Back in One Piece - Check ✔

I've returned to Canada. Un-arrested, un-abducted, un-ransomed, and my  supply of Immodium un-touched. Of course, I never believed the  afore-mentioned things would happen to me - i'd just like to drive the  point home to my dear family. Turns out this trip was not so serenstupid  after all.

As a Sri Lankan living outside the island, I had to go back. In Canada, I  felt I was becoming tangled in a plethora of bias and propaganda, and  that I was losing touch with why I am so impassioned by the island in  the first place. Three months of lone-traveling through Sri Lanka later,  I have some conclusions of what I've observed.

This billboard exemplifies the economic frenzy the country is  experiencing in its post-war opportunity. Visiting Sri Lanka almost  every year, I was astounded this time with the enormous influx of  tourists. All-inclusive resorts to chic boutique hotels seem to be  popping up everywhere. Riding through what was a ghost-town last year,  Killinochchi has now sprouted commercial banks and supermarkets, and  even a hotel. Of course, this economic surge is being profited by the  opportunists at home and abroad - it is no indication of nationwide  prosperity. I'm glad I do not have to listen to another TukTuk driver  complain about how prices have gone up, but it is not just him who complains. Speaking to a young, unemployed educated, middle-class man in Colombo, he states that it is a grim situation for people like him to  advance without political links or sizable funds to buy your way.

That aside, it's good to know that somethings always remain true - and  Sri Lanka is still utterly gorgeous. In a matter of hours, your train  journey can go from hugging the palm-fringed coastline to being within  the cold clouds of rolling mountains, to next being amidst ancient  ruins, and then back in the throngs of the bustling city. Travelling  North, East, South, West and Center, I was mesmerized by such varied  landscapes, but also by the commonalities Sri Lankans share. Not to  sound all hippy and "one love", but really there is not much difference  in the people. Family and religious observances play an integral part in  Sri Lankan lives from the South to the North coast. Trips to the beach,  a serious perchant for dancing, and male-dominated drinking also seem  to be customary. Also, people who you've recently met are very keen on welcoming you to their house, introducing you to their family, and  treating you with tea and food, and sending you back with something like  mangoes from their garden. There seems to be less segregation between  the public sphere and private sphere of people lives, seemingly merging  into one.

Technological advancement is not a primary focus of everyone in Sri  Lanka. I've noticed that a lot of people given a choice between a bed or  the floor, or a shower or a bucket, will readily choose the floor and  the bucket. If you remember from previously, the hose I got for the  Elder's Home to cut down their work time was still not being used when I  went back. Many people outside the city seem quite happily accustomed  to their simple lives. It made me question what "developing" post-war  areas would really mean. Would we be happy when we see nicely-built  houses, more supermarkets, and maybe a movie theatre – like they have in  Colombo? My answer is that people have their own values in how they  live their life, they don't necessarily want our lives - they just want opportunity and freedom to self-suffice their lives.

Not wanting to change ways of life however, is different from not being  able to. I saw in Sri Lanka, a culture of inaction when it came to  demanding change. I remember being at the Premadasa Stadium for the  World Cup, and drunkards on the higher tier were continually spilling  beer on those on the bottom stands. There were several policemen in  10-metre intervals looking out onto the crowd who continued to just  stand there. I was so shocked that people in the crowd would just get up  to leave their paid-seats without complaining. Those who remained would  curse profanities at the culprits as if that would stop them. I could  not believe that no one was informing the authorities even after 4 hours, and I became the first and last person to go and talk to the  police. Maybe people keep quiet because they do not believe in their  systems; made evident by the herd of policemen who eventually went to  settle the beer matter, 6 hours into the game. Incidents of a similar  nature happened a lot. People would sit on bus rides complaining loudly  to one another that the air conditioning was on too high, and then give  me the "what are you doing crazy woman?" stare when I went to the bus  driver to reduce it. I feel that people tend to just accept things the  way the are because they believe to be impotent. You can see how this  translates on a macro-scale into politics.

If there is one thing I'd like to convey with this concluding entry, I'd  like to stress how it is important not to base your perceptions on news  reports. It is easy enough to believe that people in the country are  all brainwashed and ridiculous. From my travels, I have gathered this is  untrue. Citizens of Sri Lanka are just as stratified in their views as  those in the diaspora. There are those who I've met, from Colombo  intellectuals to villagers in the South, who are against the current  administration. Then there are several of those I've met who genuinely  believe that this must be the most amazing time for Tamil people to be  free from war, and praise the president for "saving" Tamil people. There  are also several who are completely politically apathetic. However you look at it, I hope people don't brand Sri Lankans on the island as one monolithic group. Discussing with a young Sinhalese lawyer about my  cricket blogpost, I got offended when he belittled the fact that the  national anthem does not include Tamil and that cultural identity was  not important. He went on to say that it was more important to campaign  for language rights in the courts he works at, because many Tamils  cannot understand the Sinhalese legal jargon, and he could not imagine  how difficult it must be for them. Someone who I had been so quick to  judge as antagonistic to the reconciliation process, turned out to  provide me such valuable insight into matters that need attention.

This trip has been about understanding Sri Lanka on an a more intimate  level than what is presented abstractly through other sources. I urge  anyone passionate about Sri Lanka and it's future to make the  journey. To begin to understand the differences and similarities between  the worlds that youth from Jaffna, Colombo, and Toronto live in is  important for any discussion of re-imagining the future. Out of the  hundreds of youth I talked to in Jaffna - only one wanted to leave  Jaffna for medical school. This seriously astonished me since my  perception was that all Tamils in Jaffna would grab the chance to get  out of there if they could.

I think one of the most touching iniatives I saw by youth in Jaffna, was  the Hatton trip. Hatton is a town in the middle of the country, famous  for it's tea plantations. Most regular visitors to the country would  have definitely travelled to the hill country, and many within the  country will make annual long-weekend trips. In fact anywhere around the  island is accessible within 12 hours, so it is customary to go on trips  around the island with the family. It had never occurred to me that  youth in Jaffna had never had the opportunity to visit outside their  confinement in these previous decades. Any journey outside would have  been to move for good, to the South or abroad - certainly not for a jolly field trip. Just recently, a large group of young adults my age  had organized a trip to Hatton - their first time outside Jaffna  in their lives. They were going to see these wondrous mountains that  they apparently live on the same island as.

"How can there be peace without people understanding each other, and how  can this be if they don't know each other?" - Lester B. Pearson.