May 22nd - Now somewhat used to the incredible heat, we settled into a daily routine, involving lunch at a nearby church and water-runs to a roadside shop. We went through innumerable bottles of water, and started to play cricket and other games with the children from the nearby camp.

Entries: Fabian, Sejal, Zohra

 

I lent the kids at the build site my digital camera. All these while we’ve been taking photos of/with them and they’ve been excited about the instant review capabilities of the cameras, but somehow I still felt they had a certain reservation about the camera. And woah, was I right. They were really excited and snapped so many pictures of each other, striking exaggerated poses. Usually it is just a shy smile when they take photos with us. They invited me to be in their photos when we sometimes had to coax them into joining our photos. With a kid behind the camera, the comfort factor seems much stronger.

Of course, kids being kids, they fought over the camera. Then the most amazing thing happened. One of the kids looked very concerned all of a sudden and asked me “money?” while pointing at the camera. I was puzzled. Like, what? He wants money? Or what is he trying to ask? He grabbed the camera from his friend and tried to return it to me, gesturing that I should keep it. Then I realized he was worried that those shots cost money (yes, they took quite a few shots). With my feeble grasp of Sinhalese I couldn’t tell him that it was alright and it was free, and tried gesturing that it was ok and they could go on. The kid insisted and shoved my camera back in my pocket.

I went back to Singapore from Penn before heading to Sri Lanka, and my grandmother started crying when I told her I was going to Sri Lanka on a tsunami relief trip. She said she had seen what happened in Sri Lanka on TV. She told me that I had to bring food to the Sri Lankans, and despite me telling her that there were specific relief organizations doing it (and I could only bring a suitcase of food at most), she was adamant that I bring some kind of food to them. Her suggestion was instant noodles (ramen). I made a compromise and brought “Hello Panda,” a Japanese snack that’s biscuit with a chocolate filling.

So the kids were pretty excited when we gave them the Hello Panda, and they were eating it like they enjoyed it. Some time later, Sejal (I think) noticed that the kids stopped eating and we were wondering what’s wrong. Did they not like the taste? Ramilah asked them, and it turns out that they were saving some for their parents.

The camera incident and the Hello Panda incident today truly touched me. The ability of them to care for others when they aren’t doing that great themselves is amazing. I really hope we’ll/Penn will continue doing something to help them after this summer.

-Fabian

Even after having spent a good amount of time in India – I never really stopped to look. I never really stopped to see what resonates through the lives of these people. For my entire life I’ve felt sorry for them.

I remember growing up, as many Indian children do, having been lectured over and over again that I should always clean my plate because there are millions of hungry children around the world who don’t get enough food to eat. I’ve heard variations of the same story ever since I could remember. After sitting in the living room come bedroom of one Sri Lankan women and her daughter today I realized today how much of an ego I had to think that I had more going for me in my life than these people ever would. To be perfectly honest, quite the opposite was true. Those who look poverty straight in the eye everyday have more to teach this world than we could ever teach them.

I was painting a windowsill this morning – one that was facing the temporary camp set up outside the construction site when I saw this Sri Lankan women and her daughter watching as a strange group of foreign kids worked diligently at the site: painting, digging and contributing what we could to the tsunami-relief effort. I went outside to say hello to her and her little daughter when she asked me if I would like to visit her home. I decided that I needed a break as I was sweating profusely from the heat and followed her into the camp, passing along the way at least 20-30 other villagers taking refuge in the camp, crowded and frayed tents sprawled out everywhere and a few stray dogs and cats. After what seemed like five minutes we arrived at her house – a tiny room perhaps half the size of the hotel room I’m currently staying in. In it was a large bed, which took up about ¾ of the room, two chairs and a small bureau. I took a seat in one of the chairs and she immediately turned on the fan for me and offered to buy me a soda. In a village where even the construction workers made less than 100 Sri Lankan rupees a day, this woman was offering to buy me a soda costing 50 rupees.

I politely declined and sat in the room, asking her about her family when in ran her nephew, who appeared to be 3-4 years old. Her daughter and nephew ran outside and out of the corner of my eye I saw them playing with a pile of garbage nearby. Garbage, something most consider to be disgusting and most certainly not worth playing with, was bringing smiles to the faces of these kids the way Christmas morning presents did to American children. That put things into perspective. Never during my 15-20 minute break did I hear this woman complain about anything, about having so little and having lost so much from the tsunami. She was beaming with every word she said when she showed me her wedding picture, talked about her sister who lived next door and asked me about my life. For the first time in a long time, I found someone whom I believed to be genuinely happy. I took a few minutes to examine my own life, and realized that I couldn’t think of a time when I had been that content. And here I was, just one day earlier, feeling sorry for the only people in the world who really understood what it meant to live. I guess that’s what differentiates our material lives from theirs.

It might have been a simple offering of soda to most, but to me it was a sign of selflessness, something that you don’t see too often back home. It might have just been a pile of garbage, but to me it was sign of happiness, something that we’ll never truly understand. Only in the face of the poverty and hardship will people’s true colors show. Having seen what incredibly remarkable people live in Sri Lanka I have to ask myself if I could ever be that kind of a person after having lost everything. Who knows, maybe this was the inspiration I needed.

-Sejal

It was half day today at the site. Keith did not feel good in the morning so he and Jason stayed back at the hotel. I spent the first hour or two painting. The children from camp had gone to Sunday school. I waited eagerly for them to return; the best part of my days at the site was engaging with the kids. I also wanted to try out the new Sinhalese words I had learnt between yesterday and today. I brought along key chains and balls for them to play with.

They all came back at noon, dressed in pure, white uniforms. They looked much cleaner than me in my tracks all splashed with paint. They said hello to me and ran in to change clothes and soon returned to hang out with me. After painting 4 door frames in one go I was pretty tired – other girls called me intermittently to finish off the top parts of their frames since I was the only one who could reach them. Anyway, I finally put down my paint materials and went to play with the kids on the side of their huts. I brought out the plastic balls and started juggling with them. Soon one of the small boys ran in and brought out a tennis ball. Soon we were all playing cricket! The girls seemed to be more involved in the game than the boys.

After a while we switched to a game of volleyball in a circle with one person in the middle. While we played, the adults standing around us talked to me through Suba, the one who knew the best English. We cracked jokes about an old woman being the star player of the Sri Lankan cricket team (implying one of the mothers on the playing field). I called her Ms. Aravinda de Silva and everyone burst out laughing. I also learnt more Sinhalese words during the game. Everyone helped me learn. And then they asked me to teach them some more Hindi words too. The language barrier causes everyone to make a huge effort to communicate!

-Zohra