as the moment you sign the register must be at an auspicious time.

The bride and groom arrived followed by close members of the family, parents and brothers and sisters and us. So we felt very privileged. The signing is very simple. They are asked to stand and confirm who they are and whether there is any impediment to them getting married and then Rasanjali told me they have to promise to live with each other ‘for ever’.   That done they sat down to wait for the auspicious time for signing. With the groom keep checking his watch it got a bit tense and then would you credit it – his phone went off and he answered it. Even his own wedding won’t separate a Sri Lankan from his phone.

There were some snacks afterwards in the same building provided by the friend and the groom and then photos, of course.

Next off for lunch with what we thought was the family ( although it was only 10.30) What actually happened was that we were driven to the house of a friend of the groom. ( Incidentally by one of the witnesses and his wife – a seriously rich couple in a huge 4×4, who had worked his way through university in London by driving a cab and he did that for 6 years while he finished an architecture course- the determination is astonishing).  Rasanjali and Upal followed, but it turned out this was a party for Upal and his friends. One or two people chatted to us, but most guests, who were all men, went to a room upstairs to drink arrack and smoke. Rasanjali sat and talked to us, and worried about how long lunch was taking, we eventually sat down to a delicious home cooked lunch at 2.00. Joining us were Rasanajali and new husband as a small crowd either served or watched us. Truly another Sri Lankan experience to savour!!

The photographs below give a flavour

Thursday evening was a meal with a former chair of the BPA board and his wife and Manique, former chief executive, and her husband. This couple now in their early sixties,are  a very different kind of Sri Lankan from those at the wedding we had just been too. Very wealthy, our hosts have three house, including the beautiful one in Colombo, not ostentatious, but with many antiques. The curiosity of this evening was the discussion that took place about the problems they have with the servants and how you have to teach them your ways when they are new. Not a conversation that we have been party to in the UK.  However alongside this goes a liberal approach to politics and one of the guests telling us how after signing a letter along with 125 other academics about the death threats against two prominent Sri Lankans, he was harassed by the the Anti-terrorism unit of the CID and questioned at his workplace for a couple of days two days running. Just a symptom of the many things that are happening in Sri Lanka to those is opposition to the governent in any way. It was after midnight when we got home.

So, during the course of Friday, we were flagging a bit. But Friday evening was my big gig at Mount Lavinia!  We got there for just after 6 and Carol went to have a drink on the Terrace while I went in search of Irene so we could have a practice.  It turned out that the event was the launch of a charitable foundation but also a farewell party for a a senior UNDP person, a pakistani, who is going back to live in Oxford. We had a slightly weird practice in this guy’s hotel room (with him and his wife getting showered and dressed around us). We knew that there was also going to be some poetry reading (read by the actor who played Dr Aziz in ‘A Passage ot India’) of the poems of a Sufi poet who was born the day after Rabbie Burns died – and mein host thought that there were distinct links between the work and subjects of the two poets.

So we were in this big meeting room drinking the odd mohito or two that was kindly provided, whilst I was thinking that the instruction for ‘smart casual’ dress was a little misleading. I took it to mean that I tucked my shirt into my trousers, whereas most other people seemed to take it as one step down from wearing a tuxedo.  Clearly, we were moving in different circles from our normal environment this evening.  The event started with a rather strange video about the new charitable foundation which was something to do with arts programmes for children and young people.  This was followed by soup and Sufi poetry.  Our host, Omar, gave him quite a long introduction, and he came on the podium to warm applause.  He gave a brief introduction to what he was going to do and then spent the next 45 minutes reading the poems in Urdu (fair enough) with comments also interspersed in Urdu. Not so good – especially as there were no more mohitos coming around. Anyway, after that it was time to eat the rest of the meal and for Irene & I to do some Rabbie Burns songs. The tables for dinner had been set out on an adjacent covered terrace area. We had full amplification, which was just as well as this was the first time I have ever played with sound of the waves in the background.  I really enjoyed it.  Most of the songs were slow ones, which suited my abilities down to the ground so I think we made an effective pairing.  Irene was a bit worried about the political content of the songs (e.g. in Scots Wae Hae) – but, as she herself pointed out, no one was going to understand them anyway. We were introduced by the UN representative for Sri Lanka and, apparantly, the British High Commissioner came up and spoke to me before we started- but he didn’t introduce himself and I didn’t recognise him. I don’t think I said anything rude to him. We finished in time for me to get some pudding (at around 10.30pm). And that was the end of another event hob-nobbing with the great and the good.

That brings us to Saturday – Joe already mentioned the repeat farewell at the singing group, they bought us copies of the song books they use and we recorded a tape of them singing. It be especially nice to have them singing a sinhala song.

Here are the group in the photo below – most of the members are represented.

Lunchtime and we took Janine and family out for lunch to the Cricket Club. I was a bit worried about it, but they seemed to enjoy it and especially Jimmy who enjoyed his burger.

Here they all are, our one and only photo of them.

So Saturday afternoon and only four more farewell events to go. Can we take the pace?

It seems a prety poor excuse to me – but would you argue with Carol?

We have started saying our goodbyes this week. ( Monday was sundowners at the Galle Face Hotel again! This time for Eve of guitar fame and Catherine from the youth for development programme strange that they came after us and are leaving before us)  On thursday we went out for a meal with Gary & Fiona and Jenny, who also started at the same time as the four of us.  (Nathini from our batch went a couple of weeks ago and Jim left long ago last March in fact) Jenny works in mental health just outside Kandy-so we won’t see her again before we leave.  She is really easy to get along with so we had a good evening sampling the seafood in the Beach Wadiya, which features in all the guide books. The restaurant is literally on the beach. Whilst there is not a great choice in the menu it is all completely fresh and tasted great and all for about £7.50 a head, including a bottle of wine.

I think my leaving party at BPA could be  bit of a do. It is going to be at the new offices – but in the evening, so they will probably bring in some caterers to provide a Rice and Curry supper.  This will be on 23rd March.

We went to the Saturday Singing group today.  Carol was still away last saturday and they had a special day out.  We had already agreed we were going to that – so it was up to me.  We were off to a resort just south of Colombo, but first we popped into an elders home to see a former member of the group who is now 94.  We sang a few songs in a lounge area with her but then some grumpy nun came along and told us we couldn’t sing as we might disturb the other residents. So we went off to the Ran Mal resort in Moratuwa. This was a sort of hotel / place you can go to for the day which is on the edge of a lake.  We were escorted to a little summerhouse sort of thing that was jutting out into the lake (you had to walk along a little jetty to get to it). It had about 15 rattan easy cahirs arranged around the edge inside and was just right for the dozen of us.  We went straight into a sing song – with the songs dictated by me, as it depended on the ones that I had the music for.  One of the others – Patrick ( the only buddhist I know who is called Patrick) gave us a couple of tunes on his chromatic harmonica.  After that we played games : quizzes and Bingo.  The resort then served us a very nice lunch and we all drove back to Colombo.  I came with Akhbar – the only muslim in the group. Well, there was his driver as well. He has been coming to this group for many years. He helps run a family firm that sells laboratory instruments – where there is cut throat competition apparantly. He is clearly doing OK out if it, though. ( Sorry no photos I forgot the camera)

Today, we took cake to the singing group – because it would be the last time that we would be going. However, by the time we left we had somehow agreed to go again next saturday at 9.30. How did that happen? Iam still trying to work that out. ( Carol: because they want to record us all singing together on a tape. I think it will be hilarious as they can never agree which key the songs  should be in, so recording it will tax us all!) Next weekend is going to end up being very busy. Whilst I was at the resort in Moratuwa I was rung up by someone I had heard sing at the Burns supper in January. She is singing at a charity event next Friday and asked if I would accompany her on the guitar whilst she sang some Burns’ songs. And now we are out morning, lunchtime and evening on the Saturday.  You could be forgiven for thinking our life here is just one big party. However, I would like to reassure you that I, at least, have been working very hard and will continue to be working hard for the next week and a half.

A new short term volunteer has arrived to do a Fund Raising Strategy for the organisation. So, I have to make sure I take every opportunity to make people understand that she is not here to fund raise – just to write the strategy.  However, during her first week  I was in a bit of a funding proposal whirl as we were submitting proposals to the same call for proposal through two separate partners (for different projects). Still, I think she is settling in and I have been able to do a couple of workshops to try and link the work on proposals that I have done to building a strategy and to provide an induction for her into the sorts of proposal that we have done.  I have now started on the tedious, but very necessary, process of making sure that all the documents I have on my laptop are somewhere on a BPA website. Oh, and I am also writing my end of placement report for VSO, which has been quite thought provoking in terms of making me examine just what impact I might actually have had. Or bigging it up, depending on how you look at it.

Carol meanwhile seems to continue blending a bit a of work with dropping into the VSOoffice or going for a ‘fit on’ for the clothes that she is having made.

Ofcourse no one could work quite as hard as Joe, but  I have my moments. Still no sign of money being released from Sweden so a bit of a lull at work. I did however after 6 months of trying manage to do a workshop with the board. Not quite in my original plans but a useful session on how they should be working together as a board and they were very fulsome in their praise of the experience.

My colleague who received the proposal ( for marriage) that I described in an earlier blog, has decided to accept it so it seems to be all systems go. The wedding will be in May which sadly we will miss, however as compensation she has invited us to the legal registration next week. ( Hopefully there will be photos next time we blog) Usually only the parents go to that. Its quite common for this to be in advance of the main wedding as it means they can now spend time together alone without offending anyone’s ideas of decorum.  She seems excited and certainly he is paying her a lot of attention ( in between campaigning for the main ruling party in the forthcoming election)

Actual work is very similar to Joe, writing an handover report for a yet unconfirmed successor and helping to compile a reference.

Because of my chequered placement history I will get a reference from the VSO office in Sri  Lanka as well as DOJF. Its been good to get positive feedback. When I asked my colleagues at DOJF what difference I had made some of their answers suprised me, including that I had encouraged the board to listen to them and that I had always taken their views into account, which had never happened before and so that had given them more confidence. You may remember me mentioning that the board tries to run the day to day activities as well as setting policy, so I hope some of these things will be sustainable. My other task this week is to persuade them not to try and apply for an EU Call for Proposals. Its way beyond their capacity, but they really have no idea how difficult it is, not least finding 750,000/- matched funding.

I was asked by the country director would I do VSO again. I have to say a resounding yes. Ofcourse it would have been easier if I’d had one placement, but eveything I’ve done has been very interesting and like any job has  had its up and downs but still enjoyable. It was as important for me to have the experience of  living  in a country in the ‘south’ of the world and to view the world from that perspective and certainly I’ve fulfilled that goal.

I am hoping there will be time for one if not a least two blogs before we leave on the 27th. I have only 5 more working days before then, but still so much to do.

I ( Carol) went to the UK for a week because my father was ill ( he is improving thankfully) I was away two weekends so we are really behind with the blog.

Needless to say Joe could cope with working and living but not blogging while I was away.

We only have two more weeks in Sri Lanka so its all getting a  bit hectic as we say goodbye to people.  As soon as we get a few moments we’ll tell you more about how is going.

We walked one way, but it was just too humid to walk back and we ended up  walking to the nearby Hilton where there is  some nice air conditioning.

The photos give an impression of what is what like. Above are all the food stalls on the promenade, they just moved there recently. The rather impressive Neo Classical building are a ‘secretariat’ we know not of what. Also you can just glimpse the clock tower which is still in a high security zone.

There was entertainment as well!

This week I have been working on writing a basic contract for the staff which they haven’t had before. I checked with them that I had included all the things that up to now had been custom and practice and learnt two new things. One that they are allowed two short leaves each month. That is they can take part of a day up to one and half hours twice a month. Secondly when you come back from maternity leave, you can come later and leave early until the baby is a year, this is ‘feeding time’

One of the positive things about living in Asia has been appreciating the importance of Japan ( and Australia) as key donors for developing countries. At DOJF we had a visit from representatives from the Duskin Foundation. They are a Japanese company famous for their dough nuts. Their foundation runs a development programme for young Asian disabled people and this is their 12th year. Rasanjali is an alumuni. The programme involves them living independently, learning Japanese as well as study on disability issues. So far 3 Sri Lankans have been on the programme.

The new batch of volunteers arrived this week (so that’s two batches in quick succession as the previous group only arrived in December) There are 7 of them, although not the promised one to replace me as about three weeks before she was due to come she was diagnosed with MS. I went into the office to do some input into a session. They seemed a really engaged group, and also it was interesting to reflect back on my 18 months and see how I have changed.

There are also 7 of us leaving in the next month, so a bit difficult for the new ones to identify who they should be  keeping in touch with. We all got together for a drink at the Galle Face Hotel on Friday, probably the largest gathering of volunteers since we’ve been here with about 30 in total. We are going to a leaving do tonight and of course more will follow although some peoples will be more low key than others.

Joe is dealing with the countdown to leaving by trying to find as many excuses as possible to go to Baristas and the Coffee Bean to have a coffee.  So hard though it may be to imagine for those who know him well he is very excitable at the moment. Just as well I’m such a calm relaxed and laid back person isn’t it!

My colleagues came for lunch yesterday. They are all women and were slightly over awed by Joe as well as not having much chit chat, but still they have been so kind to me I wanted to share a more European meal with them, they seemed to like the feta cheese and tomato we had for starters. They know Joe plays the guitar so insisted he sing, you can see them  below with Himali’s daughter as well.

• I ( Carol) thought there are one or two sights that we haven’t seen in Colombo so last weekend we visited the Independence Monument. Its surrounded by rough ground but as an impressive boulevard leading to it. It was built in the 60s and is meant to be a replica of the traditonal hall in Kandy. There is a statue of the first prime minister as well Don Stephen Sennanyake

The above photo shows the attempt to landscape the area and there is a newly completed path to one of the main roads.

• A week rarely goes by without a donor doing something annoying. This week SHIA the main donors for my project, told us they could pay salaries for two months but couldn’t pay for any activities because SIDA the international development agency in Sweden hadn’t paid SHIA in Sweden. Ofcourse they wont be taking that into account when we report on activities at the end of the year.
• There is a lovely flower that we have noticed where the flowers have different colours on the same branch I discovered that its called the ‘Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow flower’ in Sinhala – wonderful.
• The cultural gulf especially between Sri Lankan women and myself never seemed greater one day this week when my disabled colleague who I have worked with closely told me about the proposal ( of marriage) her father had received for her. The man sounded very personable from her village so knows about her, was the person who organised the welcome party when she came back from the Korea Paraolympics. On her part  she is amazed and flattered (often women with physical disabilities don’t get married) but what about all her dreams about working abroad. The pressure from her family is enormous she owes it to her parents she feels so that they can hand over responsibility for her to him. Refusing is not really a possibility. Last I heard she had decided that she would agree to meet him( in her parent’s presence) , he’s an educated man who speaks english and has a good job so perhaps he’ ll help her to achieve her dreams.
• Politics has taken an unexpected turn with the arrest of the opposition leader Fonseka, all done illegally according to lawyers at first without access to medication or any visitors. There were some opposition protests this week, which we are asked to avoid, including a non- violent one by women today. The main  independent english speaking newspaper Daily Mirror and Sunday Times is describing this as the worst time in Sri Lanka’s history since independence, with the president consolidating power and aiming to manipulate media and key opponents so he get a two third majority in the general election in April and then he’ll be able to change the constitution.
• On Friday I went with Nathini to an event celebrating the 66th birthday of the assasinated Tamil leading intellectual Dr Neelan Tiruchelvam ( we went to a similar event last year) It was a play based on part of the Ranayana, the Hindu story using a traditional form of theatre from Eastern Sri Lanka, Vamodia Kooththu tradition which includes a singing chorus off stage.They usually go on through the night in villages and are mostly sung.( you’ll be glad to hear this performance only lasted two hour.)  It was performed by a theatre group from the Eastern University and had also used some modern theatre staging. The combination worked really well and although it was in Tamil, the story could be easily understood with a combination of the programme notes and Nathini’s whispered translation.

So on Monday of this week the Directors held a little evening ceremony for her.  This being Sri Lanka, Manique only received her invitation on Sunday night – and until about 4pm on Monday the staff thought that they were not invited to it. It had been talked about for longer than this – but no one had bothered to tell the staff and the staff seem incapable of asking a straight question of the Directors. I went home and came back to the office for about 7pm. The directors were on the Gin and Tonics (pointing out to me that it was the British who introduced it to them). Manique arrived at about 7.30 and shortly afterwards, in very un-sri lankan fashion, we had take away pizza from Pizza Hut (though the spiciness in the pizza is a distinctly Sri Lankan touch). Then each director was invited to make a little speech. Then each of the staff were invited to say something. This took a while. Manique was so choked up she was only able to say thank you and not much else. The directors then presented her with a few gifts.

At  the second leaving do described below. Manique’s daughter told us that though her Mum has had lots of jobs she’s never been quite so attached to one place as BPA. Another opportunity for me to tell Joe he doesnt know how lucky he has been with his unplanned placement. Even from the outside you can see what great relationships they have and what a brilliant work culture there is and much of this is down to Manique’s charismatic leadership style

Something that we had had in our diaries for a while took place on the following evening. This was a farewell do for Manique at Manique’s house. This was for all the staff (including some who left during the course of last year) and a few of the directors.  She had brought in some caterers so proper tables and chairs had been set up in their lovely garden – which we have written about before (see the entry for Mayday 2009). Drinking was before eating, of course. And so were the party games. These didn’t really take off beyond some game which involved dancing with a balloon between you.

We were not very good and dropped out quite quickly ( Joe’s competitive streak emerged, but I quickly put a stop to that by not trying very hard to keep the balloon up, we could have been doing it for hours and indeed it took about 15 minutes before a winner was declared) But that was OK and we ended up having a really interesting conversation with the finance and admin manager, Nirushan, who is a Jaffna Tamil.

He is a lovely gentle man about 34. He has a great sense of humour and  talking about his wedding which is on April 1st he said he was a bit worried that people might think it was a joke. I asked if it was a love affair but he said no a proposal. In Sri Lanka that means I was asking him if it was arranged, a proposal means it was. (We also found out  later on this week that they had the registry office bit on the 24th January as the astrologer said that was the auspicious time.)

However then started talking about his experiences in Jaffna during the war ( he has been in Colombo since 1996) His father was working in Colombo as an engineer and most of the time it was just him, his sister and his mother.

One of the tatics of the LTTE was to begin retreating so bringing the government soldiers forward and then start attacking them. Because the front line kept changing, civilians had to keep moving to behind army lines. He was almost killed once as a teenager, he used to play cards with a friend in the evening and one night they noticed there was a pick up truck full of LTTE soldiers being followed by a helicopter gun ship. Eventually the LTTE abandoned the truck running off into the jungle right outside the friends house. The next thing they heard was bullets ricocheting off the roof, the soldiers thought they LTTE were in the house.  They seem to have realised that they had fled from the truck and moved on, but a frightening experience. He said they had tried to leave Jaffna a number of times from about 1990, but were refused by the LTTE who controlled the area, eventually they heard they had permission and went to the relevant office, yes here are your documents said the officer but there is one condition he said to Nurushen’s mother you must leave one of the children behind ( at the time his sister was 14 he was about 16) She refused although many others felt they had no choice. He gave the example of his cousin who had to join the LTTE when he was 13 and died three years later in fighting. All this was told to us with a smile on his face and quite a lot of giggling ( which is his style when telling you anything)

It wasnt the right time or place to ask him how he felt about this, but the scars must be there. This is the experience of those caught up in war everywhere, but hearing it directly is always  a powerful experience. However much the president thinks he has won the war there is still so much to do to repair the damage and so far there doesnt seem to be a plan.

After eating it was time for entertainment. With Manique at the piano and Nadeeni (who helped with the Jaffna event) and her sister there was then a rendition of a variety of songs – from Dancing Queen to Edelweiss. It doesn’t sound particularly exciting but they do have fantastic voices. I was explicitly told to bring my guitar. So, once I’d got over the usual barrier of ‘No, I do not know how to play every song in the world – I have a repertoire of about ten songs’ they put up with me doing the Wild Rover and Travelling the Newcastle Way.  There was then a little bit of Baila singing – Sri Lankan rap doesn’t quite describe it, but it’s the best I can do. When searching around for one last song to sing they eventually alighted on the national anthem and gave it a spirited rendition. None of the Tamils, Carol noticed, joined in! We then had a difficult conversation trying to explain that people didn’t really sing the national anthem in the UK any more.  Here children sing it in school every week, they play it at the cinema, if you work in a government office then I think you sing it every day. So, the concept that you would have a national anthem and then hardly sing it seemed very alien to them.

Fortunately there was no widespread violence. The incumbent won by a much bigger margin than was expected. However the election commissioner resigned giving the impression that he could no longer go on as he felt himself unable to do his job and guarantee that the election was fair. There are many accusations flying around. There was probably no widespread vote rigging, but how do you measure the impact of the uncumbent having the ability to use the state media as part of his election campaign and even to send texts during the election in direct contravention of the election commissioner’s instructions. The dice was weighted against anyone else winning.

If you are interested  in Sri Lanka politics then a website www.groundviews.org is refreshing in the alternative view it gives.

On the day the results were declared we were able to keep up with the news on the daily mirror website, but the editor of one website crtical of the government has disappeared and another newspaper closed down.

On the day of the count the main opposition candidate ( I am avoiding putting names in so that our blog doesnt come up when people search for those names) was in one of the five star hotels in Colombo with other opposition leaders and the hotel was surrounded by 400 soldiers ostensibly to protect him. In the event he was allowed to leave, but his office has been searched and some of his staff arrested. following the victory of the president.  There is a list circulating based on something Michael Moore produced when Bush won again in 2004 entitled  ’10 reasons not to slit your wrists’, some people are seeing this defeat as an opportunity – many feeling that the current choice wasn’t a real choice and now is the time to work to develop a more credible opposition. I hope so, I’ve got quite fond of this country and I certainly care about the people I’ve met who live here. They deserve better!

In fact both Joe and I worked during hibernation, as I was aiming to get the first draft of the evaluation of the Jaffna conference finished, and as luck would have it ( although not suprising in Sri Lanka, given the number of public holidays) Friday was a poya day and off  we went to Galle for our first and I hope last Burns Supper and the literary festival in Galle . I’ll leave the exposition of the Burns supper  event to Joe…..

A beautiful full moon night in a superb boutique hotel setting. I think it was something we had to experience at least once in our lives – and now we have. I just need to point out that we had a good time, but life would be pretty boring without a bit of bitching.

This picture was taken before we sat down for our meal. Although called Burns, I have to admit that the significance and ritual associated with the event has passed me by for the last 55 years. We even got a special mention in the introductory remarks – as the only people called Burns at the event. We started with a very tasty cock-a-leeky soup.  This was followed by the piping in of the haggis (unfortunately they were unable to source a real piper so it was piped piper).  Nobody was laughing at men in skirts solemnly processing with a piece of dubious meat.  Then, of course, there was a toast to the haggis. (each table had its own bottle of whisky) I always thought haggis was round. Ours came in slabs. A huge slab of brown looking stuff with some mashed potatoes and mashed swede. It did not taste good. It reminded me most of meatloaf – not a popular dish in our house. ( its a bit much to expect authentic haggis and all agreed it would have been much better if we’d just had a taste, but then it wouldnt have followed tradition) This was followed by some concoction involving cream – but Sri Lankas only do UHT cream so that got a thumbs down as well. However, this was followed by shortbread and oatcakse and cheese. Fantastic! However, the lump of lead I now had in my stomach interfered with my ability to fully enjoy these accompaniments.

Meanwhile, there was singing. Two people separately sang a few songs (of Rabbie Burns’ poems, of course) and they had great voices and that was lovely. Then there was a short speech  – ‘The Immortal Memory’. Donald, who gave the address, clearly couldn’t decide which aspect of Burns’ work or life he should focus on – so he just covered the whole lot. I think the MC summed it up very nicely when he jumped up as Donald finished and said ‘If I had had any notion about how long Donald was going to speak I would have opened a book on it’. Then there was the toast bythe laddies (done by a Sri Lankan with the plummiest English accent imaginable. Then there was a response by the lassies- done by our friend Fiona. It sounded really good to me but was slightly damned with faint praise at the end of the evening – I don’t think she had been critical enough of men (as I now understand that the purpose of the speech is to wax witty about mens’ shortcomings). At some point Jackie Kaye recited one of her own poems – I think they should have got her to do the speech. Meanwhile, though we had our van booked for midnight, the dancing began. So it was one o clock before we got back to our hotel (which is about 3am in real time). I was only able to keep going the following day by making sure that we were the first customers in the good cafe in Fort in order to get a caffeine fix before the literary stuff started.

Although I have had a taster of a literary festival by attending a couple of first nights of the Ilkley Festival I’ve never spent a day at one, so was a little apprehensive. However most of the things I went to were excellent. Gillian Slovo talking about her South African parents Joe Slovo and Ruth First huge figures in the anti- apartheid movement. Gillian spoke passionately about South Africa and whilst no one explicity mentioned the Sri Lankan situation in the questions it was obvious that is what people were thinking about. Ian Rankin was excellent and very funny in his talk sponsored by the British Council. Another excellent speaker was Claire Tomalin, the biographer who is 77 whould you believe, but spoke very engagingly about two of her subjects Nelly Ternan Dickens’ mistress and Mrs Jordan mistress of the Duke of Clarence, until he became William IV bearing him 10 children. Both women virtually written out of history. I could have listened to her for hours.

Galle Fort is a lovely setting for a festival and we stayed at an excellent hotel in Una run by a Norwegian and his Sri Lankan wife, we with a nice group of people a mixture of VSOs and people working for INGOs. Its probably our last weekend away before we come back to good to have such an enjoyable one.

A picture of the full moon through plam trees from our table at the Burns Supper:

Back to the visit to the deaf federation. An interesting discussion focusing on the lack of sign language interpreters and there is no way of doing training. There are only two signers in the whole country that they regard as of international standard and they both learnt to sign because their parents are deaf. There are some good schools, one near my office that was set up in 1912 by the British and brought BSL to Sri Lanka. Deaf people are probably the most marginalised group of disabled people in Sri Lanka and they are working hard to get sign langauge accepted as an official language.

I had another first this week, the first time I was in a chaffeur driven mercedes!  This was because I went to do an interview for the evaluation of BizPAct and met Nimal Cooke, a business man working in Sri Lanka and London, and he insisted I use his driver to get to my next destination. As that was a coffee shop it was a bit embarassing ( my next meeting wasn’t for another hour) but still I can’t say I didnt enjoy the experience.

A disappointment this week was that the volunteer who was coming to replace me has been diagnosed with a serious illness and can’t come. This of  course led to my colleagues asking me if I could stay longer.  Hopefully VSO will find another one soon and hopefully we won’t lose too much ground. As I’ve said a number of times its a great pity that this wasn’t my first placement. This week as well as doing a couple of funding applications I’ve worked on some new job descriptions and I am going to help them do their work plan for the project they have this year.

The presidential election continues to be hotly contested, there are sometimes 3 0r 4 big adverts in the newspapers daily and although there are rules about the amount of money being spent, political parties accounts don’t have to be audited so there’s no check.

There are lots of fly posting. The one below is quite interesting.  The background to it is that the president held an event on International Day of Disabled People in December  for about 4000 people. The main photo of it in the state newspaper showed the president giving something to a disabled man, who had no legs and was sitting on the floor, his wheelchair clearly visible in the background. The members of DOJF were outraged at the lack of respect, especially the treasurer who is a supporter of Fonseka and knows his media coordinator. This poster shows the offending situation with the president and Fonseka talking to a disabled person in an wheelchair. Good to see disability featured even in a point scoring situation

There was some frivolity this week. Eve had a lunch last Sunday for some of the new volunteers in Colombo. As usual they seem a great bunch, but now we are near the end of our placement its hard to tune into their concerns and issues, it feels a decade ago that we arrrived instead of 17 months. Here are a few pictures they are another international bunch from left to right John, a Ugandan, Lieve,a Belgian woman who has lived in Holland for 30 year,Alison, from UK and Nadia, American of Bangladeshi heritage.

Domestic Joe shown above

Eve’s flat has featured on the blog before. On first sight its like a loft apartment in a northern city. Second sight its got a few drawbacks, especially the slatted concrete area that covers a dining area of the flat below. So they can hear you and you can hear them, concepts of privacy are so different, at least we’ve got a door that we can shut from our balcony area that goes into downstair’s house.

My week (joe) has been a bit flat in some respects. Last weekend the organisation moved offices. I went in on Monday but theplace looked like a bomb site and I quickly came to the conclusion that I was just getting in the way and went home to work from there.  One of the good things about the new place is that I can actually walk there – it’s about 20 minutes(which is about my limit in the Colombo climate most of the time).  It was a slightly tidied up bomb site on Tuesday but I stayed at the office. There was no internet access, but I was able to use my mobile internet dongle so I was able to get on and start to catch up with all the things that had just been left because of the amount of organisation and time that went into organising the Jaffna event.  The office remained without internet access all week-which stymied productive activity for a number of people.

I found myself getting very irritated with the way in which the space in the new premises has been used. They haven’t given it very much thought. I’ve been fighting with myself all week – trying (and failing sometimes) not to say anything, as I won’t be here much longer.  In the end, to do something more positive, I took a tape measure, measured the three main rooms and then drew a scale plan of the rooms and the furniture so that the different layout possibilities could at least be explored with some confidence.  I’m not sure whether anything will happen before I leave.

I think the rest of the staff were a bit flat as well. I think they were missing, to some extent, the buzz provided by organising a big event. Secondly, the CEO has now left and they were feeling her loss – the person taking over is already here but he can’t devote himself fully  to the organisation until the beginning of February. So, we were in a new office and lots of decisions need to be taken and they are missing the direction that she would give. Then the lack of internet and having workmen putting in network and power connections all week made it difficult to be productive much of the time.  So, I bought cake on Friday – someone who had been working temporarily on the event was leaving – and I just thought we needed a cake day.

On Wednesday I went with the guy taking over to see a potential funder. The Director for the Asia Pacific region was visiting and we were granted an audience. It’s an American organisation that was started under the Reagan administration to push the vitues of private enterprise and democracy. So, you can imagine how thrilled I was to be talking to them.  The director guy (who is based in Washington DC) emphasised the competitive nature of their grants and that they really looked for ‘innovative’ projets.  I did think about just punching him in the face but my upbringing got the better of me.  These people have no **** idea about what development means. Talk about American Imperialism! (Joe’s slowly subsides to the floor frothing at the mouth)…………..

That’s better, I can feel the tablets having an effect.

So, by Friday, when I found out that I had to go to another meeting with an INGO that has been a big funder for the organisation, I was better prepared. This meeting was to talk about developing a Concept Paper for the Australian aid agency. They, of course, are looking for innovative projects as well , but they do have a more developed sense of what development is all about. They are also talking about three years of funding, with an optional two year extension if things are going well.  So we need to go after this in a big way – but it is a real uphill struggle – crumbs from the rich man’s table is always the image that comes into my mind.

Next week is bound to be better – after all, we have to hibernate on Tuesday and Wednesday, because of the election(VSO technical term meaning we can’t go out of our accommodation)  – so I’ll be spending 48 hours in close proximity to Carol. What could possibly go wrong with that sort of a week?

As I’ve got to start and finish a report in two days there is plenty of room for things going pearshaped, but where can I banish him to, with three rooms and temperatures in the 30s, I may have to resort to the tablets again.

One plus of the election campaign is that it has been possible to talk to ordinary Sri Lankans about politics and people are willing to discuss which of the two main candidates they will be voting for ( although there are 22 in total) There is a lot of mud slinging going on most of which is in sinhala papers so hard for us to know about it. There is sporadic violence outside Colombo and one woman was killed after two gunmen shot at a bus going to a Fonseka rally ( opposition to the current president) Lets hope thats as bad as it gets, although there is still over a week to go.

My most interesting experience this week was talking to one of the board members who is the Sri Lankan country focal point for the Ban Land Mine Campaign. I am working with him to develop a proposal on survivor assistance in the north and met up so that I could understand a little more about the context. He has had both legs amputed as a result of the war. I asked him whether he was on duty when it happened and he was able to tell me very openly about his experience. Partly because its now about 18 years ago, and also as a leading campaigner he is used to telling his story in public forums. His injuries were actually a result of a mortar which fell between him and his ‘buddy’ as he described it. He got the force in his back and so survived his friend died beside him because the force hit him in the front.

He is very fortunate because he was in the airforce ( not sure why they were on the ground at that time) and he receives full salary until he is 50 and then a pension just as if he was still on active service. For him the most important thing for survivor assistance is peer support. Obviously professional medical and therapy help is important, but another person with the same experience is the expert on the daily living challenges. He said it took him five years to ‘recover’ mentally. It just gives an indication of the healing that is need in Sri Lanka post war,  aboutwhich certainly the government seems to be totally unaware.

It was Thai Pongol this week a Hindu festival for Harvest time so a holiday. There wasnt much evidence on the streets as like many such festivals its celebrated at home except for lots of large sugar canes on sale on the streets of Wellawatte

Last Friday we met up with the rest of our ‘batch’ of volunteers. Could be for the last time as a group. Nathini is going home end of February and Fiona who is now doing paid work at an INGO – Internews will be finished in June, Jenny in August.

Sunday we went to a jazz concert with Podi ( sarah) . Billed in advance as a musician who had played in Las Vegas for Frank Sinatra- we had high expectations as we had paid 1000 each. They were quickly dashed as it started two hours late which even by Sri Lankan standards is late. It was in a mews outside an up market restaurant, but it was a separate bar – more expensive than the restuarant and they wouldnt serve filter water! We felt well and truly ripped off. The audience seemed to be very much the Colombo incrowd with a smattering of expats. I think we were out of our league – we’ll stick to the free jazz at Barefoot from now on! The jazz was a bit tedious as well. Bongos, drums and keyboards make a poor combination in my view – too little variety in the sound. I could drone on about it but I satisfied myself by putting a critical comment on their Facebook site.

One last thing. A new shop has sprung up at the bottom of our lane. There was one there before – selling short eats and advertising internet phone calls but I never saw anyone in there. Now it’s an electrical repair shop – repairing all sorts of things going by the notice . There are a couple of classic spelling errors in here (you will have to click on the photo to show it full size):-

OH, and Friday there was an annular  eclipse. I vaguely remember reading about it weeks ago but had then forgotten all about it.  I was working from home on Friday as the office is moving and Carol came home around midday. Shortly afterwards I thought it was beginning to cloud over with storm clouds and remakred on this to Carol. But when I looked there were no clouds but the sky definitely had a darker hue. About 15 minutes later Carol remembered about the eclipse but it was too late then.  Better luck next time. Oh dear, that will be in 3043 – another event of the millenium that has largely passed us by. We’ll get over it. Then, we went to our singing group today. One of the songs they sang was a singhala one that related to the previous eclipse in 1955. The song was composed because a lot of people took an ayurvedic concoction during the eclipse on the understanding that it would make them lighter-skinned. Many of them ended up in hospital and then a popular song was written about it.