Please clearly mark "X" beside the candidate of your choice

Elections.
The thought of elections usually brings feelings of boredom and drudgery to my mind.  The only interest which they garner in me is the chance of polishing arguments with my sister of why I didn't bother to vote.

But that was before I came to live in a nation where national elections create an atmosphere so thick with politics that at times it is hard to tell whether you're breathing in air or propaganda.  You may not know it, but today is the day of Sri Lanka's 6th Presidntial election.  As I write this, the votes are being furiously counted, with millions of Sri Lankans waiting with fingers crossed, incense burning and breath held to hear the final verdict.  By the time you read this, you can probably head over to Google and find out the results for yourself.

With Sri Lanka's recent history of violence and newly achieved peace, the results of this election are monumental and of great historical significance for this tiny island.  I am guessing that the importance of this election will earn it enough clout to make International news: probably a ten second, maybe fifteen second slot at the beginning of the newscast to fill time while they tantalize you with snipits of the more exciting news that will keep you watching till the end of the broadcast.  I was thinking today about the countless news items I have watched that parallel this exact event:  "Unimportant, tiny third world country elects new President!"  I barely took notice.  But now, living here during one of these elections has opened my eyes to the incredible struggle it is to achieve democratic, peaceful, fair elections.


Ever since President Mahinda Rajapaksa (famous as the President who ended the 25 year war with the LTTE Tiger terrorist army) declared in late November that he was holding an election to seek another term in office, the country has been ablaze with outrageous propaganda and zealous campaigning.  Everyone is entranced by the election: the unemployed school dropouts who follow the armored, police guarded vehicles of high rank politicians, showing their support by lighting firecrackers that explode at gunshot decibel; the poor farmers who ditch out on their daily duties to consume the free liquor provided by the political party which is holding a public address rally in their town; the dedicated shopkeepers who religiously paste posters of their preferred candidate all over the city on their way home from work, defacing the posters of rival candidates as they go; even children benefit - the president has declared (only last week) three days of national holidays surrounding the election day, which means shops and schools have been deserted while people flock to the nearest television set to take in the latest political mudslinging (the mudslinging is actually quite comical: some politicians rewrite lyrics of pop songs to malign their opponents, others prefer kindergarten-name-calling tactics - the most popular of these being "dog" and "monkey") that has run incessantly on every news channel since November.  In fact, I don't think I have heard one news story since the election campaigns started that doesn't relate to the election in some way - not even one!

Everyone seems to hold intense loyalty towards one of the twenty presidential candidates (though it is really a two-horse race between Rajapaksa and retired General Sarath Fonseka - a national hero for his command of the army to end the war against the terrorist Tigers).  Party loyalty is stubbornly clung to and, if needed, defended.  Countless clashes have broke out when civillian groups of zealous supporters march through the streets of their towns, employing loud speakers and noise makers to rile up their political opponents.  These actions are invariably countered by another party, often resulting in violent altercations.  Unofficially, there have been four deaths, twelve shootings and hundreds of injuries due to political violence since November.


It is truly a miracle that there was no violence today on voting day (at least none that was reported: all media is government censored to some degree).  Tomorrow might be a different story.

 It is indeed bizarre to be living in one of those little ten second news clips that no one pays attention to.  There is a lot more that goes on than "the winner is...."  Elections will surely take on a new meaning for me the next time that I am fortunate enough to participate in one.

Maybe, to the delight of my sister, I might even vote next time.

Service Aversion

I am entirely aware that my blogging consistency has been lacking as of late.  My family has begun to leave gentle hints on my blog, disguised as comments, goading me to get my butt back in blogging mode.  I suppose their desire to hear something from me is completely warranted since it is my first Christmas away from home.  Please accept my deepest apologies in regards to my absence from blog land.
Christmas away from home has given me much food for thought.  The differences in celebrations have definitely caused me to think.  But it wasn't the thought of missing the typical Christmas feast that set my mind a'wandering. Nor was it the lack of snow or sub-zero temperatures that caused me to ponder so deeply.  And though being away from my family has caused me to realize my love for them on a heightened level, my absence from them is not what has challenged me most during the Christmas season in Sri Lanka.

The catalyst has been...tea.

After a Christmas morning church service I travelled with my Sri Lankan family to the island's hill country, where tea bushes cling to every butte, bank and bluff as far as the eye can see.  We were headed to the Senior Manager's Bungalow of Bogawana Tea Estate.  One of the members of our church is the Manager of this estate (they call them "planters."  I thought it was interesting to note the extreme dichotomy between the lifestyles of this planter and myself, a Canadian "planter") and had invited us and another family to share Christmas at the estate with them from the 25th to the 27th.

The gradually decreasing temperature made it easy to gauge how high we were climbing into the hills, but I failed to comprehend the just how far we were travelling back in time as we rounded each bend towards the plantation.  The Colonial British era is not very difficult to imagine while in the plantations of Sri Lanka.  Mostly, because much of that era is still alive.  The most vivid reminder is in the centuries old estate bungalow in which we stayed.  But not the bungalow's physical features, rather, in the traditions that have been upheld there since it held the first British planters.   Particularly, servants.  The bungalow has three full time servants who come sprinting (literally) when any one of the several bells that hang from the roof are rung.  One of them would wake me up every morning by lightly knocking on my door to herald the arrival of my morning cup of scalding-hot fresh tea.  He would then open my blinds, and at some point throughout the day would slip back into my room to draw the blinds again before I bed down for the night.  The magnificent garden is maintained by six full time gardeners who politely remove their caps every time the estate owner passes by.

Servants are a regular part of life in Sri Lanka.  It seems that most middle class houses have someone to help out, whether that be a gardner or a cook or maid of some sort.  So it is not that I haven't experienced the whole "servant" thing before, I just hadn't experienced it to this degree.  The experience of having someone wait on me hand and foot made me realize with dazzling clarity that I despise being served:

I am uncomfortable when the servant comes scampering from the next room to dish my food when it is only an arms length from me.  I cringe when the gardener who works at our house, a man who I am guessing is in his sixties, calls me "sir."  I feel thankless and rude when I leave my dishes on the table for someone else to clean up.  Every part of me feels as though being served like this is wrong.  But, it's not necessarily wrong (I have no reason to believe that servants are treated poorly or paid unfairly), it's just different.  It's difference grates me so much though.  It perturbs me because service absolutely flies in the face of the independence that I have been exercising since I took the training wheels off my bicycle.

That may not seem like a very profound statement to you, but (since most of you who read this are North Americans) it has vast implications for those who live in culture where we avoid help like the plague: We don't ask for directions though we are hopelessly lost; we politely tell the shoe salesman "I'm just looking," so that he will leave us alone as we stare at the wall of shoes in front of us, desperately in need of assistance but too autonomous to ask for it; we always choose the "Self-serve" gas stations so that we know we will be getting exactly what we paid for.  Self-serve doesn't even exist here.  I am starting to believe that we smother a significant part of our lives and souls by stubbornly clinging to our independence.  The choke hold is applied at a young age, teaching children to provide for themselves and their futures, to chase the "[north] American dream" of success, and, held consistently through teenage years and into adult life, that hold (arguably) kills our souls entirely.

Perhaps this is why the greater majority of North Americans don't believe in any god.  Why serve a god, or submit to the servitude of a god (especially the gracious servitude of a God who longs to bless us), when we ourselves have rejected service since our youth?  The very concept of religion is that there is someone/something else that is bigger than ourselves, something greater than ourselves, to whom submission (lordship, reverence, allegiance, etc.) is due.  To allow such a thought to take root in our lives we would first need to be convinced that we are people who are "wired" for submission to the service of others.  I believe there is a direct correlation between the profusion of "servant" jobs in Sri Lanka and the fact that everyone believes in some sort of deity.

By fiercely clinging to our independence, and passing that ferocity on to the next generation we are essentially teaching them not to believe in God.  If from childhood they are taught to believe in themselves as opposed to depend on the help, kindness and tutelage of others, every fiber in their bodies becomes attuned to autonomy and subsequently opposed to dependency - the essential ingredient in realizing our need for a Saviour and the imperative role of God.

Independence is indeed a great tool that can be used for good, to accomplish extraordinary things in the world.  But I am realizing, in my own life anyway, the great hindrance that independence can be to trust and understand a God who thrives on dependency.

Dependency.  Like a child, helpless in this world but for the care of its mother.  A child, living in a state of constant service, a full recipient of all the benefits of being served.  

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

 

Steward?

I was watching TV with some of the boys that I teach drum lessons to and this map of the world came on the screen and they shouted, "Look there's Sri Lanka!" demonstrating the innate pride in their country that bursts forth out of every pore of each Sri Lankan that occupies this little island. I pointed Canada out to them, and realized, "Dang, I'm a long ways from home!"
So I was interested today to see how far I am from home, so I headed over to google and was gloriously sidetreacked by a website that informed me that during my journey from Lethbridge to Kandy, I created approximately 1.43 tonnes (3, 152 lbs) of carbon dioxide equivalents. Wowzas! This should probably alarm me, but it doesn't. Does it make me a bad person if I say that I'm not too worried about it?
It would be very easy for me to become all super concerned about the environment as I am over here: every day my nostrils are overwhelmed with pungent odor of the small fires in front of people's homes in which they burn plastics and household garbage. The shores of picturesque rivers are littered with myriad plastic bags and other refuse. Garbage cans are scarce, just throw it on the street instead.
Yet, I don't seem to care. I didn't care in Canada either. I think I would be foolish to think that the pollution ocurring here is on a greater scale than that of North America, it is likely just more visible.
Maybe my apathy towards this stems from the seemingly unassailable level of pollution and creation-rape. We pollute at an alarming rate. In light of how much garbage our world produces, does it even matter if I recycle my Fanta Soda bottle rather than burn it on the side of the road?

Maybe my apathy is appeased by my false perception that I "save the earth" by planting trees every summer.
Or maybe my lack of concern is indicative of a lack of understanding of God's love. Do I see this earth as a gift from God? A gift born not of compulsion or of obligation but of love. He gave us a sweet world just because He loves us and wanted us to have a good gift. Hmm.

But I don't care.

I can't seem to wrap my head around my apathy. Maybe apathy is the wrong word. I am concerned; but my concern lacks the potency to compel me to do anything about it. Concern and conviction isn't something you can just muster up, or fake, it has to grip you/take hold of you with such force that you can't NOT be concerned. I don't seem to possess this conviction...which frustrates me.

Frustration quite often motivates me to try and accomplish things/conquer things/change. I would love it if the frustration over my evident lack of concern for the environment would affect some sort of change.

Picture this...

From what I understand from reading the blogs of other people, there comes a point in every blogger's "career" where passion either wanes or material runs dry and so ensues the obligatory "picture blog." Don't worry, my passion and inspiration for writing haven't shriveled up and died in the Sri Lankan sun; I guess the time is just right to let the pictures do the talking. Enjoy!



Some of the scenery in and around Kandy/tea plantation/one of the many huge buddhas that sit high up on the hills


My surfing trip to the beautiful, sleepy town of Arugam Bay


Some of the neighborhood kids/my Sri Lankan family/ my first coconut


Boys dorm at Home of Hope/Home of Hope Kids


Lion guarding ancient ruins at Pollonaruwa/motorbikes: room for the whole family/somehow I managed to sneak into a Buddhist wedding...

I guess to see the rest of my pics you will just have to come visit me when I come back to Canada in March! Yes...March...I got my visa extended last week, so it is official: no snow for Christmas :(

Unwound

Two weeks since my last post. So much learned. Where to begin.

My life currently occupies this weird space where busyness and relaxation collide. I have done a fair amount of traveling and trekking as of late: a surfing trip to Arugam Bay on the East coast; attending a Buddhist wedding of the brother of a friend of a friend (an all day affair at a beautiful waterfall bordered reception hall); another stint at the children's home; a spur of the moment jaunt halfway across the island to buy a washing machine; short little visits here and there involving lots of commuting which has allowed me the opportunity to view much of the landscape of this beautiful country. Some of my treks have also afforded me the glorious experience of navigating the Sri Lankan bus system - a hilarious mix of chaos and seemingly impossible efficiency. This has created a busy shuffle from place to place, never really getting set in one place before I am up and leaving for another. But when I am in these places, I mostly spend my time not doing too much, which, as I have alluded to in other posts, is rather normal.

By no means am I implying that Sri Lankans don't do anything - they just do things at a different pace. Things get done, but without the stress.

This new pace has forced me to totally revamp....myself...I guess. Everything that made me a "valuable" person in North America - hard-working, efficient, self-motivated, independant - are essentially useless characteristics here. A rather depressing thought when much of your self-worth has been placed in your own skills and accomplishment. So, while I have frantically sought ways to make myself "useful," buzzing here and there under the guise of helping others, I realized I was only making things harder for myself by struggling so hard against that pattern of life that has been set here for ages. So, against my better judgement and nature, I have chilled out...alot.

It has taken concerted effort to chill out. But I honestly don't have a choice. I would wear myself out if I kept swimming against the current. I think this is a good instance in which it is perfectly OK and right to just go with the flow. The flow has caused me to loosen my grip on certain things formerly held with vise fists. Like efficiency. Independance. Multi-tasking. Who knows if these things will regain the importance they once held. Some of you may be reading this thinking, "Oh no, Dave is seriously loosing it over there!" Maybe. I will probably receive a huge jolt and transitioning pain when I come back to North America. But for now I am enjoying being unwound. Unwound to the point where I think I might even be starting to wind back up in the complete opposite direction that I have been coiled all these years. It is intriguing to think that the way you live your life may have a polar opposite twin, and the only reason that your life is lived on one end as opposed to the other is largely dependant on where/when/how/and with whom you have grown up. Every event and life scenario in which we find ourself has the ability to change and tweak the way we view the world, tightening or loosening the coil that we have wound around the central worldview that shapes who we are. I feel frightenly close to that nucleus, wondering if somehow the whole thing will come undone if my preconceptions of the world are unravelled any further. But I am equally curious to see what the "other side" is like; that maybe I can get a taste of how my mind and life and worldview would be alternately formed if I would have grown up my whole life in a culture like this. Not that any culture is better than any other, but that each is distinct, and distinctly able to change and rearrange how one thinks. And so I continue to unwind.

Revisited

I just came back from a wonderful visit to Home of Hope, a children's home in the area. Most of my days were spent playing guitar (I am attempting to teach myself while I am here: I have 6 chords down!), reading, and waiting for the children to get home from school. Then the fun begins. The smallest girls seem oblivious to my obvious deficiency in speaking their language, laughing and giggling at me in Tamil, or Sinhala, I still can't tell the difference. I am slightly worried that, while playing with them in the playground, on the swing sets, they are screaming at me, "Stop pushing me! I am too high! I am scared of heights! I am peeing my pants!" to which I respond with my usual smile-as-big-as-I-can-because-I-don't-have-any-clue-what-you-are-saying and pray that I am not scarring these children for life.

This home's location in rural Sri Lanka afforded me the opportunity to become a little more acquainted with the insect/reptillian/creepy-crawly population of Sri Lanka. I have never really been scared of bugs, however, when I was a wee lad I vividly recall disobeying my parents by watching a TV version of the early 90s thriller, Arachnophobia. One particular scene became forever etched into my psyche and is responsible for my slight distaste for bugs: a legion of spiders had taken over the bathroom of some house, unbeknownst to an unfortunate patron of that bathroom. As he/she (I can't remember) showered, spiders crawled out of pipes in the shower head, toilet, faucets, to prey upon the unsuspecting bather. I thought this was great entertainment. But when I went to shower that night, I was keenly aware of every single hole and hide-away in which some killer arachnid may be waiting in ambush for me. For a week straight, I spun a perpetual 360 as I showered, bearing the sting of soap in my eyes to avoid missing the sign of a sneak spidey-attack. I performed a thorough examination of the toilet before every use, making sure that no poisonous webspinners were clinging to some under-visible underside, waiting to take advantage of my embarassingly vulnerable immobility. Fortunately, this paranoia gradually subsided.

My childhood fears revisited me this week.

Upon entering the bathroom to relieve myself (I seem to write a lot about bodily functions...) I noticed a big 'ole nasty cockroach floating in the bottom of the toilet. Paranoia flooding back, I tried flushing him down, to no avail. So, I proceeded in my initial task, very cautiously and awkwardly, while trying to keep an eye on the overgrown beetle. With the mission accomplished, I triumphantly flushed, making sure that this time, my roach friend slipped down into the watery depths of the sewer. However, as the flushed water flooded down the sides of the toilet, it carried with it another cockroach, who had been clinging to the underside of the toilet rim, knocked from his perch by the rushing water. Inches away from where I had been sitting. Sick. Nasty. I hate cockroaches.

So there you have it - there are some things that scare me... kind of.

Rags

I attended my first Sri Lankan birthday party on Tuesday, the first of two I was invited to this week. It was to celebrate the 4th birthday of my little pukey friend who decided to gift me with some vomit on my leg for my own birthday (see previous post. I guessed she was six in that post, way off). I didn't return the favor, but I did eat some wonderful food at both her party and the second one, held for the one year old son of a Kandy pastor. If you are invited as a guest into a Sri Lankan home, they make sure they bring out the fattened calf, or in this case, ten different curries, to thank you for your presence. And no, is not an option. It doesn't matter if you are full, you keep eating until they are satisfied.

At the second party I met a little girl who was wearing a rather interesting headband. I have learned that Bob Marley is intensely popular in Sri Lanka, so it is not uncommon to Jamaican flags and pictures of marijuana leaves as stickers on three-wheeled taxis and plastered on city walls. However, this was the first time I have seen the cannabis leaf worn as clothing by a toddler. It shouldn’t really surprise me, since Sri Lanka is full of such anachronisms.
There is a certain irony in the way that western products have received an open-armed (and often naive) acceptance by Sri Lankan culture. It is the kind of irony that would explain a 3 year old sporting a pot-leaf as headgear. Or, a woman at the local Bible college proudly parading the campus, Bible in hand, with the “Hustler” logo emblazoned across her t-shirt clad chest.
Ability to read English aside, I don’t think the message or logo which appears on their clothing bears any real importance to the average wearer in Sri Lanka. For example: Trying to strike up conversation with a teenage, English speaking friend of mine, I asked him, pointing at the emblem on his shirt and shorts, if the New York Knicks were his favorite basketball team? He replied, "Who are the Knicks?"

As the tonnes and tonnes of western designed clothes make there way across the ocean to this little island, I am convinced that there is some pit stop a long the way where they layover and take time to neuter the cultural meaning from any phrase, word or slogan that may have held any sort of potency in the country in which it was conceived. After such neutering, a pastor-in-training at a Bible college can promote a porno magazine with a logo on her shirt with a free mind and guilt-less conscience. The original virility of the message honestly means nothing. In so doing, the shirt-as-billboard simply becomes clothing. A rag to cover nakedness. The message which it proclaims bears no real representation of the beliefs of its wearer. I probably wouldn’t be able to score some weed from my small friend with the rastafari headband. She probably couldn’t even tell me what her headband bore a picture of. It bears a message but to her it holds no significance.

It bears a message but holds no meaning.

“...by this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another...”

Every once and awhile I see these shirts (moreso in North America than here) that say ,“LOVE” right across the front . I have thought, man, I would really like to make a proclamation like that, but that is a lot of pressure. What if I wear that shirt one day, and I do something unloving? What if my life can't back up this LOVE that I'm "wearing"?

If I bear the label of love on my life, but don't allow that label to hold any significant power over my life, it is just a rag. It is just a rag that I use to dress up in, to be fashionable, to show that I belong to a certain club. If it bears a message but holds no meaning, that is all it is - a rag, not really useful for anything except for covering nakedness.