Women and Children First

We woke up early brimming with energy!  Today was the day that the ball would begin rolling and we would finally be able to help the Moraketiara School with their promised Sports Field.  Our mission for the day was to help clear the thistles and shrubbery that lead up to the sports field site so that future work could be done.  Unfortunately we were overbooked–Erin and Claudia were teaching first thing at the Preschool and Dirk was offered a one-time chance to see the Co-op bank to see how their loan system worked–but me, Jagruti and Olivia were free and more than happy to get stuck in (even though none of us knew the first thing about manual labour and field-clearing).  Oh well, off we trot.

On arriving at the school we were shocked at what we saw.  We were under the impression that there would be machinery and professional builders to help with our plight but instead there were only women (mostly middle-aged or older) and young boys from the school (mostly grades 6 and 7).  There weren’t any men involved in the clearing, no machinery and no protection for the workers.  Children swung machetes willy-nilly at eye-level; young boys pulled up the roots of thorn-covered thistles without any protective gloves; people hacked at the ground near their feet without any shoes on.  The scene was awful and even though we were assured that this is typical in Sri Lanka and it was nothing to be concerned with, we were not comfortable with the sight of these exhausted women and unsafe children.  Not to say that I wanted to wave my Western Flag and ,liberate’ all the ,oppressed workers’; I don’t think it would be fair to judge how different cultures do things but the fact that this had our name (Project Sri Lanka) written all over it and we were  under the impression that our money paid for machinary left us with a lot of unanswered questions.  Also, I am sure that the workers wouldn’t have minded some protective gloves or shoes even if this was contrary to what they usually do.  Olivia and Jagruti went looking for an explaination and I got mucked in, hoe in hand.  I was later told by the boys that there was a snakes nest in the middle of where we were aimlessly hacking as well as biting insects, stinging nettles and water pipes (which we only found out after one of the children broke it with his machete).  Two men came and pointed at one point but apart from that, no supervision was given to the young boys with their sharp tools.

One and a half hours later everybody was exhausted.

Postscript to this tale: The manual labour involving women and children was immediately halted once those responsible for the operation heard of the local people’s involvement in this way. Heavy machinery was brought on to the site to do the clearing. The area is now cleared effectively as can be seen in the photograph on the 2010 gallery page of this Moraketiara section  of the website.

Anyhow, we went home and I decided to go for a dip in the sea.  The waves were too rough so I came back early.  On the way back I saw a massive lizard (no joke) the size of an alligator!  An alligator!!!  Just sitting in the middle of the road!  It looked like a rival to Godzilla!  I almost screamed like the mum does in Tom and Jerry.

 We went back to Moraketiara School to teach grades three and four.  We taught colours, animals and played Simon Says and the Hokey Kokey, not really new ground for the children but they enjoyed the lesson and left smiling.

 We then went down the road to the CCF School where me and Erin taught a class each.  Erin taught the preschool children more parts of the body, played games, sung songs and learned more colours and animals and I taught the secondary school pupils the basics in answering questions using the word ,because’ and showed them how to describe themselves in full sentences.