President Chandrika Bandaranaike
Kumaratunga’s Constitution and war
What will you remember from your
first Habitat home building trip?
Sri Lanka
Introduction
For many years I had wanted to do a Global
Village Habitat for Humanity project. Some
of that desire stemmed from the great Peace Corps volunteer experience I
received three decades back. Some
stemmed from my continuing desire to see the world and the belief that working
in some part of it gave one and the world a better view. Some stemmed from the interest in learning
different building techniques, since I had learned building for dummies from
the world’s greatest junk castle builders.
www.spies.com/~weasel/castle/castle.html
www.dangerousgames.com/~dennish/Rubelia/
Dick, one of my Peace Corps and Jewish
buddies, said, “Let me know how it goes.
If it doesn’t go overboard on the religious stuff, I think
The answer rambled. I clarified, “Let’s
say we work with Buddhists, Muslins or Hindus here. They are poor but extremely loving to their
children. They treat their neighbors as
they themselves would like to be treated.
But they don’t believe in Jesus as their savior. Are they going to heaven?”
In the end, her somewhat agitated answer
said: “It is not for me to judge. On
Judgment Day, Jesus and his Father will decide.”
For a while there was some edginess toward
me from some of the 8 female team members, but in the end there was little
religious proselytizing. The nightly
blessing of and thanks for the wonderful food was non-denominationally fine, as
were most post-meal discussions on whatever was on the group’s collective mind.
As for the villagers we worked for and
with to build two homes, heavenly talent scouts couldn’t have cast any better loving
and do-unto-others Buddhist and Christian families. For many of us, their wonderful characters
are deeply etched in our minds.
Animators
About
thirty young adults sang, played games, listened to lecturers, role played and took
notes in the classroom below where he slept waiting for the other
Americans.
“Animators?” he asked.
“Yes,” Fr. Ambrose, Director of the Economic and
While the American thought of people drawing cartoon
characters, Fr. Ambrose explained, “We
use games to acquaint them with each other since they are Buddhists, Hindus and
Christians from all over the south. We
are not trying to Christianize them. We
are teaching them how to teach others in a fun way. When they go back to their diocese they can
teach peace and justice. The government
has a good macro program for ending the war.
What is lacking is a micro program.
When the micro program from the diocese up reaches the government’s
macro program there will be success in ending the war.”
It had the flavor of sending
Even
if a visitor were not current on events in
The war, however, wasn’t
discussed much with or by the villagers with whom the Americans worked to build
Habitat Homes in the
The guy who roamed the beach spotted with
comfortable hotels wanted to talk about
The smart, effective manager at the comfortable
seaside hotel where we wound down for a few days painted his picture, “Soon you
will read in paper of children starving.
The country is dying. It is
getting worse. The rupee’s value is
down. I make a good, for here, salary of
8,000 rupees ($104) a month. But it does
not go far. Three thousand here, one
thousand there… They say school is free,
but it took 10,000 rupees ($140) to get my daughter from
“This war is training soldiers with guns. They leave the army and steal their
guns. They come home and there are no
jobs. What are they trained in? You now see more and more in the papers of
robbery and stealing. Those who leave
the army are now using guns to steal and kill neighbors...
“Tamils are not a problem to us. I have a Tamil accountant. He works everyday in the office. We have never had a problem. But somehow our government cannot end a war
with them.”
When asked, “You are smart, articulate and seem to
understand the needs, why don’t you run for office and address these issues
from there?”
The manager responded, “No, no. To run for office you need your own
underground army. You need your own
guns. Each minister has bullet and bomb
proof cars. ”
The
jeweler in the pleasant seaside city of Negombo, whose economic situation
reflected that of 85% of Negombo’s merchants, was suffering since most of his income depended on tourism.
“There is an
underground that runs this war that is bringing shells, making handicapped
children and killing children. A secret
measure on the war is being brought to government today. (President Chandrika Bandaranaike
August 2000 presentation of her new proposed Constitution which she hoped would
end ethnic strife and the war.) No one knows what’s in it. Tomorrow it will be in newspaper. The rich do okay in the war but the poor
struggle. A father works all day for 100
rupees and can’t buy himself a drink at the end of the day. And prices just go up.”
We are a little country and little people. We need
President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s Constitution and war
It’s
December 20th 1999. At the
close of a well-received Presidential campaign
speech at the crowded Town Hall in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, President Bandaranaike Kumaratunga apologizes
for the Tamil insurrection required tight security that refrains her from
mixing with the people. As she
approaches her Presidential car, a woman throws herself at the President while
igniting her bomb-wired body.
Twenty-three
die. Over 100 are hospitalized. The
President loses the sight in her right eye. Her driver is killed.
August 2nd 2000 a Sri Lankan businessman expresses
some often heard sentiments regarding President Bandaranaike: “Her husband was shot and killed, believed by
the Tamils. Shot in front of their
children. Some say her father too was
killed by Tamils. He was killed after he
attempted to sign the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact, which was the 13th
amendment which became law but failed to address the totality of issues in
national question. She is powerful. But for 8 years she has done nothing. Just talk.
She should either negotiate an end to the war or just end it. She can do it. She has the power.”
On August 4th 2000, President
Bandaranaike of the People’s Alliance Party (PA) presents her proposed new
Constitution to the Parliament. It has
been discussed for two years among the parties.
The President had high hopes that it would end ethnic strife and the
Tamil War. Instead, as the newspapers
reported: “It caused a war in
Parliament. Members of Parliament heckled her and her
Constitution. They burned the proposed
Constitution and threw books right there in the Parliament.”
Democracy by its nature requires time, debate,
compromise and sometimes ugly politics.
Since a Parliamentary Commission has been hashing out the proposed
Constitution intended to provide Tamils vastly increased autonomy and
guaranteed rights, what is the hang-up?
Is the United National Party (UNP) really more concerned about
bolstering the PA’s popularity by ending an 18 year war that has cost 50,000
dead and casualties, 40,000 war widows 200,000 displaced children? Do the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF)
and the Eelam Democratic Front, a former Tamil rebel group, really see more
benefits for Tamils from continuing bloodshed?
August 6th 2000, the politically powerful
Buddhist community rages against the Constitution so forcibly that to an
outsider one senses it chances of passage are doomed.
Thoughts revert to ten days earlier when our Habitat
work group is taken to a Buddhist enclave where schooling mixes with
living. The monk, elders, children and
families honor us with attention, food and drink. We sit shoeless outside the temple and ask
questions that the monk and elder encourage.
Repeatedly the elder and monk drive home this point: “We gave land to Portuguese when they came to
control us. We trusted the British to do
right. We gave kingdoms to Kings who
wanted them… We did all this rather than fight.
Sri Lakans like peace. We
Buddhist assimilate. We are
peaceful.”
So what gives?
A woman’s political husband is murdered in front of her children as he
tries to end a war. She picks up the
mantle as President. A human bomb hurls herself at the now woman
President. She loses her eye. She pushes for over 2 years to get political
parties and religious groups to build a bridge to end ethnic, human and
economic bloodshed. Then politics and
religion blows the bridge? Perhaps, as
the Zen Master at the
Remarkable like…
They drove through Higgorakuda’s streets buzzing with people, cars and carts, viewed acres of lush greenery, rice fields, flowers and birds; passed over the temporary, one lane, steel bridge, which waited for the larger, adjacent, rusting steel and concrete bridge to resume construction; and looked down on the river’s most prominent flat rock, on which a smiling couple was always scrubbing clothes.
They followed the man made canals flowing from the
smartly engineered tank capturing water on tens of thousands of hectares. From their first drive along the canals, the
myriad of bathers, clothes washers, water gathers and swimmers seemed to know,
turn and acknowledge their coming. A
little bridge took them over the canal and into the jungle where simple houses
were sparsely spaced. Lining and
crossing the miles of dirt road was a perfectly shaped 18” x 8” trench. During their three-week sweaty vacation,
white PVC pipe to carry the villagers’ first potable water would be dropped
into these villagers’ perfectly carved hand dug trenches.
That first day they got out of the vans and stepped
onto a dirt path lined with villagers and white shirted, scared children,
holding pan leaves in tiny hands.
Timidly, music and singing started.
With coaxing, the singing grew louder.
Soon a boy, well below the 6 footer’s waist, looking fearful, stood
before him. As the boy went to his
knees, the American dropped to his and held the boy’s little hands to stand him
up. Trying to kiss his feet watered the
yank’s eyes beyond the level of respect the kiss was to signify.
Pretty little girls gently and languidly danced and
softly sang as the children guided the eleven Americans to a ceremony at the
site where one of two Habitat homes would be built. After the first few days of work, the
children were no longer scared. They
mimicked the work the villagers and Americans did, once again proving children
could do as well as adults, just couldn’t reach as high. They shyly plied for attention, as the
ever-polite Sri Lankans watched, so that the children wouldn’t become the pests
they were too beautiful to be. Maybe
Polonnanruwa was an exceptional village, but had these kids been transplanted
into any American suburb, they would stand tall among its exceptional, most
lovable kids.
“Wasn’t 16 red bricks in that barrow your tops yesterday? Dave, the ex-college halfback, asked of the 6’ 200 pound ex-college pulling guard.
“Yeah,” he said, as they stopped their sweaty work
to watch the tall, bony, shoeless lady push the dilapidated, rickety,
undersized wheel barrow filled with 20 bricks from the brick making area thirty
yards away, around trees, and over the path intermixed with stones and loose
sand. “Isn’t that the lady we saw
working yesterday?”
“Yes… She’s
something. Who is she?”
“Chandra Latha is her name,”
Habitat organizer Rohita told us before he took us to her home. “It is understood that if a Habitat house is
built for you, you help others when they build one, if you can. Chandra always helps as much as she can. She is a very helping person.”
Chandra’s
red brick, 9’ x 20’ house, like the two we built, had two doors, one window and
was one-half of a potentially double in size A frame if the owners are able to
cover another $350-400 in costs. Although
Chandra couldn’t speak English and had her worn down look on, she still seemed
excited to show her home. The best corner of her house was for her ten year
old. When it was time to leave, she
rushed back in to carry him into our photo of her house and family. Her son, unable to brush the flies away as he
lay on his blanket, had been a lifelong victim of perhaps polio. Chandra’s other son, about 20 and recently
married, joined the picture. Like his
mother, he had no steady job or skill, other than the seasonal planting and
picking of rice.
Every day when you drove back by the waving kids, through the jungle, hand dug trenches, busy canal, rice fields, under-construction bridge you had someone like Chandra to remember.
What will you remember from your first Habitat home building trip?
Mason Karusuna filling
fifteen foot of ½” clear plastic tubing with water and using that to level the
foundation, roof line and anything else
that needed to stand-still a marble... Watching him often rush off to pick up
his son from school only to later come back to work late into the night.
Marveling at the young man climbing the tall coconut trees using an ankle wrapped rag for climbing support. Watching him machete coconuts for our milk drinking and meat eating pleasure. Watching Ravi respond to, “The girls need a paint brush to stain the window sills,” by him cracking a coconut shell, chopping, smashing and fibering one end till it became a coconut handled paint brush. Working with their wood stain, which we guys agreed had to be a mix of used motor oil, creosote and muck, and learning that a coconut mixture also removed that potent stuff from clothes and hands.
Enjoying, teasing, tickling,
playing daily with the beautiful kids --- Anosa, Madumal, Ranga, Charme,
Manori, Charmina, -- and their friends.
Being awed at how they chip in to help at the dirtiest of tasks. Applauding their many performances and
talents. Marveling at the bright smiles
in their eyes – and hoping those gleams would last.
Watching talented
Showing
the athletically gifted Charmina with his cricket bat in hand what facing an
American pitcher would be like as gaming in the jungle’s opening closed out a
work day. In retrieving his foul ball
from the jungle and returning to pitch on Charmina’s jungle of dreams, I forgot
Satchel Page’s “Never look back…” corollary that warned, “Always look forward, so you can tell where
the pitcher’s mound ends and latrine begins…”
And then hooking my fall down on branches supporting the palm frond
covered 9’x4’x4’ hand-dug through rock-clay like soil -- and luckily freshly
completed -- latrine.
Capping
a grueling physical day with the most wondrous array of vegetable, meat, and
fish dishes cooked by Krishan’s constantly smiling Mother, even while all her
moves were stabbing her with excruciating back pain. Being reminded in the post-diner team talks
that men are from Mars and women are from Venus as the three self-proclaimed work oriented
guys were often obliquely and directly pestered to “open up, tell us who you
are” by a few of the more outspoken
women. Depending on what alley of what
planet you crawled out from, the male response would be interpreted as either a
couple
Sweating
and sweating. Drinking and
drinking. Emptying and emptying bottle
after water bottle. And each day having the kids ask if they could have the
boxes of precious empty plastic bottles your team’s gulping was producing.
Crawling
each night under the mosquito net to the pad and sheets on the floor. Sharing burning citronella rings, a few pesky
mosquitoes, heavy, humid, hot air and the one rotating fan with netted Dave and
Greg on each side, and cherishing the morsels of cryptic, or was it gastric,
humor that rose and eventually knocked us out.
Flashing pictures in the
head. The fish salesman chopping off the
fish’s head with his well used knife on the worn and chopped piece of wood
sitting on top of the rear fender of his bike on the dirt road. The soaping, sudsing people and clothes
mixing in the life supplying canals from whence their crop irrigation, fish,
and drinking water, until the PVC pumps potable water, come.
Worrying
Jananandana and Amborsia showing concern only about me, when we accidentally
dropped the branch and consequently the
roof of their mostly mud hut
on my shoulder. They quickly moved all their earthly possessions near a tree on
the jungle’s edge. The next day we
knocked the rest of their hut down for its few useable bricks, and all their
possessions -- some blankets and clothes, a mosquito net, some pots and pans,
filled a corner of where we stored the roof tiles.
Most of all I will try to remember, especially when my character line needs lifting, the spirit of those people – from the mothers, to the homeowners, to the helping neighbors, to the kids, to boss grandma, to the mason and workers. I will try to remember the smiles that seldom faded and seemed to grow. Each day the red brick house came closer to standing tall, the white teeth on those pleasing brown faces seemed brighter, the twinkle seemed sharper. Except for the littlest family member – who liked being suspicious and consequently serious -- until he was tickled.
I will smile remembering the
kids. From their early defeat of shyness
and fearfulness, their playfulness and happiness seemed to zoom just at seeing
us. Would they be grabbed and played
with by Dave and Greg? Play hokey pokey
or
May
they always be so wonderful, so cute, so lovable, so blessed. May these wonderful kids never go to
war. May cheering their ringed Karate
Kid be the closest they come to tasting the toil of fighting.
With Sri Lanka’s kids in mind and thinking of America’s most famous Habitat Home builders, Roselyn and Jimmy Carter, let me hurl a prayer heavenward that Mormon Dave and even agnostic Greg would let fly.
Lord,
have Jimmy bring his
Lord,
if you’ve got Jimmy too tied up for this assignment right now, then substitute
Manhattan Billy. It would help
his waiste line more than
In 2000 Habitat for Humanity
celebrated its 25th anniversary and completed its 100,000th
house, with a goal of completing its next 100,000 by 2005. This is one
In the late 60’s
Why build these cities beautiful
If man unbuilded goes
In vain we build the world
Unless the builder also grows.
Edwin Markham