A note from a pilgrimage
This note, a true experience of mine got written before the war ended.
The announcement that the war in the east has ended came out about a year before such an announcement, which resulted in jubilations completed with milk rice, was made about the war in north. A news item broadcasted on television just few weeks before fighting ended in east forced me to share this incident with you.
As usual the news was connected to war, which stopped my heart for a moment. My mind raced back one and a half years into the past. The year two thousand seven was a gruesome period of the civil war. It was the time government forces re-captured the sluice gates at Mavil Aru, which had been forcibly shut off by the LTTE. My memories drifted to Trincomalee district, of which Mavil Aru area is a part of. There was ferocious fighting going on in Muthur and Sampoor areas at the time. A group of us was sent from south to east upon a request to help out with the rehabilitation effort. It was an official assignment for me.
Seru Nuwara is a village fed with Mavil Aru waters, located below Muthur at the edge of Trincomalee district. It was a farming village. The life blood for them and their farming was the water from the river Mavil Aru. At that time their lives had been turned upside down by the closing of the sluice gates. By the time the water flowed, the fields that were planted on borrowed money have gone dry and young rice plants lay dead on the ground. We were provided accommodation in Trincomalee town and travelled daily to Seru Nuwara witnessing all this as well as the essentials of the war, multi barrel and artillery attacks. The whole area was consumed by the war, and the inhabitants had become refugees in refugee camps; at the same places they were born and called home. The main refugee camp was the village school. A decision to spend the night at home for them was a decision to choose between life and death. War had robbed everything from them. Even the school books, pencils and pens from kids. They were not interested in drawing or writing anymore, because they could not. The books and colors we handed over were received with such a glee by these children, like they were being handed stars from the sky.
It was the tragedy of a community that has been robbed of their pride and independence that I saw at Seru Nuwara. People who stood up with strong and straight back bones for centuries to earn their life from the earth were forced to hold up their hands begging for a kilo of rice from a stranger; to fight over a piece of cloth. Not only their livelihood was gone, but the temper and discipline of their lives horned by years of working with the earth was gone too. Together with the endless blue green fields, their togetherness was also gone. More than anything else, their children had lost their school and the rhythm of their lives. In its place was a gloomy uncertainty. The playground they played was taken over by canons and artillery guns. Every second, they shivered to the sounds of explosions.
During the few weeks we were on duty there, we were a part of these families. The love I experienced among them is indescribable. These people, who did not have a grain of rice to cook, for that matter who lost even their places of cooking, were sharing the only food they were able to made, ‘roti’, with us. We watched speechlessly the immense humanity that is being unfolded in front of us. Our feelings of gratitude were definitely not something that could be summed up in a simple expression like ‘Thank you’.
Each and everyday we got them engaged in activities, games. After about a month, all those children got together; even the ones who were so shocked and behaved like mute figures got over those feelings; to stage a drama. The theme was ‘Peace’. All they had was on fire because of the war and hate, but these kids were yearning for peace. Few of us joined with the camp inhabitants to watch their drama sitting on the uneven ground of a sun baked field, I still remember.
Even the dust that rose when those kids were acting brought life to the dying earth. At the end of the play, the main character gives his life in the name of peace. In fact many in the village have been killed in the war. The tears in the eyes of the people were for the dead as well as from the gladness they felt watching the abilities of their kids. From the happiness they felt, seeing the strength and hope displayed by their children.
Being close is dear to heart… where you feel the warmth of love. A hope, a wish to meet again is still a refreshing feeling. But… saying good byes are a heart wrenching experience. Especially when there is a thought looming in the back of your mind that you will not meet again forever. My words fail trying to describe my feelings that day, but clearly I became the most destitute refugee there when those little hands were extended instead of pieces of paper for us to write our phone numbers and addresses. There were countless feelings clouding my mind while I was holding those hands to write my address. There was love scratched across those palms. There was humanity as wide as to fill the vast gap between the sky and the earth. There were dreams of tomorrow. There was the difference between the lives of north and the lives of the south. There was the cruelty and the bitterness of the war, the war that was not theirs, mine or yours; a war of nobody’s and a war nobody wants. Then there was the unmistakable fragrance of the earth that belongs to all of us.
That was the picture etched in my heart from those days at Seru Nuwara.
Now to the news item on the television….
A number of people including a child have been killed by cannons and gunfire at Seru Nuwara….
The child who extended his hand towards me, full of love … had died again for peace…
This time around it is not just a drama….
For a second time I became a destitute refugee …. and just kept watching…
The way ….the PEACE was unfolding….!
The announcement that the war in the east has ended came out about a year before such an announcement, which resulted in jubilations completed with milk rice, was made about the war in north. A news item broadcasted on television just few weeks before fighting ended in east forced me to share this incident with you.
As usual the news was connected to war, which stopped my heart for a moment. My mind raced back one and a half years into the past. The year two thousand seven was a gruesome period of the civil war. It was the time government forces re-captured the sluice gates at Mavil Aru, which had been forcibly shut off by the LTTE. My memories drifted to Trincomalee district, of which Mavil Aru area is a part of. There was ferocious fighting going on in Muthur and Sampoor areas at the time. A group of us was sent from south to east upon a request to help out with the rehabilitation effort. It was an official assignment for me.
Seru Nuwara is a village fed with Mavil Aru waters, located below Muthur at the edge of Trincomalee district. It was a farming village. The life blood for them and their farming was the water from the river Mavil Aru. At that time their lives had been turned upside down by the closing of the sluice gates. By the time the water flowed, the fields that were planted on borrowed money have gone dry and young rice plants lay dead on the ground. We were provided accommodation in Trincomalee town and travelled daily to Seru Nuwara witnessing all this as well as the essentials of the war, multi barrel and artillery attacks. The whole area was consumed by the war, and the inhabitants had become refugees in refugee camps; at the same places they were born and called home. The main refugee camp was the village school. A decision to spend the night at home for them was a decision to choose between life and death. War had robbed everything from them. Even the school books, pencils and pens from kids. They were not interested in drawing or writing anymore, because they could not. The books and colors we handed over were received with such a glee by these children, like they were being handed stars from the sky.
It was the tragedy of a community that has been robbed of their pride and independence that I saw at Seru Nuwara. People who stood up with strong and straight back bones for centuries to earn their life from the earth were forced to hold up their hands begging for a kilo of rice from a stranger; to fight over a piece of cloth. Not only their livelihood was gone, but the temper and discipline of their lives horned by years of working with the earth was gone too. Together with the endless blue green fields, their togetherness was also gone. More than anything else, their children had lost their school and the rhythm of their lives. In its place was a gloomy uncertainty. The playground they played was taken over by canons and artillery guns. Every second, they shivered to the sounds of explosions.
During the few weeks we were on duty there, we were a part of these families. The love I experienced among them is indescribable. These people, who did not have a grain of rice to cook, for that matter who lost even their places of cooking, were sharing the only food they were able to made, ‘roti’, with us. We watched speechlessly the immense humanity that is being unfolded in front of us. Our feelings of gratitude were definitely not something that could be summed up in a simple expression like ‘Thank you’.
Each and everyday we got them engaged in activities, games. After about a month, all those children got together; even the ones who were so shocked and behaved like mute figures got over those feelings; to stage a drama. The theme was ‘Peace’. All they had was on fire because of the war and hate, but these kids were yearning for peace. Few of us joined with the camp inhabitants to watch their drama sitting on the uneven ground of a sun baked field, I still remember.
Even the dust that rose when those kids were acting brought life to the dying earth. At the end of the play, the main character gives his life in the name of peace. In fact many in the village have been killed in the war. The tears in the eyes of the people were for the dead as well as from the gladness they felt watching the abilities of their kids. From the happiness they felt, seeing the strength and hope displayed by their children.
Being close is dear to heart… where you feel the warmth of love. A hope, a wish to meet again is still a refreshing feeling. But… saying good byes are a heart wrenching experience. Especially when there is a thought looming in the back of your mind that you will not meet again forever. My words fail trying to describe my feelings that day, but clearly I became the most destitute refugee there when those little hands were extended instead of pieces of paper for us to write our phone numbers and addresses. There were countless feelings clouding my mind while I was holding those hands to write my address. There was love scratched across those palms. There was humanity as wide as to fill the vast gap between the sky and the earth. There were dreams of tomorrow. There was the difference between the lives of north and the lives of the south. There was the cruelty and the bitterness of the war, the war that was not theirs, mine or yours; a war of nobody’s and a war nobody wants. Then there was the unmistakable fragrance of the earth that belongs to all of us.
That was the picture etched in my heart from those days at Seru Nuwara.
Now to the news item on the television….
A number of people including a child have been killed by cannons and gunfire at Seru Nuwara….
The child who extended his hand towards me, full of love … had died again for peace…
This time around it is not just a drama….
For a second time I became a destitute refugee …. and just kept watching…
The way ….the PEACE was unfolding….!
By: Kalpana Ambrose
[Translated By: Ransirimal Fernando]
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