A Christmas Letter

 

I sent home Christmas Cards to my children and my siblings. It was a bit of an ordeal, really. The chore was exacerbated at the Chundikuli Post office. After handing me the stamps required for the Christmas cards, he handed me a glue pot with a paint brush stuck inside the pot. I actually had to brush on the paste for the 3 large stamps and the airmail sticker required by each card. It was a painstaking and sticky job. I also wasn't wearing my glasses so am not sure if the stamps were glued upside down or not.

Anyway, I remember as a child, my mother sitting at the kitchen table, after she had worked all day cooking and cleaning for a husband and 8 children to write Christmas cards to her family. Now, my father was one of 15 children and my mom, herself, came from a family of 9 children. My dad and mom had left Saskatchewan in the early 60's to come to BC, and they left behind many friends, as well.

 

So, each Christmas time, beginning in November and after the kids were all in bed, Mom sat at the end of a long hard work day penning lengthy letters inside each and every card to their many siblings and friends. I marvel at that feat and am ashamed to say that I am much lazier than my mom. Besides, she didn't have the advantage of internet and a blog site. So, please accept my apologies and accept this Christmas letter to you all in the spirit of wanting to connect with all my friends and family, like my mother did. She taught me the importance of relationships and the importance of making the effort to keep a relationship going.

 

This has been quite a year. We landed in Colombo on January 4^th, after having been grounded for one whole year in Canada by the inability to secure Visa clearance from the Sri Lankan government. We began 3 weeks of language and in-country induction training that involved learning about governmental structures, understanding the current political situation, an overview of the conflict, gender relations and race relations. We also learned the monetary system and how to shop in the marketplace.

 

After the three weeks of induction, we were transported to our new community in the Hill Country of Sri Lanka to Nuwara Eliya. This was home to us from the end of January to the 18^th of October, 2011. We secured lodging and I began my work at the General Hospital of Nuwara Eliya, a government hospital and in the Community Mental Health Centre.

My work involved training acute care nurses in mental health and community nurses in mental health. I trained social service workers in the community about mental health. I helped set up a referral system for case management and a linkage between hospital and community to address the myriad of psychosocial issues that mental health patients are faced with upon discharge. I modelled and supported the community nurse in therapeutic counselling techniques, helped set up an occupational therapy program on the ward and participated in caregiver activities. The predominant issue facing the people of Hill Country is abject poverty.

Socially, Bill and I lived in abject poverty. We had no friends in Nuwara Eliya. We tried really hard to meet people, but always, the language barrier prevented us from really connecting with people. Once we got past discussing our families and showing pictures back and forth and talking about the weather, I had no further Sinhala to converse with and they had no further English language. Communication ground to a halt with everyone looking polite, smiling and drinking tea. It was much harder for Bill as at least I had my work and my work colleagues and my Sinhala teacher to communicate with.

We were invited out on a few occasions. My landlord and his wife invited us to one of their children's birthday parties and my Sinhala teacher invited me to her daughter's birthday party. In both cases, the parents presented very elaborate birthday cakes to their children.

We were invited to attend two almsgivings. Buddhists believe that they can receive merits toward a better next life by giving alms to the Buddhist monks. This is sometimes in conjunction with a funeral, but other times, can be in place of a birthday party. The event begins with a parahara (parade) led by musicians and followed by the invited guests. The parahara winds through the village to the temple, where the hosts lay some alms (food) at the altar. It is accepted by the saffron robed monks and all present receive a blessing. Then the parade returns to the home of the host (people on foot), monks in trishaws. The head monk delivers a lengthy sermon followed by an elaborate and delicious Sri Lankan meal. Presents of robes, toiletries and towels are presented to the monks.

The almsgiving meal is cooked out of doors on wood fires and in huge pots. All the women chop vegetables and cook while the men set out chairs and decorate. It is a very expensive enterprise for the family. One of the alms giving we attended had about 100 people and the other one hosted over 200 people.

The other social event we attended was a visit to Galle. The nurse I worked closest with and who became my good friend, Chamali, invited us to her parents place near Galle. We travelled 6 hours to get there on the red and rickety government bus. Her parents treated us royally with a fine meal and a tour of their property; the herb garden of rampa, leaks and curry, the tiny tea plantation, the cobra den, the old well, mango and papaya trees and pinapple plants.

In Nuwara Eliya, we lived amidst the lush green hills covered with tea plants. It was a Mecca for walking, hiking and running and it was our solution to loneliness. We headed for the hills and soaked up the scenery. However, our biggest challenge of the year was not so much the loneliness (as we had each other), but the cold and damp. This was very, very hard on us. We shivered all the time. Yet, we knew we had choices about staying and we had warm clothes and good blankets and a solid home. Our neighbours were not so lucky. They had no choice. They had broken tin sheeted homes with doors that didn't close. They slept on cardboard on the dirt floor. Their clothing was worn. They were thin. We learned a lot about ourselves this year, how much we have, how much we can do without and how lucky we are to be Canadians.

Bill also learned about himself. He learned that he can hand wash clothing as well as any Sri Lankan woman and he became expert at ferrying clothing in and out of the house when it rained. He learned to scrub mould off the walls and developed an expertise in window washing. He learned he can read newspapers on line and he became quite adept at e-banking.

The highlight of the year was the visit in June from my mom, my daughter Tanya and my niece, Tia. We toured around Sri Lanka like tourists and had a wonderful time. Tanya and I did ballet legs in the pool at Kandy, Tia got soaked by an elephant and Mom sampled Sri Lankan Spice. We rode safari and saw wild elephants, birds and monkeys. We all bought a Sri Lankan gem stone.

But, before we knew it, my visa finally came through and we began to pack up for our move to Jaffna. The goodbyes to the people in Nuwara Eliya were painful. I had grown to care deeply for people, particularly my colleague, Chamali and my Sinhala teacher, Sandamalli. Just the same, to be honest, we were glad to leave behind the cold weather and felt that Jaffna was where we were always meant to be.

I said we began to pack but the truth is that only Bill began to pack. I had so many loose ends to tie up at work I wasn't able to help much except for the last day or so. When the news came that our visa had come through, we had only about 10 days notice. I had a graduation to plan for the community social service agencies who had taken the case management training, I had two budgets on the go that I had to account for (actually Bill did this too), I had to buy good bye gifts, clean out my office, submit an end of placement report and get around to say good bye to all the nurses, doctors and people in the community who had been so kind to us.

 

On October 18^th we said good bye to the place that we called home for ten months and wound down the hill through the tea plantations and back to Colombo. In Colombo, we commenced our three weeks of language training, this time in Tamil. They are completely different languages, completely different alphabet and a completely different sound. Sinhala is more sing-songy and Tamil is more guttural. I feel bad to leave Sinhala behind as I worked hard to learn it. I am trying to find a Sinhala teacher here so I won't lose it all, but I really need to concentrate on Tamil.

Then, on October 21, we came on a reconiscence of Jaffna, found a house, decided we like it and returned to live in Jaffna on November 8^th. Jaffna is what we expected. It is lush, warm, graceful and bustling yet has a subdued quality to it. Within a week we had friends, Tamil and yoga lessons set up and work underway. I am working for a counselling centre called Shanthiham. Shanthiham was set up in 1987 in response to the deaths and subsequent trauma people experienced after the Indian Army entered Jaffna and the war intensified. I am continuing my assessment of acute care and community care by site visits and interviewing key personnel, but a plan is beginning to emerge of where I might fit into the picture as a resource person. I start a training session next week entitled, Mental Health and Psycho-social support in conflict and post conflict. This should clarify further my assessment and it will be an opportunity to network with those already providing psychosocial care in the community.

 

Racial tensions and fear and distrust of government permeate. The Sri Lankan Army is on every street corner, sporting rifles and uniforms. Homes lie in ruin. People have been displaced, are still in camps, have lost limbs, family members, have been tortured and have family members who are "disappeared" and have no way to know where they are. We met one Tamil man who now lives in Canada. He said, "This is not Jaffna anymore. Jaffna is in Canada, Australia and Singapore." The Diaspora is Jaffna, according to him. Just the same, there are people who have always lived here and who lived through the entire conflict period. Their stories are hard to hear. My work will be challenging here.

 

We are planning a Christmas Party. Gerd, who works for the UN Food Program and is an Albanian, Mitsuko is a Japanese woman who is helping fisherman with livelihood and Marcia, the child psychologist from the UK who lives upstairs, are all hosting a Christmas party at Gerd's house. As he is UN, he has a large, fancy house on Temple Rd, equipped with oven, guards and a cook/cleaner. It is a perfect house for a Christmas party. We are delivering invitations to NGO's tomorrow, decorating the house on Saturday morning with tinsel and a tree. Marcia is making mulled wine and I am making a vegetable platter. We are catering the food. We are hoping to find some new friends. We are scrounging for music and speakers.

 

Bill and I are going away for 5 days at Christmas. On December 22, we are off to the North East of Sri Lanka to a town called Trincomalli. We have been there before. It has a nice beach and some diving available around Pigeon Island. We are meeting VSO friends there; those who couldn't go home for Christmas. Many of the European VSO volunteers have returned home for the holidays as it is affordable and closer. Most North American VSO's have chosen to stay.

 

Well, this is likely the longest blog, so time to go. Bill and I feel blessed to have the family we do. We are all very close. Bill and I have equally been blessed with a blended family that is also very close. All our children regard themselves as siblings. That is rare and we all treat it as a gift. We have abundance in every way, but mostly with our family and good, good friends.

 

To all of you, a very Holy and happy Christmas. We will be thinking of you all this Christmas and know that you are in our hearts. Have a butter tart for Bill and a slowly suck on a Lindors chocolate ball for me.