Vesak

Up and down the streets on Nugegoda, stalls are cropping up with people busily constructing bright coloured lanterns on bamboo frames which vary from large to small, with tails like kites have…and Buddhist flags are seen everywhere. This very festive and brightly coloured time is a celebration that has a three fold importance. This full moon, Poya day in June marks the birth of Buddha, his attaining Enlightenment and his passing into Nirvana.

The 23rd and 24th will be a time of reflective prayer as every home will have illuminated lanterns and roads will fill with processions as people go to temple to hear monks read stories from Buddhist texts.

Street theatre and mime, free beverages and large boards called Pandles, decorated with lights and depicting various stories of Buddha’s life are created by communities together. I have some wonderful photos of preparations and will look forward to this coming Monday and Tuesday, Vesak, to take more photos to share with all of you.

I will be in Hikkaduwa on the 23rd, where AHIMSA is involved in providing psycho-social workshops to support local community members who want to be involved in healing and support with their community, so deeply impacted by the Tsunami. This Buddhist temple was the place I spent my first day when I arrived in Sri Lanka many months ago. The place was filled with people who only had the clothes they had survived the Tsunami in and were still in a state of loss and shock that seemed to lack words and description. Monica, Angie and Indika built relationships with this community from as early as the 27th when they were there providing lunch packets and water. This relationship building is at the very root of relief, development and psycho-social work.

There are communities who feel under siege with all the various INGOs and NGOs starting programs, and there are other places where organizations have been involved with the community for years.

I know I had real hesitancy when invited in initially to do a week of training. I knew I would not be at all able to work with an understanding of the context of the communities, so very diverse across this country. I am not sure that after many months I am any more able to know in any detail the unique contexts of the various rural, urban (poor neighbourhoods a block away from high rise buildings with swimming pools being built) agrarian, fisherman, corral miners, tourist, law enforcement, politicians and various military presences which participate in this complex society

In North America, to ask, “Where are you from?” is not culturally sensitive. (You are not white, you must not be Canadian?) Yet here the question happens all the time. My fictional reading has expanded immensely with no TV or radio; I have lots of time to read. The God of Small Things, My Forbidden Face, Running in the family, the Kite Runner… have all brought me to places and times, continuing to expand my learning. On occasion I think I could really do with a nice coffee, or just eating a ginger- sesame salad and sorting through all my learning. I expect many of you will be willing to join me as we share our learning on our various paths.

I listen as Paul (new staff who will be central facilitator in this peer support and peer mediation program) struggles to get his head around the differences between his experiences as a youth worker and a member of a three person mediation board (working with adults) and the differences in working with helping peers (young people) learn to mediate with each other. We confront issues of parent role, children’s freedom, advising, and authority and so it goes. Some times he shuts his eyes and I am reminded of the far side cartoon where the student has his hand in the air asking, “Can I be excused? My brain is full.” Paul sometimes feels his age catching up on him and I only hope that others can look at me and see, ‘If this woman is still learning at her age, I can too.’ And so it goes. Another week in Colombo.