The Journey Continues

February 25, 2005

At a Reception with two Former Presidents: George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton
As a Senior Fulbright Scholar to Sri Lanka I received an invitation from the American Embassy to the reception of the two former US Presidents. It was quite interesting to see two men together of such opposite political convictions working together for a common cause: namely fundraising.
    
President George W. Bush appointed his father and former President Clinton to lead private fundraising efforts in the wake of the tsunamis that killed at least 288,800 people in 11 countries in Asia and Africa. They began their tour in Thailand before going on to Indonesia from where they came to Sri Lanka and went on to the Maldives on the last leg of their tour.

The two presidents arrived at the Colombo International Airport from Indonesia, Sunday February 20th, on the third leg of their tour of tsunami–hit countries.  US Ambassador Jeffrey Lunstead and the Deputy Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka were present to welcome the two former presidents. Later both met with President Chandrika Kumaratunga for dinner and to discuss the tsunami relief work in the country.  

An Outing in the Jungle
When you head in the direction of Radnapura, the city of gems, you pass through small remote villages where farmers cultivate rice. The water for the rice paddy fields arrives twice a year with the monsoon rains. Beyond the city of gems, most of the rice fields are surrounded by dense jungle.
We went with a friend, Mahen Ranasinghe, a civil engineer, who has built hydropower plants in these areas and knows the country like the back of his hand.  He guided us through an incredible landscape: climbing over fallen trees, rocks, walking through muddy puddles. We also saw amazing streams and waterfalls.

We visited the "Chief" of a tine village of about ten houses and his family. I have never experienced such a warm welcome by total strangers. They immediately invited us into their modest house, build of adobe bricks. They asked us to sit down and served us the “coconut welcome drink”.  There were school age children who walk to school five days a week for two hours one-way. They have to walk through the jungle, uphill and downhill through rice paddies, creeks, climbing over branches and rocks. Their dedication to learning is truly amazing!  All of the children of the village walk each day together to school and back.  There are no obese children in this village!

Although the village has no electricity they do have a black and white TV powered by a modern solar panel on top of the house.  Soap operas penetrate even the densest jungle!  Behind the village on top of a hill is a spot where you can even receive a faint cellular telephone signal and you are instantly connected to the entire world!
The village is mostly self-sufficient and their main crop is rice. Their cash crop is black pepper!  We also discovered the purpose of the tree houses that surround the rice fields.  It appears that somehow the local elephant population that normally lives in the jungle does find out when the rice fields are ready to be harvested.  The elephants prefer to harvest in the night.  During the harvest season, the men and older boys of the village sleep in the tree houses and chase away the elephants using all kind of self-made noise machines.  We were told that a single big elephant can devour all of the village's rice in a single night!