Tradition!

Each season brings its rituals and traditions. One such, in the pre-schools and, sometimes, the elementary schools of France, is the celebration of Carnaval. On the appointed day, the whole school dresses up and parades through the streets of their neighborhood with music, confetti and noisemakers. In the real world, Carnaval takes place sometime between the end of Christmas and the beginning of Lent.
But the Education National’s version combines practicality with ritual and takes place later in the school year – when the weather is more likely to be sunny. A popular time for it is the day before Spring Break
Tne characteristic of a tradition is that sometimes the why of it is lost in the mists of time. I asked several teachers how long Carnaval – linked, after all to a Catholic religious observance -- had been going on in the adamantly secular French schools. No one seemed to know. But each year, when the time comes, it happens.

Carnaval requires a lot of organization. Teachers decide on the costumes for their class and help little hands cut; color and glue the parts together. The school’s principal coordinates with one or more neighboring schools that will participate on the same day, finds the musical group that will lead the parade (or this year the car with loudspeaker)

and informs the city so that police can be detailed to the route and traffic stopped for an hour or two.

Parents are recruited to help the principal and the police with traffic control

or walk in the parade with the children to keep everybody together.

The fun of a tradition has to be learned --- as all parents who have ever pulled a distraught toddler off Santa’s lap know. The three year olds I read to on Friday afternoons have already learned a lot this year. By now, when their beloved teacher tells them it’s time for a story, they go sit in the “story circle.” When she tells them it’s time to string beads, they go to their group tables and string them. During the last few weeks, though they have obligingly made Carnaval costumes and learned a Carnaval song, they still had no real idea of what they were preparing for. But when Christine said that it was time to dress up in their costumes, get their faces made-up and walk in the street singing their song, they obligingly got ready.

Some seemed to understand more about the fun of this than others.

But all understood about holding your buddy’s hand.

About 300 children and 100 adults took to the streets on a sunny spring morning.

There were spurts of joy – when the little ones saw a neighbor watching at the window, for example.

And it’s always fun to blow a whistle! (Though there is some learning involved here, too. One of the little girls put the whistle in her mouth and squealed instead of blowing. “Shanone, blow out the candles on your birthday cake,” I suggested. It worked!)

Mostly, this year, it was just a very long walk.

We grown-ups know, though, that next year will be different. Just look at last year’s little ones.

And siblings are waiting in the wings. In a year or two it will be their turn to discover the joys of Carnaval.

Brownies ...... and Cookies

It’s the end of a season. No, not yet winter. Though the calendar says it’s been spring for two weeks already, it's still hard to believe here in Charlottesville. But, if you know any little girls or their troop leaders, you know that February and March are the Girl Scout Cookie season.
In early February, when I saw posts from my cousin in California, (mother of a brownie) and my friend Melissa (Troop leader of Troop 42 in Charlottesville), I was transported back in time and place to my own Brownie days in Oakville Ontario – more years ago than seem possible.
I was a Brownie for a long time. My mother became Tawny Owl (assistant leader) of our local pack, persuaded by her friend who was Brown Owl. (leader), when I was three or four and I went with her to the weekly meetings as the pack’s “mascot.” What I remember most about those early years is sitting beside the Magic Toadstool by the Magic Pool as the Big Girls danced around me singing their Six Songs at the opening of each meeting

At last I was seven and could become a real Brownie and dance around the, now Mascot-less, toadstool myself. I learned semaphore and how to tie knots and sang the Brownie songs I’d known for years -- but now with my friends.
And once a year we all proudly went door-to-door in our uniforms

to take cookie orders. (Maple creams were my favorite.)
There were Brownies and Guides in Jamaica but, as a teenager, I wasn’t interested. Especially when I found out that the leader of the local troop was my dreaded Math teacher. And, as far as I know, no one sold cookies of any kind to raise money. It was at college in Ohio that I discovered the joys of Thin Mints.
Brownies in college towns have it made. One sweep of the dorms and the entire troop can go to camp – twice!

Melissa’s Troop also has the good fortune to live in a college town. They sell their cookies every Saturday in February and March either in the activity room of the apartment complex where the girls live

(“They’re $3.50 a box but you can get 2 boxes for $7.00!” say the eager Brownies.)

or on The Corner near UVa Grounds (the Campus) where they attract the college crowd, indulgent tourists – and, on one lucky day, Mr Jefferson, himself..

The 21^st century Brownies of Charlottesville are different in many ways from the mid - 20^th century Canadian Brownie that I was. There are no magic toadstools or uniforms. There are different age groups with different names and the youngest, the Daisies, at 5 and 6 are younger than Brownies ever were in my day. The older girls learn about environmental issues and how 911 operates instead of how to tie knots and send semaphore messages -- much more useful. The Daisies learn that they are part of a big international group of girls who are all connected.

But the good deeds are the same.

The promise (slightly modified from the one I knew) is the same.

The love is the same.

And, of course, there will always be the cookies.

Re-entry

Last days are always long. You are no longer really on vacation but you are not yet home. The dream is over but the comfortable routine of normal life has yet to begin. The day I left Sri Lanka seemed even longer as all international flights take off between midnight and 4:00 a.m. I was one of the lucky ones; mine left at 12:30 a.m. I hoped I’d stay awake.
I couldn't even dawdle in my hotel room as I had to vacate it by 3:00 p.m. – the special late check-out.
After a long breakfast, I went upstairs to fit clothes and souvenirs into my one suitcase and one carry-on. Then I wandered into the lobby with a book which seemed much less interesting than the evening before. I watched people come and go, inquired of those I knew what time they were leaving that evening and waited for it to be lunch time.
Lankesh was coming after lunch to take me on a tour of Colombo. At last I’d see something of the city and have something to do. He came but his heart didn’t seem to be in it. I thought we’d stop and visit different monuments but we just passed by for the most part. I saw this statue



near the port but don’t know if it's of a real person or just a representation of colonialism.
We passed by the fort, the lighthouse, the cricket grounds, the university….. It was hard to take pictures in a moving car. We did stop once and I saw Lankesh’s mischievous grin for the only time that day.”The White House, Mum.”



It was, in fact, the Town Hall of Columbo, built in the 1920s. I also got to stroll in the nearby Viharamahadevi Park for a few minutes (It was originally Victoria Park which would have been easier for me to pronounce) and is near enough the University to be a between-class-hangout for students.



Then we were off to see (from the car) Independence Memorial Hall, built on the site of the Feb 4th 1948 ceremony which marked the end of British Colonial rule. It looked impressive from the glimpse I got.



We were back at the hotel by 4 p.m. Five more hours to fill before it would be time to leave for the airport. I thought of going out on my own but two weeks of being taken care of had sapped my independence. Besides, this was my last day. Too late for adventure. I wandered; I sat; I waited.
I took a picture of my last Sri Lankan sunset



and felt nostalgic.
Eventually it was dinner time. I made that last as long as possible. Then I went back to the lobby where I sat with other bored and fidgety visitors waiting for their guides.
The drive to the airport was long, dark and silent. Lankesh seemed to have already relegated me to his past. As we neared the airport he made a prepared speech saying he’d been pleased to show me his country and thrust a bouquet of orchids into my hands, a gift from his travel agency. He let me out at the departure section of the airport. The security check was at the door and only passengers could enter. I was a pampered queen no longer. Each person struggled to be the first to pass the security checkpoint. No deference was shown to my age, gender or western-ness.I was trampled by the same Buddhist monk three times which reminded me that the Sinhalese Buddhists have always been fighters contrary to western stereotypes of peace and gentleness.
Eventually things got better. I reached the oasis of the business class lounge and had a cup of tea and a massage. I reached my business class seat and slept until my delicious and copious breakfast served by smiling, peacock-sari-ed flight attendants. And we were back in Paris where my familiar taxi driver was waiting.
Later that evening I said to a friend “Well my suitcase is unpacked but it will take me much longer to unpack the memories.” And it has. – 103 days to be precise. But now I have. Thank you for letting me share.

The Most Interesting Animal in the Zoo

“I can’t spend two days in Colombo without leaving the hotel!” I said to myself. “There’s not a lot to see,” Lankesh responded. “I’ll drive you around in the car tomorrow.”
“Isn’t there …… a zoo?” I asked. Surely every city has a zoo?
Lankesh seemed reluctant. “There’s a very nice Buddhist temple, Mum.”
I thought I had done my Buddhist temple duty on this trip. After lunch we were off to the zoo in Dehiwala.
I soon learned the reason for Lankesh’s reluctance. The Dehiwala Zoological Garden is an old Zoo. It was founded in the 1920s by John Hargenberg who kept this 5 acre (about two hectare) area for animals that he sold to circuses and, enterprisingly, opened it to the public so they could see the exotic beasts before they were shipped away.
In 1936 the government took it over from the German Hargenberg family and opened it as a Zoo in 1939. Like many old zoos, it now seems rather sad and scruffy. The animals are kept in small cages



and their habitat is far from natural. Lankesh told me that they had almost finished a, modern zoo near the Elephant Orphanage at Pinnawala, about 90 km (55 miles) away. That will be better for the animals and tourists – though the Sri Lankans who live near Colombo won't be able to enjoy it as easily.
Before I became too disappointed, I realized that my afternoon visit was an excellent resumé of my whole Sri Lankan experience.
First of all, though Sri Lankans only pay 100 rupees to visit the Zoo (50 rupees for children), foreigners are charged a whopping 2000 rupees (14 euros or about $18 US). This was the biggest price differential I had seen,though foreigners are always charged more. Since we also earn a lot more than the average Sri Lankan, this never bothered me though I heard other tourists complain.
There were lots of visitors at the zoo that afternoon – mostly women and children. Very young children get out of school at noon and the older ones at 1:30 p.m. so they came as no surprise. And Lankesh had explained to me with pride that “Sri Lankan women don’t work.” (meaning those who have husbands like him who earn a decent salary). I assumed the women I saw fell into that category. I saw, however, no other westerners. Soon, I felt like I was the main attraction. Children were still more interested in the pygmy hippos.



If they noticed me at all, they giggled or stared a little apprehensively. Not so the teenagers and adults. “Hello! Where you from?” they called. Except for one woman who asked curiously “Why you alone?” I had learned by this time that Sri Lankans find a woman alone curious and somewhat unsettling. Other single tourists and I discussed laughingly in the evenings how we had recklessly invented absent husbands and children to put them at their ease.
While staring at the tiny mouse deer



I heard a gentle voice say “Group photo?” A smiling young woman, visiting the zoo with her friends wanted a special souvenir. I complied and several cameras were produced. Afterwards, I said “Now me.” and held up my own camera. So we all have souvenirs



Near the sloth bear’s cage



a woman gestured to me to take a photo of her and her children – a souvenir for me, if not for them.



Later, as I made my way to the exit, an entire class from a Muslim school, waiting to go in, waved excitedly.



A small taste of celebrity on a sunny afternoon.

Colorful Language

Before I went to Sri Lanka, I was under the impression that English was a commonly-spoken language. This seemed logical to me as Ceylon was a former British colony. I should have considered the source of my information – French friends and travel agents!
It is true that you will find more Sri Lankans who speak English than any other European language. I was told English is the mother tongue of 74000 of them. Others were educated in England and speak a beautiful and cultivated language – upper class British English with a gentle tropical flavor. The written form of this language has a well-educated Victorian polish. Here is part of an article I read in a Sri Lankan English language newspaper – describing the meeting of the journalist with a young shoplifter.
“Ambling down the aisles of the local outlet of a popular Super Market, I saw a little boy of about ten years arriving with his parents. While they did their shopping he was doing a tour of his own, weaving in and out of the aisles and I watched him interestedly as he reminded me of my youngest grandson now domiciled abroad.
He paused at a garland of sachets draped over a rack to finger through them and having made his choice tore one off and moved away. I presumed it was to drop it into his mother’s trolley but I saw him pause, look furtively around and thrust it into one of the many pockets in his pants……. No ten year old, unless a moron, can claim not to know that stealing is wrong. Fancy words and deflecting phrases cannot absolve him of blame; that was the harsh ugly truth.”
No lack of eloquence here. However, a large number of those I came in contact with spoke almost no English beyond “Hello” and “Where from?”
There are two official languages in Sri Lanka – Sinhala, spoken by the Sinhalese majority and Tamil spoken by the Tamils (both Sri Lankan and Indian) . The Moors speak a form of Tamil influenced by the Arabic their ancestors spoke. Offical signs -- like traffic signs -- are in these two languages as well as English.



Since the end of colonialisation, the government, in a successful attempt to increase literacy, changed the language of instruction from English to the two languages spoken by a majority of the people. English has, therefore, become a foreign language like any other except in some private schools. In order to develop international business and tourism, a huge effort is now being made to teach English in the schools and provide “Business English” courses to adults. Over time, I’m sure they will succeed. But they will, no doubt, lose a little of the charm I found in the signs I saw as I made my way around the Island.
Was this sign put up when the British arrived in Kandy?



Do only colonial ladies frequent this park?



Were these signs penned by stern Anglican priests?





This one; at the moat near Sigiriya, is my favorite – English suffused with Buddhist gentleness.



“Beware of crocodiles.” seems so harsh and bureaucratic to me now.

Out of Many, One People

One of the things I mused about was that this Island, which is twice the size of Belgium (or approximately the same area as West Virginia), has a surprising variety of ethnicities and religions among its 21 million people. I knew, of course, that there were at least two ethnic groups because that’s what the 30 year long civil war was about – a group of radical Tamils from the North wanting independence from the rest of the country. But I discovered that the population was more complex than that. Sri Lanka could easily share the Jamaican motto I’ve borrowed for the title of this piece – a translation of the latin phrase found on the Great Seal of the United States.
The Sinhalese make up nearly 75% of the population and live mostly in the southwest. Lankesh is Sinhalese and so is Arulpriya. The Tamils, originally from South India and not all of whom are terrorists, have also been in Sri Lanka for centuries. They make up another 12% of the population and live mostly in the north. I learned that there are also Indian Tamils (as opposed to the Sri Lankan Tamils mentioned above.) The British brought them over in the 19th century to work on their tea and rubber plantations where they mostly remain today. They remained stateless until several years after Sri Lanka became independent.
The Moors, descendents of Arabic traders who first came to Ceylon in the 7th century, form another minority group as do Burghers, descendents of European colonists. There are also a few Veddas -- descendents of the very first people on the Island, before the arrival of the Sinhalese.
A number of religions are practiced here and correspond largely, but not exclusively, to the various ethnic origins of their believers. The majority are Buddhist (largely the Sinhalese). Many of the Tamils are Hindu. Most of the Moors are Muslim and the Burghers are the main Christian community. According to Lankesh, people of different religions coexist peacefully. I hope he’s right and will continue to be so. A profusion of shrines, temples, mosques and churches along the main roads support his statement.

Buddhist shrine



Hindu temple



Mosque


Christian shrine



It was impossible for me, an outsider, to see any ethnic differences among the people. Those placing offerings at the Hindu shrines looked like those chanting before the Buddhist statues and those singing hymns in the Anglican church in Galle.
The following are some of those whose paths I crossed for a short while. My wish is that they be and remain as friendly, kind and hard-working as they seemed.