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November 28, 2003

The kindness I've been shown since coming here has been incredible. When I was ill, I received absolutely loving care of an older woman where I was staying. She prepared concoctions for me hourly felt my forehead humming and hawing every few minutes. When I was robbed, I was offered help and money. Anytime I've mentioned something in my first few weeks living Batti town, someone has insisted on helping me get one. If I don't mention what I need, they asked. Homes, bikes, a refrigerator. I've had to actually stop my landlord from bringing me tea and breakfast every morning, although I'm a sucker for her homemade cakes and samosas. I have been given meals and tours. I've been offered rides from local activists and strangers, in trucks, 3-wheelers or bicycles. I was even offered the bike of a passing stranger, while he would share his friends. I really can't list all of the acts of kindness I've received.

I knew a lot of people from this region had left to Canada. I had no idea how many. "Where are you from?" is a favourite question of my new neighbours and unsolicited escorts home. "Oh Canada! My brother is there...", "My children are there...", "My friend is there...". I try out my little Tamil. "You to school in Batti go?". They try out their little English. "Peace in Canada?".

We have completed our six-week training program that included four weeks in the classroom, interrupted by two weeklong visits to our field sites to gradually start our work

The mornings were spent in three to four hours of intensive language study. Each group had two members learning one language and one member learning the other, depending on the region. My Indian team-mate and I are learning Tamil.

The afternoons were initially filled with talks and information sessions. We had different speakers, from different communities, doing different work and with different perspectives. Through the speakers, we started to learn more about what life was like during the war, the present political situation and the challenges and barriers for them as community members and activists during this time of transition. The afternoons gradually became group sessions on our work. The challenge and learning that comes from having 11 countries, 14 personalities, diverse experience and many perspectives in the same room continued. So did more acts of kindness from my team, including a birthday party.

We had our final deployment to our field sites a couple of weeks ago. We will meet again in December for some non-violent communication training. I'm in the Batticaloa district with an Indian man and American woman.

The landscape in Batticaloa, like much of the Island, looks like it was pulled off of a postcard. The north and east of the Island are arid technically and the ground is sandy. The place is still incredibly green. Palm trees, coconut and mango trees, beaches and lagoons. Even on the impossibly crowded buses between villages in the middle of the afternoon sun, I can't help but enjoy the incredible scenery. But the country roads in particular are filled with the shells of houses and barbed wire though. Lots of barbed wire. In some stretches there are more ruins of houses then liveable homes. Some half a kilometre stretches of just lost homes. There are also buildings that look like they were schools and markets. Sometimes there is just an empty plot with an abandoned foundation. When there are long stretches of ruins and shelling houses going past the bus windows, I think of the local homes I've been invited into, filled with families, snacks and tea. I imagine what these bombed houses would have been like and I wonder where are all the people are now. Are they alive? Were they detained? Did they abandon the area and start somewhere else after having lost their home, livelihoods and loved ones. Some areas are also mined and army watch posts and checkpoints are still there. Stretches of the road are closed, and more so at night.

People don't talk about the war immediately, but it is clear. References to 'those years' don't come up right away, and are often vague and trailing off. Conversations eventually include references to vengeful open fire on civilians, massive roundups of crowds and long detentions. Women coming for help while they look for their children and husbands, being unable to move and having no food in the area. There are also the opportunity costs of the war to the schools, hospitals, roads and general infrastructure. The war was drawing the attention and the funds for two decades. People do talk about local areas, family, friends, homes, farmland and fishing grounds that they hadn't been able to access, some since they were children. I get the feeling people don't bring up the war and it's effects for a few reasons: either because it's common knowledge here, because they worry about the ceasefire or because they just don't want to talk about it in detail much these days. So I don't ask too much.

Many residents remember our Project Director William Knox from when he lived and worked in the area with Quaker Peace and Service. It is clear that Nonviolent Peaceforce has attained some respect simply because of our association with him. We have heard more then once that he was with them 'during the worst times'. He was working with them when people couldn't leave their houses, couldn't work and couldn't eat.

In Batti town itself, most checkpoints seem dismantled, but the army continues to occupy buildings and land. Solders ride bikes alone and talk to shop keepers in our area, which at this time around the LTTE heroes' day is decorated with lights and the LTTE billboards and archways. At the same time that there is no war at the moment, there is also not peace. Some say that community violence in our area has increased since the ceasefire. The country villages contain burnt out shops from riots and clashes between Muslims and Tamils. More stories of massacres and lost homes, livelihoods, children and lives. People continue to lose access to their livelihoods either because of land disputes, 'ethnic trouble' or army/police/LTTE occupation.

On each visit we learned more about the situation, the conditions in which people lived and their efforts to change their environment. The amount of good work people are doing was incredible. Local and international NGO's have large bristol board charts and lists telling you their programs and funders. Canada is often represented on the chart. Commonly included are programs focusing on the most vulnerable and marginalized communities, cross cultural exchange and understanding programs, and programs focusing on youth, children, women headed households, victims of domestic abuse, orphans, nursing mothers, detainees and released detainees. Unlike talking about the war, people become animated when they describe the cultural exchanges involving children or integrated preschools.

It was on the basis of our preliminary visits that our team choose to locate our office in the village of Valachchennai. The Batti district, and the east of the island in general, have seen a lot of violence between Muslim and Tamil residents since the cease fire. It seems so unfair that civilians who survived the war here should face new challenges. The main road between Valachchennai and Batti town brings you through alternating Tamil and Muslim communities. The poles and lines are covered with flagged ribbon in most of the villages. The red and yellow colours of the LTTE in Tamil areas and the green and yellow colours of the SLMC in the Muslim areas. All you have to do is look up to know where you are.

Violence has been a problem generally where the villages are close together, but the village of Valachchennai contains both communities and was identified as the most volatile in the Batti district. The communities are in close proximity, but extremely polarized. Different civic offices, different schools, different buses. Neighbours who don't trust each other and have not spoken for a generation. On Main Street in Valachchennai, every house and shop to the west side is owned by a Muslim and every home and shop to the east is owned by a Tamil. It is on this street that we are opening our office. It has been burnt down in previous riots, and inhabited recently only by animals. We picked the office location for the same strategic reasons we picked Valachchennai -- to try to choose a location where an active presence might have the most impact. There don't seem to be any full time foreigners in this area, and people laugh and smile when we tell them this is where we will be. This location will be accessible to both Tamils and Muslims. We learnt that a location only 50 metres within one community areas or too close to an army post would be inaccessible during times of trouble.

During those times, joint efforts have been made between leaders and members in both communities to deescalate the situation and quell rumours. We received some early feedback that there might be a helpful role for us to play in these efforts, especially once we are more established here. Local NGO's have also organized workshops, dialogues and cultural sharing. Community leaders have started joint committees and early warning systems, on top of their heavy burden of their daily responsibilities. The local office of the national Sarvodaya movement has started a Shanti Sena program for local youth. They have 60 Muslim and Tamil members in our area who meet every week. These are just the efforts we have learned about thus far and we continuously learn about more programs and individual efforts.

Each field team is such a different location and different situation. We have other teams of two in Jaffna in the north, (members from Kenya and Philippines). They have described militarised occupations and refugeeism. We have a team in Martara in the south where violence seems linked to poverty and politics, (members from Ghana, Japan and U.S.A.). There is also another team in the east - eventually in Muthur, but temporarily housed in Trincomalee at the moment, (members from Brazil/Palestine, Germany and U.S.A.). In Muthur they have watched nightly migration. The families with their children and blankets too scared to sleep in their homes. On one side of the street the Tamil families head to the church, on the other the Muslim families head to the Mosque. They pass each other again in the morning, sometimes exchanging salutations. That team has already received requests and have helped when people are too frightened to contact international agencies for help.

Here in Batti district everything is complicated. I have had surreal moments on a very regular basis. Of those who can, many have left Batticaloa. Many who I have met here have been forced here from somewhere else on the island. Some people have a great deal of hope in the ceasefire and some are scared, don't know where to turn for help or don't think that there is anyone who to help them. It is clear that civil society remained active throughout the worst times of the war, and is extremely active and engaged now. At the same time, it seems clear that barriers to activism and life exist, including among other things, fear, violence and severe repression. The civilians have been and are continually forced to 'accept' far too many gross abuses of their human rights and they continue to feel the affects of the war here in the east. I've intentionally avoided too many conclusions about the local situation, but I have decided to remove the word 'side' from my vocabulary and the concept from my mind. In addition to establishing our office and ourselves, our current work plan is intentionally slow. We are focusing at the moment on our meetings with the community, getting a wider and deeper understanding of the area, building trust and relationships. Our future day-to-day activities I describe as 'flexible', which seems to just come across as 'vague' to some people. We continue to receive great input to help us develop our local mandate and encouraging feedback that we can have a positive role in this community. Some tangible tasks have already been suggested to us; particularly as an outside party trying assisting the local work between Muslim and Tamil communities, helping with the de-escalation of rumours and helping people overcome the violent barriers they face to reach the existing agencies established to meet their needs. However vulnerable now the local population is, my first impression is that they are the ones who are affecting the most change.

Angela Pinchero