Sick in Sri Lanka

After four days of being sick, my cough had not let up, so in a paranoid state that I have some crazy Sri Lankan disease I agreed to see the doctor.

So I am picturing going to a doctors office, waiting in line for half an hour, signing in, waiting another hour before I see him or her and then getting my prescription to take to a pharmacy where it will be documented on my file and the doctor's details confirmed.

But apparently I'm not in Sidney anymore. I walked 10 steps to the neighbour's house (Pathi`s niece is a doctor), had a prescription 5 minutes later and went to the pharmacy 2 minutes away to wait 2 more min while he gathered together the meds. So the total process was about 10 minutes from the time I wanted drugs till the time I had them. And how much it costs for 2 kinds of antibiotics, a throat rinse and a cough syrup.... 6 bucks.

Haha, so accessing pharmaceuticals is the one system that is efficient here... hmmm... oh, good for me!

PS I'm feeling better already!

questions

The Pathi's were in Colombo this weekend so Madhu slept over last night. She is such a sweetie. We made Dhal and pasta and I helped her with her resume. In the morning, simply out of habit, she ironed my clothes and made my bed! She is used to living in a boarding room with 12 other girls and just 6 beds! And because she has a job while the others are still students she is the one who buys home rice and curry for the other girls to eat.

She is very good at English so I could chat with her ”very well,” as they say. The girls and Nilhu often say, after chatting with me, "oooh, we cover lot." I think they are used to discussing food, family and clothes, not arranged marriage, oppression and corruption. But because I am not here for long I have to cover a lot of ground so I get right in there with the sensitive topics. I know I can't change the culture but if I can give one girl even a spark of insight maybe they will develop a slightly more liberal way of seeing things, just as they have taught me a more united way to see things.

But these girls know that their culture is not the only way, and they know that in some cases it is not the best way, and still they respond to every issue with, “this is our culture.” Sometimes I think it is not unawareness I am fighting but their adamant belief in fate.

I feel like I have made some headway with one girl. Even as a University educated woman she says that it is a woman’s fault if she is sexually assaulted...what was she wearing & why was she walking alone? And if someone is abused by her husband she should be working harder to take away the alcohol and to create a “happy” family. But I think what she says is different from what she believes because I think she knows from experience that the “happy family concept” they teach is more condescending than helpful. She is just afraid to voice her opinion here about that to Sir.

Where many of our Universities teach you about how to challenge authority these teachers are still just coming in & lecturing facts without posing or answering any questions. During class my friend worked at INDECOS and would get filled in by her classmates later. She says she is very lucky to be able to get this job with INDECOS because many people from the village do not have these opportunities. She also had help from her brothers so she is now thinking about helping them as they come from a home with no water or electricity. By the way, not only is she trying to help her school friends, her mother, and her brothers, she is also sponsoring a girl she met from a far away village to go to University because the girl reminded her of herself. There is just no end to the generosity with some folks here.

She is also very eager because I told her if we wrote the story of these girls with pictures I could make a brochure to bring back to Canada to find sponsors. I know through World Vision sponsoring a child is $35 a month because a lot of that is going to the organization but because INDECOS doesn’t take any of the money, supporting these students would only cost $6 a month, or $60.00 for the year!

A New Years Without Champagne

It’s the main day of New Years and I am quietly sitting in my room reading “An Open Heart,” by the Dali Lama (someone who the Sri Lankans don’t seem too impressed by, I think he has opened up their more traditional style of Buddhism). It is an auspicious time now so I cannot eat again for 6 hours, drink even water in the house, or do any work. The big event this evening will be boiling milk over a fire on the kitchen floor.
There are no broken glass or champagne covered ceilings at this New Years, folks!
Anyway, over the four days we have many visitors and have also make visits to the houses of close friends. There you exchange gifts (like Christmas) & eat 'sweets and tings.' I have already accumulated a bit of a belly so hopefully after these four days I won't be 10 pounds heavier!!!
I also found a guitar so I have been shaking up the old music circle with a little Jewel and a little Van.
Anyway, my biggest epiphany of the trip came when I gave them their gifts. After all the meals they had given me and all the gifts along the way- not to mention the New Years dress Pearl had made for me and the jewellery from Aiyaa- still when I gave them a piece of clothing each they said “oh, you have spent too much!”
But the best part was when they opened the poem and note I wrote for them with a laminated with a photo of us. “Yup. Together before the birt,” Pearl said “that’s why I’m like dis” pointing to the tears.
That’s when I realized I am Buddhist because I also believe that I’ve been here before.

A Friday and Full of Epiphanies

Guy’s gone now. He taught me HTML and I helped him create the website by supplying the content. Now that he is gone, I will finish it. But you can check it out now: http://www.indecos.com/
Always good to talk to a fellow Canadian. Had so many epiphanies while he was here. We were talking to Kamani from INDECOS about the divorce question and she said she always hears her neighbours fighting and I asked “in a case like this do you think that divorce is ok?” and she gave the usual diversion “this is our culture.”
I realized right there that the INDECOS powerpoint that I had seen earlier for the “Stop Violence against Women” program had meant what I was afraid it meant. It had advised the women to “face challenges” which at the time I had hoped meant to leave the man despite family pressures but now I have discovered meant to stay with the man, even if he is beating you. “We tell them to be nicer to their husbands,” Pearl told me when I asked her about it today, “we think it is better for a child to have a bad father than no father.”
The lawyer who spoke to them was not telling them that they can get a divorce if they need to but just telling them about their human rights so that they would try to change the situation, not leave it.
Guy had spent 6 years in Africa and thinks that the women’s situation is generally much worse here, even though he said that the men in Guinea would tell each other that they must beat their wives once a week to keep them in check. As we learned in the orientation, the violence here is not necessarily physical, but more mental, and I can see this in the way that women’s over-dependency.
Nilu told me last week that she has to ask Pathi before she does anything. She will text him at the bank to ask if she can go and buy eggs or visit a friend. Sometimes he texts back saying “no.”
“Why?” I asked and she told me “because there are many problems like love affairs in Sri Lanka.” And when she states love affairs as her explanation for this obsessive male dominance she does not even mean cheating. When they say affair they simply mean a relationship in which the parents have not picked and/or approved of the spouse.
What we call a fiancé is what they call boyfriend/ girlfriend and what we call a girlfriend or boyfriend is what they call an affair. So, she is basically saying that because girls want to date, and the fact that she was set up with a traditional proposal where she did not know Pathi, he will never trust her and so must exhibit is control around the clock to make himself feel powerful.
And as I sit in shock, taking this all in, Nilhu says with her usual giggle, “what to do, no?” and I realize that she is a 38 year old little girl.

Busy, busy

CEO of WUSC came so we went camping and on a safari in Udawalawe National Park. So fantastic! Saw so many elephants and the beautiful green park. Sat around camp fire but had no marshmallows.
This week I have a new volunteer here who I’ve been helping to gather the content for creating the website. It’s great to have someone here to hang out with and again I have again been un-srilankanized, ie. eating out, shopping and walking about and even drinking a beer!
Yesterday and today have been New Years celebrations with the children. So great! So busy, though! And PS We finally got ADSL now! Woot woot!

Here are a few pics from today...

Only one month left  and so many ideas

I can’t believe I only have four weeks left. The time has been just flying by and there is still so much I want to do – particularly at INDECOS. I have been doing many little things- taught powerpoint class on Tuesday, giving help with resume & created brochures, a newsletter and some reports. But what I want to do most is write the proposal for the Women’s Entrepreneurship Program which they want to extend another year- to end in March 2010.
The WEP program started with the goal to benefit Tsunami affected women. The current funders are CIDA and Berindina but their contract expires in March so they want to extend it. These women who have skills like making pillow cases or floor mats are given business training and can receive loans with a only a small amount of interest. The program is so good because it’s so practical- the women actually learn how to find a market and sell the products. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to find a market in poor villages and they don’t have any connections to the city. One volunteer actually started a store in Kandy a few years ago and it has been very successful for the women there. It would be ideal if we could start sending the products up there or even eventually start a store here in Matara one day!
Yes, I have many ideas. I am also thinking about whether I could send some products to Canada to sell. A wall decoration that would be about $20 in Colombo would only be $2 here so I think even after the shipping and such you could still sell it at a decent price in Canada. I could sell some stuff at the Sidney sidewalk sale, See if 10,000 Villages needs a new connection, or even Start my own store! The wheels are turning.

Anyway, one thing at a time. If I can get the proposal written then they can get the funding they need to continue the program and get to a point where they can run it without support.
Today the WUSC CEO is coming from Canada so it should be interesting to meet him! And, this weekend us volunteers and such are going to Tasks in Udawalawe.
P.S. I know have 5 saris, 2 cotton ones for comfort, 2 wedding ones for quality and 1 silk one which is more casual and will be good in Canada. I might trade the cotton ones with Madhu because they’re not as pretty for her cheaper and older, but nicer looking, ones.