scattered random me

I was not on a bus or train that met with an accident. Sometimes it seems that the world news covers things with the adage ‘If it bleeds, it leads’ so I thought I should update my blog with the information that all of us here at AHIMSA are alive and well. (I will go check out whether blood donors are needed though, as I am an O+ and pretty universal donor.)

A few updates from past blogs:

I have identified 4 of the 7 different birds in the morning choir greeting the dawn at my window. Not being a bird watcher, with no book to refer to, I have weird identities such as ‘brown bird, black head and strange red behind (under tail feathers)’ and ‘sound of water bottle filled to top’ … however they are all quite splendid and one day I may get to know actual names and descriptions of sounds. (Once doing training in Romania, there was an exercise to get in pair by making a given animal sound. Romanian chickens do not sound like Canadian chickens and the same can be said for Sri Lankan chickens!)

I may take up a hobby of tree watching as the trees do seem to stay put a bit more than birds. (and I do get some bird sounds mixed up with squirrels and monkeys and even AHIMSA’s bell at the gate) Tree watching is just as diverse as the birds with king coconuts with a climber in sarong netting the coconuts to get them down. Have you noticed how sunflowers turn their heads to follow the sun? well some of the trees seem to respond to the sun here and it may take many years to sort all that out.

The clapper at this moment is quiet, seems he must be napping in the hottest part of the day. Otherwise he claps for as long as 14 hours, from early morning into the night. (I will often stay late at the office to email and avoid walking home in the extreme heat, which lasts until evening.

My work with peer mediation: I have completed most all my initial writing for peer support workshop (facilitator’s guide) and peer mediation manual, brochure, and work on anger, and supplementary materials. I look forward to completing the training with AHIMSA staff, once the new people are hired. The next steps are field testing and final revisions to work. Then translation to Tamil and Sinhalese and then printing and binding.

I told about the young man who lost his life, trying to help resolve a conflict with a stolen gold change? I was in that community on Thursday for New Years Party for children. The house where the family lived who was driven out of the community is still gutted and mostly smelled like a community toilet. The young people who were working to organize the new years celebration did a wonderful job. One young man in his early 20’s helped a special needs girl about 6 years old. The game was to blow a balloon until it popped then run to the finish line. There was Anthony grabbing the young girl’s hand and racing to the finish line! The look of excitement and success on her face was beautiful!

The women competed in grinding coconuts, and weaving mats from coconut leaves. It was so wonderful to see all participating from very old to very young. The final events included a tug of war with women against the men. The women won the first round and the men challenged to go again. When the men won next, the women announced that the men had worked hard so they let them win. Competition was fierce with men and women, boys and girls all joining in. There was such a lot of laughter and Karunawathi, who is the president of the community, was a leader in the organizing. I learned that when the crisis had happened with the boy the girl and the gold necklace; this woman had kept many men in her home and would not let them leave to go fight. The extremely poor neighbourhood has such a sense of togetherness. They have seen violence involving so many families, and they have such a capacity for peace.

Much of our peace and conflict resolution in the developed world focus on individuals. This person has a conflict with this other person, or organization or school… The impact of community and extended family is so strong in both positive and negative ways, how do we include that in our work? Also, how do we offer young people skills when the adult community around them will not know such skills or necessarily support their efforts?

I believe that the whole community must be involved in the learning of these peacemaking and third side roles. Even with the first programs in Calgary in 1987, it was essential that parents as well as school staff had at least as much training as the children. How can this happen when working with children’s clubs where parent involvement is not easily accessed? How can teacher/admin/staff adults in schools get this training when only a few get professional development and there is not the vehicle for whole school, whole community approaches?

Resilience: ‘The wrong thing for the right reasons’ There is such a ground swell of people wanting to help with people who have suffered trauma. The compassion that motivates is profound and beautiful. The methods are inappropriate and in some respects damaging. I met with a woman who is a practicing clinical psychologist here in Colombo and she said they call all the trauma experts ‘The second Tsunami’. The flavours of the month seem to be EMDR, (an eye movement thing, look it up on the web if you are interested) and other one to one, quick ways to change a traumatic memory.

On the week end, I attended a couple of hours of a trauma counselling two day workshop. Once I learned it was scientology I was going to leave, but decided to stay with an open mind. (Reminds me of the time we invited carpet cleaner sales people and Jehovah’s witness into the group home so the kids could see a hard sell and determine what was real without getting roped into a new set of knives, a fancy carpet cleaner (to be paid for in 40 easy instalments) or a new faith.

The slick presenter, a German man, who did his best to use Sri Lankan examples, sold the approach as science, facts and went at great length into the ‘technical workings of the brain’ NOT. Although I did not ask any questions, and left at lunch break (which came sooner than planned as there was no electricity for video and PowerPoint) I was left with a sickening feeling in my gut to imagine the two day trained folks off trying their skills at rewiring traumatic memories with their family and friends.

The psychologist and I had great conversations about supporting people as they get their immediate needs (home, security of shelter, livelihood, etc…) met and she wants to go do research on resilience at a University in Scotland or Australia. The term ‘second tsunami’ describes how the people in camps feel, as others come in to disturb schooling, and their day to day living with a desire to be photographed providing trauma counselling.

What must we do? We who feel a profound since of compassion for those who have lost so much? On a large scale, to those much is given, much is asked. How can we mobilize our own governments to forgiving debts? How can we shift this 1/3 world with all the financial wealth while 2/3 world has not? I look forward to some of your big picture thinking….

On a smaller scale, I want to introduce you to Nilani.

Nilani has worked for 24 years in social work, with Save the Children in Sri Lanka for seven of those years. On December 26th she lost her only son, Sidath, who was 5 years old. Nilani has begun a foundation to provide scholarships to children in her son’s name. Some of us in Calgary are planning to raise funds to support this scholarship. If you are interested in supporting this effort, email me at marthamcmanus@hotmail.com/ . Sidath was a very special young lad, he said he wanted to grow up and work for Save the Children, because he believed in working to help others. The Tsunami took his life but his vision goes forward.

Well, this update has been scattered, but I am happy to hear from all of you who are following along with this blog. I look forward to your input, and it feels like a community effort; my work here. I brought many things (drugs, supplies, books, well wishes and donations) with me and they keep on giving. A 1000 Rupee donation went to support the New Years party for children in the poor village where the money helped buy balloons and eggs for the egg toss. Thank you all for being there.

Happy New Year!

Sinhalese and Tamil people celebrated New Years on the 13th and 14th of April, and AHIMSA’s office was closed for the week. April is the hottest month (and I was so impressed to have survived the heat of March!) and so the celebrations are a wonderful time to be with family, celebrating the rituals of the New Year.
I noticed many people finishing tasks (painting, cleaning gardens, road repair) as the ear end was approaching.
The stalls in the streets were full of special offers for clothing as most people get new clothes. Traffic of people, cattle, buses, trishaws, trucks and all was down to a trickle during the new year and a couple of days following and virtually all the stores and stall and shops were closed so people could be home with family.
Following the New Year, there are auspicious times to begin new things. Time (ie 6:47 am Friday) to make milk rice, attire (wear light green to prepare meals) and activities as well (return to work on a certain date). There are auspicious times for new relationships, projects and possibilities.

On the 22nd of April, the Muslim holiday, Milad-Un-Nabi, honouring the Holy prophet’s birthday is followed on the 23rd with a Poya Day (full moon reflection time).
We will soon be hiring a new staff member who I hope will be working closely with the Peer Mediation program I have been focusing my attention on. AHIMSA is also involved in Psycho-social programs in communities across the country. Psycho-social programs are more inclusive and recognizing of the broader social and community context of well being of Sri Lankans. At dinner on Sunday night I listened as a clinical psychologist described all the masses odf well meaning experts with their EMDR techniques, excited to address trauma. She and I talked at great length about resilience in experiencing traumatic events and she is looking for funding to do her PhD in the area of resilience. The labels ‘traumatized’, ’victim’, ‘PTSD’ and the various diagnoses related to stress are all capable of causing their own trauma in what are the normal coping and adapting behaviours following a natural disaster. While this is all the reality my research on trauma and resilience centred on, it is still so very disheartening to see the rush and onslaught of ‘trauma experts’.

In actual fact, the communities are doing quite well on their own with community based psycho-social support people who help the whole community adjusting to new changes of living and loss. Community approaches empower people with awareness for the long term or adjustment and when the minority may need more support. An auntie, cousin, or family member will be around for the long haul, while the care givers offering short visit ‘expertise’ have limited roles of any.

My last blog discussed the being vs. doing approach in events that come unexpectedly. I thank all of you who wrote with your own stories and experiences and there were so many thoughtful responses, I think that topic may show up in my PhD work in the future. Some of you wrote about doing the basic tasks of life in times of trouble. Even playing the odd game of solitaire in these times are the moments when the minds focus can take a break from realities of life. Sometimes a change is as good as a rest. Thinking and decisions to ponder can some times sort themselves out while a person is busy engaged in other none focused- thinking tasks. (Laundry, cleaning, sorting, games, music...)

It occurs to me that those who are creating their own dwellings, trying to get themselves settled, and working to develop a new livelihood as their previous work is gone; these people are coping differently than those who sit and wait. Collapsing tired on a mat to sleep, the time to be traumatized is minimal. When life catches up in the thinking and reflecting times, much of the experience will have settled.

Last evening, I was riding in a trishaw with Uncle as the water came down in torrents and filled the streets. He is my age and drives a trishaw starting before dawn and ending at midnight. He has a wife with diabetes and she had a heart attack. He provides a care giver in the home for his wife, and works long hours to provide schooling and tutoring for their two children. He wants them to have the education opportunities that he never had. Uncle has one hand and very little education, yet he is so wise in common sense. His English is self taught, and his rich humanity is the stuff of a life of compassion. I listen to the hardness of life for so many people and as Uncle and I consider converting the trishaw into a boat (or perhaps an ark?) and we enjoy each other’s company; I am humbled by the courage people have to not only survive but to thrive in life.

I wish you all well and a Happy New Year with auspicious beginnings. The power is about to go out as another storm has moved in.
Peacefully,
Martha

4 April Back from Bangkok

When I was researching trauma and resilience for my MPhil I read reports of trauma workers coming into Kosovo to work with trauma. International NGOs talked with people about their trauma at the same time the community was reeling from war and asking for help and support as they worked to reclaim their lives. People described a need for safety, housing, work with an income to support their families… and the trauma workers were prepared to provide psychological support for trauma. Many of Kosovo’s people described feeling further victimized as funding programs came in to address their trauma while the real needs of safety, shelter and meaningful work were unaddressed.

My research with resilience looked at the often quoted view that the majority of individuals who experience trauma are resilient and move through the experience from surviving to thriving, even in the face of man-made trauma of war and natural disasters such as tsunamis, earthquakes and hurricanes.
Van der Kolk has spoken about the insights he gained from Hugo. Not a person but a hurricane. After hurricane Hugo, psychologists came to support the survivors. The survivors were working to repair their homes and instead were asked to meet and discuss their trauma. In fact, van der Kolk says that exactly what the people were doing was their best treatment for trauma.

Do not sit around and talk about what you have experienced, but rather get on with recovery. Resilient folks carry bricks from destroyed homes to build in a new spot. Resilient people work together to support each other in rebuilding their community. In Hikkaduwa, a group of five families were sharing pots and a few spoons as they cooked their meals in a common area and did their best to clean debris and re establish some routine. Routines such as bed time, breakfast, school, work, caring for the home. Resilience means we need to feel that we are doing something; we are actively making life better.
A young child sweeps the step for an old woman who can sit and hold a wee one as the baby’s aunt carries bricks and water jugs. Little children can gather clothes which may not be useable as clothes but can be torn up to make rugs. One group of young girls made tea for the community youth who were removing dead trees and clearing land of bush that had not survived the salt water tsunami waves which destroyed not only homes, but vegetation. (It seems many palm trees survived as salt water is not a problem for them.)

Van de Kolk noted that physical activity and actual body movement through trauma is essential in recovery. I have noticed communities in the East who know not to depend on the government and are working together to repair and recover their homes and lives in their own communities. They have learned in the violence of war that their survival and ability to thrive depends on their own momentum. And so they work.

In some communities in the south, there is perhaps less experience of war and more shock response to this tsunami. They wait on the government which has not been forthcoming with allocated land, money to build homes and the delivery of promised aid. Their dependence on the government and belief that someone will provide has in fact caused them further trauma as many still are located in shared tents, with few resources and minimal relief.

When I first arrived in Sri Lanka, my first month, I longed for a bath or shower. (I got very used to bucket for bathing, and I lost 20 pounds as the people who provided a room for me did not eat until well after the TV dramas from India, with loud shrieking, distressed actresses who seemed to get hit a lot and found their men always yelling and leaving them. I am not a watcher of North American soap operas so I am not able to compare these dramas from India. I do know that I would collapse in bed shortly after bucket bathing, tuck my mosquito net around me and my exhaustion helped me sleep and I was oblivious to the shrieking actresses.

My acclimatization to developing country food, heat, bugs and all was not however the biggest challenge for me. My biggest challenge was a sense of uselessness. I had all this willingness and capacity to work yet the organization I came to work with, AHIMSA, was caught between funding challenges with a funding NGO. Peer mediation, resilience and trauma, all essential areas of focus and interest according communities were things I could work with; yet I could do nothing for the first month as AHIMSA dealt with challenges between funding and organizational conflicts.

I have had the opportunity to provide training and mediation to groups such as this when conflicts occur. In these roles I have been trainer or an external consultant, facilitator and mediator. This time I was on the inside of the conflict. Bill Ury’s third side work (see www.thirdside.org ) describes many roles for third side resolution of conflicts and there is very real benefit to applying the various third side roles, even from my position as sort of inside-outside. I am pleased to say that things are proceeding ahead now, and I have lots to do. What felt disabling to me was my inability to do anything. Just sit and wait. Perhaps my meditation practice helped somewhat, but I am struck with how the ability to sit and ‘be’ in the present moment is very challenging with the ‘do’ way of life when there is so much to do.

I look forward to learning about all these teachable moments in hind sight. A bit like looking across a mountain of switch backs and colourful Larch trees after one has trudged up the canyon and switch backs and climbed the rocky riverbed boulders in the Canadian Rockies. I am writing now from the vantage point of a rest house on a switch back as I have just returned from a holiday in Thailand. Food, shopping, snorkelling, beautiful beaches, air conditioned hotel with swimming pool and serious bath, and a wonderful time with a friend have all contributed to my refreshed, rested and relaxed take on life. Films: A Long Engagement and Hotel Rwanda, books: Kite Runner, Blind Assassin, and Jack Kerouac all contribute to my ‘be’ing -‘do’ing living.

I am interested to hear your thoughts on ‘be’ and ’do’. How does that work in your life? And can you live in the day? And/Or do you want something to look forward to? Or perhaps are you a bit of both?

I am curious about all these things and this blog offers me an excellent way of writing and hearing back as you share your wondering and wandering. Next week starts the celebration of Sri Lankan New Year so most everything closes down; shops, offices, AHIMSA, etc… I look forward to doing a bit of writing, and also so work- training as well.

In Sri Lanka, I watch in the newspaper as the government discusses 100 meter zones (where not to build) and yet does not actively deliver essential needs such as housing and land. NGOs can help with some things such as listening, and providing material for school uniforms, but the listening can even aggravate as people see helpers coming into offer support and listening and the money for these programs does little to put a solid roof over their heads. People’s anger and frustration are elevated. No only those who are in tents, but Sri Lankans who are there to care feel the increasing frustration as they put a bandage on an internal wound, offer a drink of water and pain relief in the form of psycho/social support to much deeper hurts of poverty, lack of work to get ahead and lack of shelter to protect families.

Programs like Habitat for Humanity mobilize families in the construction of their own homes. People are ready to use their energy to actively rebuild their homes, communities and their lives; the resilience they bring to the task is best spent in active participation in change. The sit, watch and wait, they are currently experiencing is further disabling them.

Another storm is moving in as I write this. It is roaring across Colombo as the storms, earthquakes and continued natural disruption in the weather and environment cause people to wonder about the bigger picture of Earth. Initially, there was a sense of reassurance, that life would return to normal in Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, Malaysia and all the areas impacted by Tsunami. These events such as quakes and tsunamis are rare, and will never again occur in a lifetime. Now earth quakes and the changing patterns of waves and tides, make assurances seem hollow and ill-conceived.

I was visiting with a young man in Thailand who asked if the weather patterns, storms and natural disasters were changing in Canada too. Instead of seeing these events as one-off occurrences; perhaps resilience is about swimming lessons, knowing the signs, building dwellings with different knowledge; no just whether your boat is visible from the window. What resilience skills does this changing world need?

I have to send this off and close down the computer as our internet connection is in danger when big storms and lightening strike. Hey, I just noticed, the clapping neighbour has stopped.