Old friends in new guises

There was a dream Janet had the other night that I don't want to forget about. She dreamt that she kept running into people who seemed vaguely familiar, and who claimed to know her well, whom she could barely recognize. She kept trying to figure out who they were, get to know them better, but her frustration grew when it became apparent she didn't have the time to even learn their names. Everything seemed rushed and no one she met made any sense to her. Were these strangers? Friends? Why was everything happening so quickly?

This was back in Anuradhapura where we were being served the most gracious, elegant, well balanced, tasty, and digestible meals you can imagine. If you think I'm exaggerating let me say that they were presented to us, one exquisite dish at a time, with names named, by the gracious Mr. Sena, whose ministrations only added to the relaxed delight of each meal. 

Duly served by our gentle host, we launched, or I could say dove into each meal with appreciation and enjoyment. Each dish was an adventure, each mixture a balm, each fingerful a journey. Did I say Mr. Sena served us graciously? He almost spooned the delicacies into our waiting mouths. Thing is, we don't use spoons here. Only fingers, Sri Lankan style. So what about Janet's dream?

We've enjoyed Sri Lankan food before. And most of its elements, the spices, the coconut, the vegetables, are familiar to us. At least in the ways we make them at home. So excluding new vegetables we never knew before like the tree leaf melun, which is chopped into a smoky, sambol-like delicacy or snake gourd, whose rough exterior belies a soft and luscious interior, you could say most of the dishes we sampled were composed of old friends. But in such new guises!

So wonderful were these dishes, and so hungry were we after our long days of working or relaxing (and 12 hours since breakfast!) that we worked our way through these meals in a workmanlike haze, much as I'm sure they're meant to be enjoyed. Not without appreciation we polished off platefuls with gusto, and even taking the time we managed, barely managed to learn the names or composition of our new "friends." I think Janet's dream highlighted a real frustration, the re-acquaintance with known ingredients put together skillfully in a new and puzzling way. As frustrations go it's one to be savored. 

                   Photos by Janet

Many Sri Lankan Hands and: Fingers First!

A few years ago I read a post by Malinda Seneviratne, through which we ultimately became acquainted, that extolled the work of many hands in the building of irrigation systems in ancient Sri Lanka. These words have been stated by other people at other times for example by my friend the scholar-architect Anura Ratnavibhushana, whom I hope to see in a few weeks at the International Conference on Cities, People, and Places sponsored by Moratuwa University in Colombo. The concept of many hands working in conjunction reverberates with me. Though it might be a bit on the romantic side I think it does tell us something about Sri Lankan life and society, at least the way I see it as a foreigner. It also suggests some contrasts in the way we live in our respective worlds.  

My second day in Sri Lanka we went with my patient friend Gihan Karunaratne to Colombo's sprawling, multi-story "Majestic City" to unlock our phones (a kind of ambush against capitalist occupiers who have made us think we can only use a single server). Part of the unlocking process was to put a new SIM card in the phones.

To get the SIMs I was taken from the third floor by one of the technicians from the large hole in the wall "Active Mobile," the place Gihan had introduced to us, to a small hole in the wall place in the basement of Majestic City. Down there I saw for the first time the act of "reloading," something I hadn't imagined. On the counter right by the door of this tiny place, in which at least three guys were stumping full time with all kinds of customer demands from photocopying to laminating to buying SIM cards, people came in and punched out their nine-digit code numbers (I would soon be the proud owner of one myself--it's called a "telephone number"). Each gentleman (it was usually men) or each family who came in used the same black box ("Proudly made in Sri Lanka" with a Kuranagela address) and walked out with the same intangible but vial thing: a reload. And so, in this instance, many hands joined together in building a system of mobile communication in a country where that seems to be the main mode of getting in touch. 

If you think this is a small or irrelevant thing for a foreigner to observe please reconsider. "Servers" in our country are partitioned so that the "plan" I get in my part of Boston isn't available elsewhere in the metro area. The bills for unlimited data are sky-high (ours is a "bargain" at about USD 60 per user--a total of more than $200 per month for our household of three), and aside from the nicest people I have ever talked to on the other side of the line (I mean it--they are great) my connection with my "server" is anonymous and atomized. I plug in. I pay. All done electronically. 

Yes we may say that this is a signal occupation of an advanced society. It's not bad in and of itself. But it is not the same act I've seen here in Sri Lanka. And if small acts make the landscape of performance I can say with assuredness: our landscape is qualitatively different from yours. 

And what are American hands doing at other times? In Boston where I live public transportation is utilized at a much higher rate than in the rest of the United States. Trains and buses are packed, much like you see in Colombo, but users are still a tiny minority compared to the vast number of people who drive in to the city, in to work alone in their vehicles. I understand that this is the aspirational future of Sri Lankans too. But it means something different to have your hands on the steering wheel (or in your nose---have you ever looked to see what people do in stopped traffic?) instead of on the railing of a bus or the straps of a train. "Cleaner" and quieter perhaps but also way more isolated. Sri Lankan hands are traveling to work together. There is some sharing here that you may not like all the time. But it is a sharing. 

I'm impressed by another aspect of shared life in Sri Lanka. After the meal people go to a washup sink. The soap bar is inevitably a soft glob of cleansing material. Everyone touches the same bar and everyone gets clean. It's part of a shared ritual that joins people in a way that's unknown in the United States, outside of one's own home. 

Lastly I want to mention the amazing students at Rajarata University who accompanied us into the field last week. They literally joined hands, together among themselves and with us as well, to probe, measure, calculate, and record everything from soil samples to interviews with villagers in the Dry Zone. After the hard work we did together, led by my comrade-in-arms and good-humored colleague Dr. Nimal Abeysingha, (and another day by the venerable Professor Madduma Bandara) we sat together at a long table, lunch packets in front of us, and tucked into our meal, fingers first!

Subtle landscapes: Invisible landscapes

Last week the host of my guesthouse near Anuradhapura showed me an ants' nest built from leaves. The leaves, now dead, were stitched together by the jaws of the ants who, by the way, pack a painful sting. The nest looked like a bunch of dead vegetation. Cool to think about but maybe not that impressive. 

The next day in the field we saw a tree filled with these nests, most of which were in the early stages of being built. Ants covered the tree, busily operating to an unseen code. At least the code was unseen to us. The ants, I'm sure, were operating lockstep to an unmistakeable set of pheromonal messages. Subtle to us but all-controlling to them. 

And so it is as we explore the Sri Lankan landscape. Up here in Jaffna, I had walked in the morning to a neighborhood (Arasady) at the edge of the Nallur Kovil religious precincts. I found a smaller kovil with a longer name (Veeramakaliamman) with its attendant kulam (tank) that was supposedly rehabbed by the Norwegians in 2005. The Veeramakaliamman kovil kulam got me to thinking about past landscapes here, especially as regards water. Was this a low-lying area with springs (I've heard there's a spring under to Nallur Kovil) that was once wetter? Did the kovils grow up around revered places where water ran year round? Were the drainage canals (now dry) that fed into the kovils once used for transportation, or were they an introduction of later European colonists who built them to drain the marshy areas? These questions for me, which Janet calls "stripping away the present" are a kind of all-controlling obsession. They are the heart of my Fulbright research here in Sri Lanka. They are based on subtle, intangible, almost invisible cues in the landscape. 

So many questions from my morning foray that I asked again in the afternoon as I dragged Janet to the spot more or less in the heat of the afternoon--an outing she had risked that paid off. We spent some minutes at Veeramakaliamman and continued our walk until we came to a shaded, inviting looking lane. We turned up it and after 100 meters or so came to a gate opening to a garden and a couple of houses.

Immediately we were invited in by one of the girls of the family. We were joined by the whole family (minus Mom, who came out to smile but who was very much engaged in cooking the family's late lunch). Conversations and coconuts formed a jolly afternoon of picture taking and picture sharing, and quite unexpectedly we had performed our "cultural exchange" activities for the day. 

The gathering clouds started to perform their exchange ritual too, just as we were finishing taking the last family group photo. Our host gave us his two umbrellas, which we really only needed for a few minutes, and we were on our way back to the guesthouse, a little richer for following the subtle landscape around us. 

Dry Jaffna, Wet Jaffna, Old Jaffna. Questions in Cultural Landscape Ecology

Jaffna is one of the oldest places in Sri Lanka. There is evidence that it was inhabited in early pre-ancient times. And its location was ideal for early human migrations, trade, and settlement. The vast marine shallows that surround the city still provide bountiful fish and seafood. And inland, fertile soils and a great variety of fruit-bearing plants would have been suitable to early settlers here. 

During our many walks we've been trying to picture in our minds what the Portuguese found when they landed here. Certainly this had been a seafaring community for many centuries. It had had contact with traders from around the world. So the population must have had a sophistication that reflected its long contact with other cultures. 

The abundance of religious sites around Jaffna also suggests deep ties to the supernatural. And my guess is that these ties were geographically based. This leads to the question, why were shrines, kovils, and Buddhist sites placed where they were? What were the geographic or geophysical characteristics that encouraged the placement of these religious precincts? Were these sites also revered to earlier peoples?

Jaffna is a flat place. From walking many miles around town and its outskirts I've noticed places where the road curves. This kind of curvature is usually associated with topographic changes. However hills or other natural landforms are not in evidence. One thing that is clear is that many places where there is a curve in the road are religious sites. What stood here in pre-ancient times, before the arrival of Brahmic populations?

Another feature that sticks out is the principles of canals and tanks all around Jaffna. When were these built? Why do most of them have a physical proximity with religious sites? Was each tank a village tank around which grew a population center? Were these once springs or other natural features that inspired a sense of sanctity and worship? How can we fund out?

Jaffna is a dry place. In previous times was it moister? Were the tanks and canals filled with water for more months of the year? Were these freshwater catchments a kind of extension of the ancient shoreline, along which trade and transportation were conducted? And why are so many inhabited places built along these canals? 

These questions of human settlement patterns would require a great deal of digging to understand further. I think Jaffna will always remain a mystery to me no matter how many miles I walk along her streets and lanes. My questions are not exactly archaeological, nor are they completely geographical. They reflect a kind of interdisciplinary interest in cultural landscape ecology I came here to expand upon. 

So whether or not I  return to Jaffna (and I hope I come back anymore times) these questions will always hold a fascination for me, perhaps just out of reach. Perhaps lending them selves to further study and maybe tempting observant eyes in the future. 

Warming to Jaffna: motion and emotion

Jaffna was my favorite place in Sri Lanka when I visited in 2013. It's hot place. Hot food, hot temperatures and somehow a heated atmosphere of human motion and emotion. So bringing Janet here I have been concerned with how she sees it through her eyes. At the end of our morning walk today she reminded me that her office is so cold during the summer because of air conditioning that people not only wear sweaters but actually turn on portable heaters. She's used to cool temperatures and she's not so comfortable in the heat. But she's been doing a great job here. 

Jaffna has a lot of cool too. Incredibly cool deco architecture, cool inventive fonts, and the cool hot blaring of horns constantly. People here wear long clothes, long pants and long shirts. As a strange looking foreigner I'm allowed to wear shorts. But maybe the people here are afraid of catching a chill. I can't imagine why long everything is de rigeur. 

Anyway we've been doing strange stuff in Jaffna. Instantly walking walking and walking some more. Nobody really walks here except for a short distance. So there are constantly people on bicycles coming by, tractors on the move, buses, tuk tuks, and assorted other modes of transport we don't use. Most of our walks so far have been into and around the city, first to the execrable Piliyar Inn to tell the we wouldn't be staying there (why waste the Dialog seconds?), then to the incredible Nallur Kovil where we stood and watched for awhile. We hit the downtown big time, the bus station, the bazaar, and just a but further out, the spanking new Cargills Super Mall. We happened to get there just when school let out and the boys came pouring in. Just the cool place to be when you want to hang out somewhere. 

We contemplated who these kids are...they're not the ones who stopped on the corner near the new Jaffna Library for a king coconut. Are they what the world bank calls the emerging middle class of Sri Lanka? What are their horizons? What are they seeking?

Speaking of horizons, we took Beach Road today and ended up with some amazing Lagoon views. We soaked up the scene in Passalyoor, the first fishing village east of Jaffna, and kept pushing on toward Columbuthorai. The day got hot and we flagged a little as we finished off our water bottle. But amazing to walk and see the giant milkweeds, the nearly-dry tanks, the fishermen in action, goats, bananas, kovils and churches. Oh. And did I say tractors?

Landscapes in Transition

My Fulbright project takes a broad view of landscapes in transition around Sri Lanka. Landing in Jaffna yesterday it was plain to see how this city is transitioning. 

When I visited here at the beginning of 2013 I was struck by the energy I felt all around. People on bikes and motorcycles everywhere, the cacophony of horns on the road, people rushing and business seemingly going on everywhere. Jaffna was like but also unlike the rest of Sri Lanka. But there were visible scars of war, bombed out buildings, single walls with shell scars, streets in disrepair. 

Most of that is gone now. There are still canals with awful stagnant water, piles of unexpected garbage, cow dung and dog shit on the sides of the road. But there is also building. infrastructure improvement, and more paved roads. Gone are most of the visible scars of war. There are larger and newer cars around, and when you stop to look, some very modern and large homes. So in addition to building there are signs of wealth that were not so obvious before. 

Large office buildings, the reconstructed Dutch Fort, and perhaps above all the rebuilt railroad station stand out in my mind. During one of my many early morning walks in. 2013 I happened upon a no-mans-land that was cleared of vegetation on either side. I was told later by my host that it had been the railroad station, one of the busiest in Sri Lanka, now not even a ruin, just cleared away. Mr. Gregory told me despondently that there was talk of rebuilding. But his tone of voiced led me to believe it would never come true. 

There's still lots more that needs to "come true" in Jaffna, but from a foreigner's viewpoint it's amazing that we could come here at all. Last year it was closed off to outsiders. The elections last January, followed by a new government put in place just a couple of months ago, are creating a stronger environment for reconciliation, six years after the end of the civil war. These are all very positive things that we hope will continue. Meanwhile, on a smaller more personal note, I am able to get wifi in the very humble guest house I'm staying at. An impossibility just two years ago when only one place in town had a connection. 

Sunk in silt or: Some say seep, others say tsunami

It has rained for a couple of days now-perfect timing because we wanted to get to Rajarata at the end of the dry. Insects are suddenly rife and more important, you being to see rivulets and puddles of water as well as river heights rising dramatically. 

A look at every body of standing water shows you that the water is deeply colored with silt. Red puddles, brown puddles, grey puddles dot the countryside. But there is no clear water to be seen. Silt is a fact of nature that the ancient Sri Lankans coped with. 

Through neglect brought largely by centralized government control, cultivators in contemporary Sri Lanka are faced with diminishing water capacity and farming capabilities because of silt build-up. Silt covers the catchments, the forests, and the grasslands that lead to and during the wet season, become part of the tank. If the tank were a human body, neglected by lack of exercise we could picture it as hidden under slabs of fatty tissue. 

Two modes of action may help us deal with the silt. The first and most obvious is removal. But removing the silt must be seen as more than an odious chore. Rather, silt removal may be an opportunity to rebuild the tanks, redefining the contours that made the tanks self-sustaining valves that filtered and distributed water differentially. We may also seek commercial uses for the silt. High quality ceramic matrix? The next rage in skin care? The second mode of action is preventive. In Alisthana village near Thirappane they have replanted the tall reed beds that filter the water, as well as planting 8000 saplings to protect the water. These plantings come close to replicating ancient landscape patterns. They are so much more than "prettying up" the tanks. They are part and parcel of tank function. 

It may be semantics but there seems to be a difference of opinion among observers about how water flows into tanks. And this affects opinions on how to ameliorate that flow. Some posit that water seeps into the tanks. If it's a question of seepage alone then the short C-4 grasses we observed may suffice in holding onto some of that silt. Why then do the farmers complain about shrinking tanks? The other view, which was voiced by my guesthouse hosts in Anuradhapura, is that water may enter the tanks "like a tsunami," at least during periods of sustained heavy rainfall in December. If that is the case, then we need all the help from vegetation (the perehana and gasgommana) we can get. 

Height of flood in Anuradhapura, 2013

Either way, tank silt is an issue that we need to study more. During my day in the field with colleague Nimal Abeysingha and students from Rajarata University we began that quest.