Teachers on the Move - Sri Lanka

Phil Moran, Mary Kyne, Mary Howley, Christina O Malley
Memorial to the tsunami victims 2004
Ever since the tsunami hit Sri Lanka Christmas 2004 I have wanted to visit that magical island and see at first hand how these brave courageous people coped with such a tragic disaster.  Mary Howley, Phil Moran, Christian O Malley and I set off on a great adventure. Our hotel was situated on one of the beaches that were swamped with gigantic waves on that fateful morning 2004. Many fishing villages and beach guesthouses were virtually wiped out. Now they are being rebuilt quickly with the aid of foreign investment. People have been re-housed and the areas badly affected are now prospering. Even on a mild day the huge waves thunder and roar as the mighty sand laden surf pounds the shore. We sat on he edge of the powerful dangerous surf with strong undercurrents and marveled at the sheer beauty of the Indian Ocean.

and spices. In the south of the country, men clad in traditional saram fish from wooden perches in the shallow waters. Many fishermen live close to the shore in thatched or wrought iron roofed poorly constructed shacks. 
Women keep them as tidy as they can by continually sweeping around them with long handled brooms – an impossible task, as there is sand and dust in every nook and cranny.

Women selling fish on the beach.
Sri Lanka is a tropical island in the Indian Ocean, 850km north of the equator with a population of 20million people. Sri Lanka means ‘blessed island”. They are a peaceful, enlightened multiethnic democracy, an India without the crushing social problems. European invaders Portuguese, Dutch and British exploited Ceylon, as it was known until 1972, for its deep ports, spices and gems. Britain granted independence to Ceylon in 1948 leaving behind a passion for cricket  - every child seems to carry a cricket bat!  Cricket as a sport is a big money spinner and has opened many channels of opportunity and created many new developments because of the money it creates.

The children are charming with big wide welcoming smiles as they make their way home from school in immaculate white uniforms. Health care and education is free including books, tuition, transport and uniforms. All children are given 500g of grain per day enough to feed three persons. They take the grain home and cook it to their own taste and then they bring the grain - rice, sago, semolina and tapioca to school in their lunch boxes. Education is compulsory until they are 15 when they take the G.C. E. exam in 10 subjects one being a religion of their choice. They must score 350 marks out of 400 to be guaranteed free education at University. It is compulsory to give 3 years service to the state on graduation.

Social welfare support is minimal. People are given coupons instead of rupees. Cottage industries thrive in this economy. People sell goods surplus to requirement in make shift shacks and huts along the road. They sell fruit, vegetables, flowers, grain, oils and spices, wood carved items, clothes, nuts in recycled bags from children’s copies, cooked food like corn cooked in big terracotta pots for weary travelers, clay pots and car body parts etc. They are a resilient people.

We traveled inland to Habarana through the rainforest plantations of ebony, teak, mahogany, rubber, coconut and banana groves and outside the forest we saw the wide expanse of rice ‘paddies’. Sowing rice is labour intensive so there were large numbers of workers in the fields – clearing, up-rooting old roots and weeds, reclaiming new fields, ploughing with hand tractors (once ploughed with water buffalo), others building dams to stagnate the waters and then regulate its flow while others planted tiny rice plants. Invariably the workers were followed by flocks of egrets, ibis, herons, pelican, stork and other birds all blending together in this magical paradise with huge heavily vegetated mountains towering in the background. We saw an eagle attack the eggs of a magpie on the edge of a rice field while the agitated magpie flew furiously back and forth.
Rice is the stable food taken with chicken, meat, fish and vegetable curries flavoured with a rich variety of spices. Sri Lankans like their curries “HOT”. We made lentil curry in a terracotta pot over an open fire and served it with a delicious green leaf salad.
We found it odd that the people eat with their fingers to mix and eat their food.

Elephants played a big part on our trip. We rode them, washed them in the river, encountered them in the wild in Yalla National Park when on safari but our greatest thrill was to visit them at Pinnawela Elephant Orphange – home to many abandoned or injured elephants. We sat on rocks and watched up to 30 elephants with their young calves splash and paddle in the wide river. Young boys carrying long poles herded and checked any excessive exuberance on their part. The elephants to our surprise urged on by a call from their minders gathered together on the bank of the river, made their way up a walk way, past shops and across a main road to fields. Here they were given green vegetation to eat.
Surprise! surprise! elephants’ ‘pooh’ is recycled into paper. It is first dried to remove the odour after which is left a fibre clean and perfect. It is soaked in water, rolled and made into a pulp. The pulp is spooned into a large tray and dipped in water and it forms a white film on the tray. Finally it is dried and put through a roller and makes the finest of recycled paper.

A visit to Sri Lanka would not be complete without a visit to the 5th century Aukana Buddha cut out of a huge rock or the ancient city of Anuradhapura – a sprawling complex of temples, Dagoba being the most famous. Here we saw the oldest historically authenticated tree in the world over 2,000 years old – Sri Maha Bodhi Tree.
Aukana Buddha

We climbed 1,200 steps up the massive rock of Sigiriya a historic site with associations with both clergy and royalty and hidden in the jungle until 1898. The rock has natural caves, shelters, magnificent frescos and rock overhangs. King Kassapo built a splendid palace with swimming pool and gardens on the summit in the 5th century after over throwing and murdering his own father. The imposing rock rises sheer and mysterious from the jungle. The views from the summit were amazing. The climb with a lot of panting and puffing in the stifling heat was worth the effort.
Dambulla a royal rock temple, a place of worship for Buddist pilgrims, was thronged when we visited it. Pilgrims brought offerings of fruit, flowers, rice and made donations to the saffron dressed monks. There are five separated caves at this temple housing over 150 Buddha statues.

We drove to Kandy home to the sacred tooth of

Buddha, Sri Lanka’s holiest object. The relic rests in a gilded temple by a tree–lined lake, where thousands of pilgrims a day peer through a small window at the golden casket that holds the tooth. The tooth was taken from the pyre of Buddha in India. In the 4th century an Indian Princess brought the tooth to Sri Lanka by hiding it in her hair. We visited the museum and the library containing hundreds of manuscripts bearing the teachings of Buddha. The Tamil Tigers in 1998 during the civil war drove a lorry of explosives into the temple grounds with 500kg of bombs. The area around the shrine was shattered but the shrine of the tooth was untouched.

Rice Paddies.
Tea Plantation
We climbed 6.000 feet into spectacular green hillsides, rushing waterfalls and tea plantations offering spectacular views into deep terraced cultivated valleys. As we wound our way up into the clouds the forest canopy was left far below us. Words to describe this paradise of stunning views are inadequate. The tea plantations introduced from China by Scotsman John Taylor in 1837 after the failure of the coffee crop grow on the high slopes. The plant doesn’t like water logging and is grown in rich nitrogen soil which enhances the flavour. We visited a tea factory where we saw the whole process of tea making. The women workers work extremely hard in dusty, hot conditions, as do the pickers on the slopes. The paltry wage is the equivalent of 3euro per day when they pick 18kg of leaf. Ceylon tea takes premium positioning in its auction prices globally yet the Tamil tea pickers wages remain low. Compulsory pensions and funeral expenses erode already low wages. There is no mechanical way yet to pick the leaf and many hardworking pickers live in substandard housing.  
Traditional wedding dress.

The diversity of landscape, people, golden sands, mountains piercing the skies over 2,500m high, virgin jungle and bush merging into green fields are the charms of Sri Lanka. We had a memorable time, lots of laughter and fun, a knowledgeable guide, careful bus driver and attendant who assisted us in every way possible. As we bade farewell to the people who have been bruised by their past oppressors and many natural disasters we wish prosperity and blessings on the whole community
“Ayu Bowan”.