I first met Steve Francone during a semester studying abroad in Australia. The next time I saw him, he had brought some of our Australian brothers to a ZONK show in San Francisco. I was onstage, wearing a dress and playing guitar. Don't ask.
Thunk! I smile as my head almost hits the window and I fumble with the video camera. The heavy, sudden rains that appear most evenings quickly fill up buffalo-sized pocks in the dirt road to the Islander Center. I had picked up some good duty free gin, and we miraculously find a single bottle of cold tonic water and some limes in a village outside Colombo. The good fortune and our anticipation of a cold G & T in the heavy, damp heat of the Sri Lankan afternoons put us in a jovial mood.
Thunk! "Alcohol is not allowed at the Islander Center. We have so many youth and community groups coming to train and collaborate here, and alcohol is such a problem in rural areas..." Steve stops the van over the bund of an irrigation project the Center had completed. "But there are no groups here now, and we're in the international hostel."
His face broadens with the warm smile of a natural host. "I think we can make an exception."
Steve and his fiancee Amanda met while working for Sewalanka, and after the tsunami saw firsthand what they call the "completely useless" work of some larger international organizations, groups with great self-promotion (something Sewalanka does NOT have), and little to show for the USAID, EU and UN funding these remotely led organizations have access to. "When you go out into the fields, there's nothing. They've done nothing. You work for them, and the villagers don't want to talk to you, the government doesn't want to talk to you. They've done nothing positive. Sometimes the opposite."
Sewa is sanskrit for "service", so it appeals to both the Tamil and Sinhalese, the two main - and often conflicting - Sri Lankan cultures. The long standing conflict (some call it a civil war) between the Sinhalese-led government and the rebelling Tamil Tigers has killed over 75,000 people, including several Sewalankan staff members, but is now concentrated in a 9km
I have arrived at a particularly auspicious time, Sri Lankan New Year's Eve - the beginning of a two-day cease-fire.
It takes me a couple days to comprehend the depth and breadth of SEWALanka's mission (part of the reason they struggle with self-promotion, I'm sure), but one can easily understand why their approach - helping communities identify and address their own needs - has such positive effects in the communities they work with.
The constantly evolving (and constantly under-construction) Islander Center is a relatively new piece of their strategy. It can house and train people in a safe and peaceful environment, and the grounds are beautiful, albeit rugged. There's the farm, researching different methods of raising food and animals, seeing which will work best in Sri Lanka - an effort to increase efficiency and the quality of life of Sri Lankan farmers. There's also the training center, gathering Muslim, Tamil and Sinhalese villagers together to share ideas and learn new techniques, then bring the ideas, techniques, and some mutual understanding back to their villages.
I spend most of my days working, walking around the vast farmland with Steve, Amanda, and a Canadian local-foods chef named Jordan, sometimes chatting with the Japanese farm experts who are helping test new methods of rice paddy production and fish drying. We discuss rebuilding a tree house - a lookout for elephants walking in the surrounding Wilpattu National Park who might trample the crops. Jordan is here for two months teaching the cooking staff to create gourmet western dishes using local ingredients, and is preparing a meal for when the U.S. Ambassador and the head of the U.N. arrive on Thursday.
Oh, yeah, and ping pong. Glorious ping pong. Steve and I are perfectly matched, and you can hear our pained grunts and laughter from across the reservoir where we occasionally, warily swim. Over by the sign that says, in Sinhala, "Beware of Crocodile".
Awesome.
To learn more about the situation in Sri Lanka, I highly recommend an editorial And Then They Came For Me, by the Editor of The Sunday Leader, murdered journalist Lasantha Wickramatunge.