A Trip up North - Part I

The introductory scenes to the Northern region of the island are those filled with greenery…it brings a sense of calmness, which is most welcome after the hustle and bustle of Colombo. However, contrastingly, it would be difficult to deem the North as beautiful, even though initially it may seem to be. Along with its un-graspable beauty comes a sense of sadness…a sense of loss…some kind of void which is extremely difficult to describe. In some places, it is hard to even say it’s been through a two-decade ethnic conflict, an untrained eye or mind might call it a rural landscape…so overgrown with foliage and unkempt it be. It has a type of beauty marked by destruction and sadness.

It’s hard to believe I’m actually in the North. I know that right now…I am in fact in Kilinochchi…but I keep having to pinch me self very hard and say to me self… ‘You ARE in Kili’.

I’ve never met anyone from the LTTE face-to-face [even though I would simply love to]…but its amazing being surrounded by them. They’ve got their own police force that simply swarms the entire place…they are just everywhere. Today, I went to the Uduthurai beach…and we met two LTTE guys who worked for the LTTE’s tv station…that was cool. J I even got pictures. Actually, I’ve got heaps of pictures…they’ll be posted after I get back...

Strangely however, there is no sense of terror prevalent, and maybe the head of security for the area was right when he told Mark that Kilinochchi is the safest place to be in Sri Lanka. Don’t laugh now…you have to be here to understand exactly why I’m saying this. It also maybe ironic to say this – but just being here – I feel a super sense of calmness and peace. Funny eh?

The tsunami hit areas are the worst. Life in these places seems to be very, very hard. It is amazing those people even consider it ‘living’. The more I see, the more I feel the need to continue what we do…however, what I find extraordinary is that there are a large number of international organizations doing good relief work here. However, there seems to be no focus. If you go the coastal areas in the North, you’ll definitely see an abundance of fishing boats, idling on the sides of the road. You’ll see finished houses that are unoccupied. See, each organization specializes in their own type of relief work, and say one of them builds houses…well, that’s all they do. They don’t really care about the water supply, sanitation needs, electricity, road infrastructure. The end result my friends – houses…just houses and nothing else…or maybe a built road leading to nowhere…it just makes no sense…