Making a difference in Sri Lanka
Saturday September 30th 2006
Michelle BrownBefore this job, I had lived abroad for six years, project managing for Merlin in countries like the Congo and Sierra Leone. Although I considered myself a hardened expatriate, in reality I had only stayed in these countries for six to nine-month periods, living in guarded compounds and socialising with other foreigners.
I made up my mind that in my next job I would properly integrate with the local society. Nothing, however, prepared me for the shock of moving to Sri Lanka, and what I faced there. I arrived just a few days after the tsunami struck. Although Colombo itself, where I was to live, was a modern, relatively organised city, our operations took place hundreds of miles away on the Sri Lankan coast. This was a hellish 200 metre-wide strip of chaos where people were living with no shelter or water. I spent the first four months in complete disorientation, shuttling between my cosy western house in Colombo and the tsunami-devastated Batticaloa and Ampara districts.
The society I had meant to integrate myself with was made up of badly frightened people, too shell-shocked to go near the sea. They wouldn?t even eat fish; with all the bodies out at sea they thought it amounted to eating their own flesh and blood.
The scale of our operation was mammoth. I was overseeing, among other things, the distribution of 15,000 hygiene kits and 120,000 mosquito nets. For months I worked 14 hours a day, seven days a week, and collapsed blindly into bed every night. I could have been living anywhere.
In April, however, the work stabilised and things changed. I was sharing a beer with my fellow aid worker flatmate, bemoaning my lack of friends in the country. As I was about to go to a meeting, I decided I would leave with the addresses of at least four interesting people I had talked to that night. That weekend I went to a fancy dress party and, socially, never looked back. Over the weeks I made friends with as many Sri Lankans as I did English people, played squash and went to people?s houses for Sunday dinner. All these activities helped me normalise a very strange existence.
In the minutiae of everyday existence, life in Sri Lanka is very different to how it was in Britain. Yesterday I ate curry for breakfast with my fingers, travelled to work through the monsoons in a rickshaw, and avoided a bomb blast at the end of my street by 22 metres. I spent the day in meetings with the British embassy, and in the evening I swam.
Culturally, the lifestyle of my city-slicking Colombo friends is not so different to that of people in the West. Sri Lankans might live with their parents until marriage, but (if they have the money) can hire out hotel rooms each weekend for parties. On the coast it?s a different story: people are traditional and, as a woman, I have to wear long sleeves, cover my legs at all times and must remember not to kiss or shake hands with either genders. The biggest cultural difference is the sheer depth of Sri Lankan generosity. Last week for example, I broke an engagement for Sunday lunch at a friend?s house; an hour later a taxi pulled up with my portion in a Tupperware pot.
The north-east of the country (where I spend a lot of time) is a war zone. This has been affecting our coastal projects for months; just this week heavy bombardments prevented our mobile dental clinics visiting schools by road. War is also creeping into my everyday life as bombs go off in Colombo. Funnily enough, I just accept this as another aspect of existence here.
In fact, the biggest challenge I?ve faced is at work. Sri Lanka is a very hierarchical society, and business norms dictate that workers follow instructions given by their managers without vocalising their doubts. Many, many times in the first few months I proposed completely unworkable ideas, which were then carried out because no objections were raised. Now, I?ve learned to ask questions and listen very carefully before putting ideas forward. I have also found that as a young, western woman who is not a doctor it?s a struggle to prove myself to the people I?m helping.
The advantage of moving abroad to work is that you learn to respect, enjoy and understand a multitude of different viewpoints and cultural practices. It has made my life immeasurably richer and more colourful, and I will take this new outlook with me wherever I go.
For information on how to get involved with Merlin and make a difference, either by joining or donating, visit the organisation?s website at www.merlin.org.uk or telephone .
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