John Rose - Journal
johnrrose34@hotmail.com
Journal Entries: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
Fishing in Sri Lanka
The tsunami struck the coast, where the principal local industry is fishing. Fishing folk are independent minded and not, as we understand it, well represented by a trade union. Most of them do not own their boats and are not well enough taught to save money. They normally therefore work for others who own the boats and share profits with them, on a fifty-fifty basis after expenses (of perhaps 30%). All the traditional boats are heavy and difficult to tow and maneuver – indeed there appear to be no winches or ramps or rollers anywhere. Motor boats, preferably lighter weight, are much preferred, and can spend much longer at sea, and fish in much further and deeper waters. We understand that PIM (Institute of Management at the University), with whom we were much impressed at our meeting, are just starting a project to build fiber glass boats. We do not know if the boat owners were covered by insurance or not, or if or when they will be recompensed by insurance companies or the government. The fishermen's need is for boats now, so that they can return to sea, earn money for themselves and their families, and overcome the gloom and depression that obviously afflict them as they sit in their temporary accommodation – perhaps only tents – with nothing to do but survey the devastation around them (including the foundations and other remains of their own homes), and try to come to terms with the horrendous loss of life they have suffered.
We are interested in the two communities near Galle which we first encountered in December, one principally Buddhist, the second Muslim. We would propose to buy boats for each community in turn, the strong opinion having been firmly expressed to us that we should focus on boats rather than the fans, gas cookers, cupboards, etc. which would make life so much more tolerable in the short run.
The cost of a motorboat is about $5,000, with $4,000 for a full set of different nets. We understand the deposit on each order to be about one third, i.e. $1,700 per boat. Traditional wooden boats cost as little as $450 (I am not certain of these figures) and their five nets $350: they can be operated just by two fishermen. One motor boat can be used by only five fishermen (and if these were to change periodically we were told they might not be motivated to maintain them too well).
We have total confidence in our Colombo lawyer priest, Father Noel Dias, and in our Galle Catholic nun, Sister Alex. They have agreed to become legal owners of any boats we can buy, and to make the difficult decision of choosing which five (or two) families should run them.
The present proposal is that these families should receive a much lower than usual percentage of the profits after expenses, the remaining proportion (perhaps as much as 70%), being distributed by Sister Alex as fairly as possible to the rest of the community without income, or to make outright grants or micro-start up grants to them.
Thus the first $9,000 would go for a boat and nets to the Lovigahawaththa community (she has already received $2,000 from us, and we have promised to produce another $7,000 very quickly, the first boat thus having been ordered at the lowest price she can find), and the second to the other (CGR) community, and so on.
The first community, of 220, has suffered 72 deaths and total destruction of all but 3 houses. The second lost every house but one and I do not know how many deaths it suffered. Both have lost nearly all their boats, leaving the many fishermen, the vast majority in the community, without any source of income or work.
We will receive regular advice from Sister Alex, who knows both communities well and lives very close to them in Galle. Both communities in turn, we know, have full confidence in Sister Alex.
I'm not sure if today is really yesterday – it certainly was, as we crossed the dateline.
I have now read all the other journal entries on the web site and I am impressed. They are interesting, and useful I think, at least to us, since they will jog our memories of a plethora of different people and places in our very crowded schedule. I have never been a typist or a computer (or even a mobile phone) user, but I now see some at least of their uses, so I must try again, despite so many failed New Year resolutions. Would anyone volunteer to teach the basics to a helpless old man?
The ideal will be short sentences to speed my one finger – to be truthful other people's competent eight plus two – typing. I have kept a diary (journal) since about 1941, with a page per day, but it is the most eventful days that do not get recorded till it is too late and all, or much, forgotten. At my age that begins very quickly indeed.
I have written two longer pieces to try – an abject failure no doubt – to emulate my wife's flowing and erudite prose style and her felicity of phrase. Her two pieces have been published by the News and Observer (the first in Sri Lanka also) and have been read fairly widely. Mine will lurk humbly on this web site. I shall be pleased if anyone reads them to the end. If anyone offers any money, for boats, a school, or orphanage as a result, how thrilled I would be! Or even if they would just email me at johnrrose34@hotmail.com.
Sri Lanka in March is hot and humid, so it is refreshing to take a cold shower or even a swim in a tepid pool. In Galle a mosquito net is a must, it seems, though no mosquitoes attacked me. They all went for Kelly, and who can blame them? Our (Betty's and my) bedroom in Galle was probably the original owner's bedroom – 1858 sea captain – and contained a wonderful old bed and furniture (carved with P & O rising sun crest) and had a high ceiling and no exterior windows or air conditioning. It suited me and I hated changing it for a modern characterless air conditioned room, though we now had a fine sea view. That cruel sea is beautiful.
The devastation as we drove south was terrible to see. The crumpled train, to be preserved as a reminder of how the tsunami claimed 1000 lives on it, was particularly evocative. It couldn't be more apt or poignant, appearing so strong yet in fact no protection whatever – indeed the opposite – against the waves. We saw many impressive and moving processions to mark the 3 month "anniversary." Everywhere we saw and waved to, or met, polite, clean, well-dressed, and well- behaved school children, mostly in the regular uniform of white. They certainly continue to smile, despite the pain.
Among my favorite scenes, showing how life goes on more or less normally for most: brides and bridesmaids (and grooms, but they are less exciting to look at, at least for me) at elegant weddings or homecomings a week later (after some sort of traditional pilgrimage for Buddhists). Kandyan dancers, graceful and exotic – both sexes! Hotel employees, courteous and friendly, some with such humble jobs as regular collection of dropping frangipani and bougainvillea leaves and flowers, particularly near pools.
Favorite mottoes at one of the schools temporarily in temple grounds, not always translated into the best – or even understandable – English: "don't believe a man for his external," "one who bears dhamma is protected by dhamma"(i.e. practices religion), "behave well." They all do.
We met, and had particularly useful conversations, with a highly impressive and, I think, authoritative Deputy Speaker in Parliament, obviously busy yet apparently unhurried, as many highly important people often are. Alas, the civil servants in the Ministry for Women's Affairs – all men it seemed – were less impressive. The law faculty at Colombo (Bandaranaika) University were competent and very helpful. Professor Father Noel Dias (coincidentally a Catholic priest who knew our favorite nun in Galle, so close to our fishing community near the hotel – Lovigahawaththa – and in close touch with it) chaired the meeting, and the students charmed us. Indeed four (not at the meeting) accompanied us on our trip south. The grieving head of this community was obviously sincere, honest and competent, despite losing his home and most of his family.
We were most impressed of all, perhaps, with the post-graduate Institute of Management at the University (PIM), amazingly efficient and well organized, with a dynamic and forceful leader.
We learned everywhere that nothing is as simple as it seems. Bribery, corruption, and dishonesty are rife, and it is dangerous to trust almost anyone.
"Strike while the iron is hot" seemed the right message, since the need is now. So many need help urgently with jobs. The government is helping as best it can with housing, complicated and political as the issue has become, with the 100 metre no rebuilding zone controversial and beyond rigid enforcement, even if it becomes law. Let's hope that corruption and inefficiency do not hold back the government's relief efforts too much.
The long suffering and mostly poor fishermen and their families – for it is they who mostly lived so close to the sea and were so devastated – are complaining minimally and being as patient as they can possibly be. They deserve our help and they deserve it now.
March 30: another day, another walk. 7:15 a.m. on an overcast but very warm day, and the main beach going north to Colombo, from our large and delightful hotel. Last time (December 27th) this beach was covered with flotsam and debris of every sort. Would it be cleaned up? Would all traces of the devastation be gone?
"Please keep our beach tidy," read the signs posted every 100 yards or so in English and Singhalese. Behind the beach, behind a line of buildings, runs the main railway line from Colombo to Galle, and every few minutes a train rumbles by, powered with diesel engines, and absolutely crammed with people, many clinging on at the open doors for dear life: but life can be cheap, as we all know, and at least there is no one on the roof, as there would often be in India. They are mostly commuters going uncomfortably and dangerously to a day's work, poorly paid, no doubt. And the fare is cheap: about 50c all the way to Galle, I was told, a journey of 72 miles that now takes up to 4 hours – it used to take 2, so no progress yet there: in France or Spain an express train (TGV) can go at more than 150 mph.
Still some rubbish, old clothes, and pieces of plastic, rubber tires, shoes, glass. These things, too, are in their own way tsunami survivors, now unclaimed, unwanted. Local people, middle class mostly, walk briskly for exercise, or amble, some standing for calisthenics, some dogs, mostly with mange, and some puppies, playful and ignorantly optimistic for their future. Very few on leads or with obvious owners. A veterinarian could do so much good here!
The beach restaurants remain mostly damaged and devoid of furniture, but I am told that the two storey one where we ate dinner on 25 December will be open from 11 a.m. until midnight. Good, I would like to eat dinner there tonight, our last night, to express solidarity and bring in at least a little business. The beach here is almost totally clean, with several people raking the sand and sweeping, as they do in so many of the tourist resorts of the world.
And so I walk briskly north towards the fishermen and their boats. They are folding their nets, some carrying their catch to a central point where a small group of potential purchasers surveys the catch. It is a market, perhaps new or perhaps on the very same patch of sand every day for years or decades or even centuries – who knows? There are some varied and fine fish, with names that hardly do them justice: seer fish, black prompat, mullet. There are also more dogs here, and many crows, the black scavengers that may irritate but certainly perform a necessary function. Little goes to waste on this beach.
The fish are beautiful and freshly caught. I am offered a large one for $5 but I have to refuse. I suspect the fisherman would sell it for $1. I love fish alive, and dead I love to eat them. I hope they had a happy life before their rather undignified death and sale, and suspect in their fishy way they did.
The boats themselves look more or less intact and undamaged, though paint- battered by time and the waves. They are certainly less pretty than when they are seen from a distance. Many carry lights for night fishing, many have their attendant crows, which squawk, survey the scene, and ever practical, survey the food possibilities. The boats often bear the same names, "blue star" or "Colombo marine," indicating I think a common owner. Few fishermen, we have learned, own their boats: they work them and, after expenses, share profits with the owners. All the boats look very heavy, and indeed I count 14 men trying to pull one boat down to the sea. I am good humouredly asked to help them, but have to explain that my heart is weak. Some shrug their shoulders, but I think they understand. Why does no one have a simple winch or rollers?
The really sad sight is behind, bordering the railway line. Wives and children washing, cleaning their teeth, going about their daily routine, as I suspect they always have, outside and in semi public. A long row of damaged homes, hovels really, with walls more often than not intact, and with corrugated iron roofs. Tiny rooms for families of four or more. No electricity, I am told, but is that possible when one family has a TV aerial? Washing hanging everywhere. These are clean people, proud of their cleanliness in appalling conditions. Shared water taps, and, I am sure, no functioning toilets. Those, surely filthy before, at least existed, but they were the nearest structures to the ocean and were washed away by the tsunami. But not away, because rubble and detritus are everywhere.
There has been no effort to clear up anything. I suspect that the local authorities have refused to help because they want the people to move (a tourist eyesore and a valuable spot for more hotels and restaurants), and because the community is badly organized (fishermen are notoriously independent), not because it is lazy and demoralized. A naked boy urinates in full view without shame or reprimand. Cats scavenge but more shyly than the ubiquitous and raucous crows.
I start back. Several shouts of "good morning sir" of the sort I like – not obsequious or begging, just friendly. A particular dog, which I noticed earlier, more energetic and practical than most, digs a remarkably large and deep hole, and lies in it proudly. He is definitely the king of his inverted, and presumably cool and comfortable, castle.
And so back to the hotel. The security guard welcomes me, opens the gate and returns my shoes and room key. I assume he is grateful for at least a little activity after an incident free and boring night His job is to let out the occasional walking guest – I think I am the first today – but, more importantly, to keep out all the local people. If I were one of them I'm pretty sure I would be tempted to enter, reach around and steal from the rooms of the guests, who appear to be and are, relatively if not absolutely, so affluent. I suspect that that the penalties for theft are draconian.
Why don't more Americans come to this tropical paradise, with its wonderful people, hotels, food, scenery? Is it only the difficult travel? There is to be a direct (though refueling) Sri Lanka Airlines flight from New York starting soon, we are told. This marvelous country needed all our dollars even before the tsunami struck.
And what was my last experience before returning to my room and the excellent swim and buffet breakfast that awaited me? An employee with a shovel reverentially digging a deep hole in the sand to bury a dead cow. No ritual or prayer, but deep respect, it seemed to me, even for the scavenging crows.
The Sri Lanka people are coping with admirable fortitude and good humor. I have certainly come not only to respect but indeed to love them.
7:15 a.m. A lovely old fashioned hotel with lovely staff and a lovely outlook over a lovely beach – or more accurately – once lovely. And then not a tourist beach, but a beach full of fishermen, children, games of cricket, digging in the sand – local Sri Lanka life. But that was before December 26th.
No guests are up, many staff are sweeping, dusting, polishing, performing all the trusted old routines. Time for me to take a solitary sentimental walk on a beach of memories: 26th March, the three month "anniversary." In the separate service area our driver's assistant is washing our group's bus. Shirtless, in a loin cloth, intent on and proud of his role – firmly on the path to the next (top?) rung of his hierarchy, full driver and maybe tour guide. Then outside, past the security guard, and turning right down a narrow path. Until the fateful day it was lined on both sides by small but apparently sturdy houses, full of life, bustling, busy, happy humanity, bicycles, radios, TVs, even a few motorbikes, symbols of at least moderate prosperity and the necessary tools for work. Music blaring, incessant chatter and laughter.
"Happy Christmas!,""What country?""My name is Nihal…what yours?""I ten years old, you…?" Genuine friendliness and curiosity for strangers. Perhaps even the chance, for the children, of a pencil or even a few rupees (even 10 cents worth would mean a lot there).
And today? Nothing but rubble, 62 houses out of 65 totally destroyed, 72 out of 210 people in the community dead, half of them children. A very few walls still standing, even a roof beam or two, but most of the floors, once proudly polished, now bereft of walls to enclose and guard them. Heaps of rubble everywhere, valuable materials such as bricks in neat separate piles. A few people on the edge of the site by or in an ugly Government building, well constructed so intact. Washing, tooth cleaning, eating, preparing for another day. Some few walking, a few just sitting. A very few fishermen, inspecting and folding nets. I am offered a live lobster and shown a flatfish. Every person greets me, not enthusiastically as before, but certainly not humbly or obsequiously or pleadingly, with genuine interest and warmth (or so it appears), and with smiles and courtesy. These people, and particularly the young, certainly know how to smile! Do I want to take a photo, have I a cigarette, where do I come from?
One or two little boys follow me, but everyone is different in some fundamental indescribable way from their Christmas selves, not sullen or defeated, but somehow lacking the old sparkle and joie de vivre, especially noticeable before in the children
The beach was never clean but further along it too today is a scene of almost total destruction. In the next community (more Muslim, I think, and where we were so generously entertained) the backs of the houses fronting on the main road are also much damaged, though not totally destroyed. Everywhere at the back of the beach are the piles of what were formerly the staples of everyday life: plastic, glass, bricks, stones, plumbing parts (I think there were some basins and toilet bowls here), twisted metal. Everything of value salvaged, and much of what is left presumably of use for rebuilding – if that will ever be permitted so near the sea.
Indeed on the main road itself some laborers are already mixing cement and preparing the open drain that runs the length of the street, and doubtless out of operation for the last 3 months. A little boy squats to do his daily business, with only a shirt to protect his now even more unimportant modesty.
And so thirty minutes later I return to the hotel. Sarath, for that is his name, is still cleaning our bus."Paradise holidays" reads the sign on it. So many contrasts, so many ironies. The security guard on the gate salutes me. Has he been here all night? The greeting is courteous and the salute is smart.
A frangipani flower – deliciously fragrant – for my wife, and a hearty breakfast for me. Would it help to starve in sympathy? Fresh fruit – bananas, jackfruit and pineapple, fried eggs and tomato, toast and marmalade. Alas I am on a diet – to be more accurate, on three. Good strong Sri Lankan tea.
They are still sweeping and cleaning, as other guests including my colleagues are stirring or up. The general rhythm of the old hotel, so close to the disaster below it, appears undisturbed. Life must and does go on.
I am accompanying my wife, Dr. Webb, and the group entirely at my own expense. I am an experienced traveler and have known and loved Sri Lanka for many years. It is a fascinating country full of history and culture, lovely people and beautiful scenery. Dr. Webb and I returned last Christmas for a holiday and to see a special Sri Lankan friend, now retired but still with influential contacts that may prove useful. I am particularly keen on internationalizing the Meredith campus and am, formally, the adviser to the task force established by Dr. Hartford and chaired by Sam Carothers. I certainly hope that my presence with the group will help them in small and larger ways and lighten their workload.
John Rose
