Having lived and worked in Sri Lanka, and in some ways coming back to my ‘second home’ it is always interesting to travel with people that are seeing the country for the first time. So here’s the first impressions of two of the team, Gill and Ian Scoltock:
The contrast between Singapore and Sri Lanka was striking. Singapore- huge concrete jungle , Sri Lanka – roads full of crazy drivers, honking horns, overloaded tuk tuks, Mum, Dad and kids all on one moped, cows on the road side, street stalls, shops in crumbling buildings, soldiers with guns, stifling heat. We love it.
Everyone smiles and makes you welcome, and can’t do enough for you even though they have so little. Today, our first day at Hikkaduwa/Galle was very special. The devastation caused by the tsunami is still obvious, but there is a lot of reconstruction going on.
We visited the homes of some people who had received help though the Salvation Army’s Livelihood Programme to establish or re-establish small businesses. One lady makes beautiful bags from a certain part of the coconut palm. The process involves boiling fibres for three hours, dying them, then sewing them into intricate designs and finally constructing the hand bags. On the day of the tsunami she was out and came home to find water right through the house and all of her possessions gone. The Salvation Army provided big pots for the boiling process and cupboards for storage. She now has a thriving business, which provides for herself, her daughter and grand child. We heard many similar stories about personal losses of the local people. Nine hundred small projects have been helped so far.
This afternoon we were “honoured guests” at a volley ball tournament between teams of school children, all of which had been affected in some way by the tsunami. It was great to see the kids having fun on the very beach which had caused them so much pain.
We value your continued prayer support as we are finding it hard to sleep in the heat and suffering from information overload.
