Back in Aceh…
So I am back from Sri Lanka, it was an interesting trip. So much has happened I don’t even know where to begin…
For the trip itself, Sri Lanka is a beautiful place, the cities are infused with constant energy and purpose, the country is serene and almost grand. On long drives you can see wild elephants cross through heard of scattering peacocks; view 75 foot Buddha statues or man made dams constructed thousands of years ago and stronger than anything we could find today; children bathing in wild orchid ponds or walking along curving red dusted clay roads that seem born for photographs. Yet you step into the eastern parts of Sri Lanka and all that beauty is lost in the sight of armed guards every 100 yards and security checkpoints every few miles; the distant sounds of shelling and sporadic machine gun fire; the desolated villages and shell damaged houses; the family bunkers and abandoned beach hotels.
As we traveled through this sad region we never felt danger, that real in your face sense of unsettled tension, but it was an unavoidable thought. Every shout, every loud unaccounted for ‘night sound’ left you a bit uneasy, this is why the people who can leave have left, this is why the towns are so ghostly still. We visited the house where the 17 NGO workers were killed last year, gated and locked it carried its own hauntings that prevented any of us from crossing though that easily opened gate—a reminder that didn’t need minding. Every one of our days spent in the east we strained to listen for the shots and shells; almost a giddy anxiousness took hold. It was weird. One day I sat alone on a magnificent stretch of beach and watched a perfect sunset, something so beautiful you want to freeze the image away in your mind, but it was so alone and still, it seemed a sad moment of wasted perfection.
That will be the legacy of this conflict; some of the best parts of Sri Lanka are closed off to the world because of the conflict. Landmines, and rebel groups, soldiers and training grounds, fear and ‘resettlement camps’ are the history that will define the failure of a country once set as a model of the Asiatic world. It is not too late for Sri Lanka, but the more entrenched the fighting becomes the further away the country will be from seeing true hope for a generation of children that have grown-up in state of civil war.
I covered one story, a story I have not yet written, but my trip was cut short by a month. On Monday April 9, 2007 I crawled into bed early, at 10:30pm, I get a text to call my NHQ ASAP, less than 24 hours later I was disembarking the airplane in Banda Aceh. We have had several issues emerge and they felt a bit uneasy about me being so far from my delegation in case any media issues arose.
On the one hand, I was of course bummed to be cutting my trip short, I had really been looking forward to my trip to DC and Omaha, but on the other hand, it was really exciting that they ‘needed’ me back. Growing-up in the development world you see the important people being called back from trips, being relocated at the last minute and you always wonder if that will ever be you—If you’ll ever be important enough to be rerouted and flown across the globe at a moments notice. So, I am back in Aceh and will be here indefinitely but will not be complaining about it. Now please enjoy some more pictures…
So I am back from Sri Lanka, it was an interesting trip. So much has happened I don’t even know where to begin…
For the trip itself, Sri Lanka is a beautiful place, the cities are infused with constant energy and purpose, the country is serene and almost grand. On long drives you can see wild elephants cross through heard of scattering peacocks; view 75 foot Buddha statues or man made dams constructed thousands of years ago and stronger than anything we could find today; children bathing in wild orchid ponds or walking along curving red dusted clay roads that seem born for photographs. Yet you step into the eastern parts of Sri Lanka and all that beauty is lost in the sight of armed guards every 100 yards and security checkpoints every few miles; the distant sounds of shelling and sporadic machine gun fire; the desolated villages and shell damaged houses; the family bunkers and abandoned beach hotels.
As we traveled through this sad region we never felt danger, that real in your face sense of unsettled tension, but it was an unavoidable thought. Every shout, every loud unaccounted for ‘night sound’ left you a bit uneasy, this is why the people who can leave have left, this is why the towns are so ghostly still. We visited the house where the 17 NGO workers were killed last year, gated and locked it carried its own hauntings that prevented any of us from crossing though that easily opened gate—a reminder that didn’t need minding. Every one of our days spent in the east we strained to listen for the shots and shells; almost a giddy anxiousness took hold. It was weird. One day I sat alone on a magnificent stretch of beach and watched a perfect sunset, something so beautiful you want to freeze the image away in your mind, but it was so alone and still, it seemed a sad moment of wasted perfection.
That will be the legacy of this conflict; some of the best parts of Sri Lanka are closed off to the world because of the conflict. Landmines, and rebel groups, soldiers and training grounds, fear and ‘resettlement camps’ are the history that will define the failure of a country once set as a model of the Asiatic world. It is not too late for Sri Lanka, but the more entrenched the fighting becomes the further away the country will be from seeing true hope for a generation of children that have grown-up in state of civil war.
I covered one story, a story I have not yet written, but my trip was cut short by a month. On Monday April 9, 2007 I crawled into bed early, at 10:30pm, I get a text to call my NHQ ASAP, less than 24 hours later I was disembarking the airplane in Banda Aceh. We have had several issues emerge and they felt a bit uneasy about me being so far from my delegation in case any media issues arose.
On the one hand, I was of course bummed to be cutting my trip short, I had really been looking forward to my trip to DC and Omaha, but on the other hand, it was really exciting that they ‘needed’ me back. Growing-up in the development world you see the important people being called back from trips, being relocated at the last minute and you always wonder if that will ever be you—If you’ll ever be important enough to be rerouted and flown across the globe at a moments notice. So, I am back in Aceh and will be here indefinitely but will not be complaining about it. Now please enjoy some more pictures…
posted by Banda-aid at 1:19 PM
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