columbia

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds,--and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of
wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless falls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor eer eagle flew--
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God

John Gillespie Magee

quoted by Reagan on the demise of the Challenger

say

I should think that if it were me, I would want a particularly English romance, not too unlike the butler in Remains of the Day and the housekeeper, perhaps even to go so far as Christabel and Randolph, but approximating most Wimsey and Vane. That is, to be perfectly identified for the qualities that one prizes the most, restraint, fortitude, intelligence, justice and idealism with a singular disregard for the perception of the public, to be able to live alone, in quiet isolation, always working. Perfectly unromantically, pragmatically true. And no doubt there shall be many painful mistakes along the way, and quite truly it may never be realizable, but better is it not to fail in imagination than to succeed in imitation?

sunday times 29 jan

Where the awareness of the government of the operations of Non Governmental Organizations is limited despite the existence of a large number of such foreign funded NGOs in Sri Lanka

And whereas allegations have been leveled by numerous citizens to the effect that some such organizations are engaged in activities which are inimical to the sovereignty and integrity of Sri Lanka

And whereas it has been reported that these NGOs have been active in a manner detrimental to the national and social wellbeing of the country

And whereas it is reported that the activities of some of those NGOs have adversely affected national security as well

A Select Committee of Parliament under the Chairmanship of Mr. Nandana Gunathilake M.P. has been appointed to investigate the following matters relating to the operations and impact of those NGOs which are operative in Sri Lanka.

elephant

An interesting conversation with a true volunteer from San Diego, a kid of 21 who’s spent about six months in Sri Lanka, in the muck of constructing primary school upgrades, installing taps, gutters, building a community center, fundraising, doing all the unglamorous work in a remote village in Hambantota. A sweet kid, who’s really committed to the cause of education, children and development. We were exchanging stories yesterday of what it was like to work with old Sri Lankan friend. One of the villages he was working in had an elephant problem (where elephants routinely marauded and raided kitchens, school buildings etc. causing havoc for the sake of it). So he rounded up some barbed wire and erected a lamppost around his tiny community center as a makeshift barrier. The next morning he asked a villager whether they still had an elephant problem. Stoically the villager responded ‘ We don’t have an elephant problem anymore”. Friend rejoices. “but the neighbours now have an elephant problem’. Haha.

Also talking about a particular guesthouse in Jaffna, whose proprietor is slightly insane. I had gone there to visit a cousin once and gone up to his room to chat. The next day the proprietor had gone off on my cousin, in tamil, saying that this was not that kind of establishment and that such goings on were a disgrace to Jaffna! This friend had also met the same proprietor (who’s like 70) and had been told off by him: You are a stupid Yankee and an idiot. (slowly, enunciating each word). Friend horrified had refused to eat his food. Proprietor comes up and knocks on the door for 20 minutes saying: I am a diabetic and a heart patient. Please come and eat.

I tell you.

U2

"Stuck In A Moment"

I'm not afraid
Of anything in this world
There's nothing you can throw at me
That I haven't already heard

I'm just trying to find
A decent melody
A song that I can sing
In my own company

I never thought you were a fool
But darling look at you
You gotta stand up straight
Carry your own weight
These tears are going nowhere baby

You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And now you can't get out of it

Don't say that later will be better
Now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

I will not forsake
The colors that you bring
The nights you filled with fireworks
They left you with nothing

I am still enchanted
By the light you brought to me
I listen through your ears
Through your eyes I can see

And you are such a fool
To worry like you do
I know it's tough
And you can never get enough
Of what you don't really need now
My, oh my

You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

Oh love, look at you now
You've got yourself stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

I was unconscious, half asleep
The water is warm 'til you discover how deep

I wasn't jumping, for me it was a fall
It's a long way down to nothing at all

You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

Don't say that later will be better
Now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

And if the night runs over
And if the day won't last
And if our way should falter
Along the stony pass

And if the night runs over
And if the day won't last
And if your way should falter
Along this stony pass

It's just a moment
This time will pass

public transport

I’ve had some strange adventures in the backs of London cabs. Most of you know them already, but I have to admit, I have a particularly benign relationship with semi-public transport (that has manifested itself here in Sri Lanka too where Tamil auto drivers will counsel me on how to deal with the police and take me home and watch until I’ve latched the door, to asking me out for a drink (and offering to pay, natch) to talking about politics across the country). Anyway, this post is to record two adventures in London cabs (this excess of blogging is really to deflect any pangs of missing). And also an incident at Selfridges. As you can tell, I am feeling particularly low.

Where I am the Next Nina Simone

One drunken night, I hailed a cab outside Canary Wharf after post-work drinks, which for some reason went on all night, chiefly because all of us had nothing better to do really. As I get into the cab, (saying the address, Russell Square) the cabbie turns to me and asks,
Cabbie: Were you in Pop Idol love?
Me: Wot? Me? No.
Cabbie: I thought you were (in cockney twang). I thought to myself, as yer got in, that I’ve seen your face before and when I heard your voice, I thought you’d been singing love.
Me: I sing like a donkey. Wasn’t me. And in the shower I sing
Cabbie: I bet you can sing though. I bet you can. You have a lovely voice
Me: How would you know? I’ve only spoken two sentences!
Cabbie: I know these things. I run a recording outfit. We held the World Peace Concert last week, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I’ve got lots of singers, singing for charity. Go on love, give us a song
Me: what? I cannot, repeat cannot sing
Cabbie: There’s no one else here but me, and we’ve got quite a ride left
Me: Alright, I’ll sing if you sing with me. I ain’t singing alone.
Cabbie: No problem. What you’re singing
Me; (in a fit of despondency), Nina Simone. Wild as the Wind. Do you know it?
Cabbie: Yeah. Lovely song innit. Alright. Whenever you’re ready
Me: (Wailing) Love me, love me, say you do. Let me fly away with you. ….
Cabbie: (joins in). You kiss me, I hear the sound of mandolins
Me: (finish. Silence in the cab).
Cabbie: you have a lovely voice. You should sing the gospel blues, strong black music with heart and character. None of this pop stuff for you. Why don’t you come down to the studio. It’s at the church
Me; (Staring out of the window. ) I reckon I’ll just stick to the day job hon. Even though I hate it. Thanks anyway.
Cabbie: Well here’s my card anyway. Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Liverpool Street, Sunday.


Where I meet ....

Another drunken night (yes I am noticing a trend here), I step out of a club after a night out with a couple of guys and Jules in some club that festered with Russians (this was the night that I met H and then I was rhapsodizing about what a cool classy cat he was until I found out he was a total bore). Hailing cabs desperately on Oxford St/Tottenham Court Road at 4am is quite obviously an exercise in futility (oh how I yearn for those nights when there was no surfeit of friends, things to do, or money and no surfeit of problems that were over-magnified and totally neurotic!). I hailed a cab, and as I crossed the street to get into it, four guys got into it from the other side. I paused in shock! How rude! The cabbie is talking to them wildly to say that I am a girl and I need to get home fast. But they’re like, we’ll drop her off. And the cabdriver finally hangs his head and says to me, get in love, (yes they all call me love. Its an English thing and one I sorely miss) I’ll make sure you get home.

So I get in.

Four American guys all dressed in leather except for one in a shirt look at me.
I sit down on the fold down seat.

Guy 1: So where are you from?
Me; (explain my history)
Guy 2: Who’re you working for now?
Me; Morgan Stanley. Boring American investment bank. Can’t stand the Americans. All they know how to do is fuck things up. Look at your president.
Discussion descends into an arcane political discussion about American politics and the Clintons.
Guy 3: You are one classy dame huh? 23 and you know this shit. Damn, I didn’t know they made them like you anymore
Me: Yeah well.
Me: So what do you guys do?
Guys: (look all around).
Guy 1: Heard of Offspring?
Me: Yeah I think so. Something to do with Rock right? I wouldn’t know
Guy 2: Who do you like?
Me: Chet Baker, Nina Simone. Old stuff.
Guy 3: The lady knows her shit
Guy 4: We just finished taping a session with Channel 4. Pop Quiz live or something.
Me: So you’re really like, a rock band?
Guy 3: Yeah, we’re staying at the Lanesborourgh. Want to come over?
Me: Nah. I need my sleep. Good luck though
Guy 2: Thanks! Great to have met you! Keep it real.

I descend. Was it the alcohol? Unfortunately Offspring doesn’t really matter to me.

Incident at Selfridges.

It’s a week to Christmas. Its 9pm and Selfridges are still open. I’m due to go home in a week and I’m standing on the escalator particularly depressed going from one hall to the next. Behind me an elderly gentleman all wrapped up in a very good quality British overcoat and muffler, with distinguished trimmed white hair coughs. I turn around. He comes up to me, on my step, pauses for a second and delivers the following:
You have the most beautiful hair I’ve ever seen. Its’ alive.
I pause and stare in shock. My hair that’s a year late in rebonding and is all over the place? My hair? My secret passion?
And then he says Merry Christmas and walks on.
Thank you I say.
(marry me is what I want to say).

Do you think that they make’em like that anymore?

ms2r2r

Okay so I know this might be a trifle self-serving , but since i have an immense readership of like 3 people (you guys know who you are, but for the record, Cins, Jules and Rosh!) I thought I might post up the following since y'all don't know that much about my work and thought I would spread the gospel a little. (The following is an extract: basically Morgan Stanley, my ex-firm tracked me down and wanted to do a feature story on my work on the Alumni website (sadly, or fortunately, you need to be alumni to actually see the story!). So here I am, talking about my NGO and development! So that this blog remains off-radar, I have used R2R for what my NGO actually is).


What inspired you to become involved with R2R?

R2R's particular brand of passion, energy and dynamism in solving the educational problems of developing countries attracted me initially, especially its management team which then consisted of John Wood and Erin Ganju. Their method of working through challenge grants where communities work to invest in their own schools and libraries (by providing labour, materials, land etc) ensured a sustainable development approach by empowering local communities and giving them ownership of these resources. The low overhead ratio of less than 10% (meaning that more than 90 cents of every dollar go directly to targeted beneficiaries) also pointed to the rare NGO that was more focused on achieving development goals, rather than development rhetoric.
The flexible, efficient and non-bureaucratic modus operandi was also particularly attractive, as it replicated the environment at Morgan Stanley, where the focus was on getting stuff done .

How long have you been working for the organization, and what are your responsibilities in your current role?

I have been working for about a year with R2R Sri Lanka. As Country Director, I head up the Sri Lanka office and am in charge of all in-country program strategy and execution, focusing on school construction, library establishment, girls' scholarships, and children's fiction publishing in the local language across the southern and northeastern areas. In 2005 we focused on tsunami reconstruction and rehabilitation, and attempted to work fairly across both ethnic communities. In 2006, we will be continuing our work across the tsunami belt and also expanding into the interior tea plantation areas which have been historically neglected as well as the border villages between the government controlled areas and the rebel-controlled areas, which typically, also has been neglected. The escalating political situation and increasing armed violence has all of us tense, but we remain hopeful that aid agencies will continue to be able to operate without significant hindrances.

Can you share a specific story or two that would illustrate the impact Room to Read's school-rebuilding project has made in Sri Lanka?


Working in development can be at times extremely dispiriting and frustrating. The bureaucratic hurdles, lack of political will to implement policy change from the top, corruption, civil war can all act to seem overwhelming at times. Yet, the opportunity to interact with war victims, tsunami victims or abused individuals can provide the glimpse into why aid is important, why it gets it right more times than it gets it wrong, and how we all have a responsibility, as members of the developed world, and as of humanity, to give and receive humanitarian assistance whenever possible.

We get this grassroots experience every day as part of R2R. In Sri Lanka, we have built 39 preschools in 2005, through the cooperation of local communities. The preschools have provided an important start to early education and restored normalcy to many children's lives that have been affected by the tsunami. A semi-structured learning approach has given them the chance to focus on the road ahead and not the losses behind.

The training that we provide to the teachers provides these young women with a sense of achievement, of knowledge which they pass onto the next generation. By educating children, we are focusing on the age-group with the most potential for change, and therefore with the most potential for hope. By integrating training and workshops across the island, we have begun to build bridges across hitherto mutually isolated communities. Our work has sown the seeds of a peacebuilding dialogue at the grassroots level, and as such, both the goals of development and human security are attempted to be achieved.

We strive to set this tone of nonalignment and impartiality and fairness in all our work across this extremely divided island. With an all-local, diverse staff, we are able to cross cultures and be accepted in villages and communities of all ethnic and religious denominations. In addition, the incredible goodwill shown to us by the villages and schools and their unceasing work in the face of so much lack, has ultimately made our work possible.


When did your tenure with the company begin/end? Which office(s) did you work in? What was your position, and within what business group did you work? Also, is there anything in particular that you learned while working at Morgan Stanley that has helped you succeed in your new position?


I started as an Analyst at the Credit Department in London in June 2002, shortly after graduating from the London School of Economics with a Bsc in Government and Economics. I was chiefly assigned to working within the Commodities section in the Credit Department and got to interact with a very wide range of clients, internal groups and colleagues. The professionalism of colleagues, their eagerness to teach new analysts the ropes, and the positive attitudes to teamwork and achievements really helped me to hit the ground running at Room to Read. Particularly, my excellent mentor was the best example of how to run a team and achieve results exceeding expectations while always remaining gracious under pressure!

peace

Open house of an INGO last night. The thing about hanging around with peaceniks is that they are all so darn weird. Its as though that organic apple juice that they drink is laced with shrooms and hashish, and as a result they float around the world, talking in their own impenetrable code of peace, human security and reconciliation with only an indifferent gaze to the hard political realities of the world. Realpolitik is a game they do not want to play and whereas I applaud most heartily their sentiments of peace, yet, I do not think that they are optimally strategically engaged in achieving their goal. But then again, what would I know. Also if I meet any more Thomians, I am going to scream. Also, the trick is, not to give into the thought.

you talking to me?

"I came up with a new game-show idea recently. It's called The Old Game. You got three old guys with loaded guns onstage. They look back at their lives, see who they were, what they accomplished, how close they came to realizing their dreams. The winner is the one who doesn't blow his brains out. He gets a refrigerator. "

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

and

So in life, sometimes these curveballs happen. You know what I'm talking about, when suddenly the universe deals you a card so unexpected you think that a coked-out ex-Miami Vice failed Hollywood screenwriter has suddenly got the rights to your life script. And he's churning it out in a series of insomiac, pot-filled nights, while howling at the moon.
Well it happens. I could talk about inexorable historical dialectics and attempt to uncover the reason, the truth, beneath this series of cosmic random occurrences, but in fact of course, there is nothing. Only faith, that somehow, because of convergence and relative-value theory, things will revert to the mean. (that belies my banker training).
I've been asked to be the best man. Chief among his/her functions are a) presenting the ring, and b) giving the speech. Won't it be fun? I can hardly wait.
By the way, this time, I am truly single again, and a chapter has closed. onward and upwards!

hetti

Went down to Hettipola yesterday to a boy's orphanage run by a genuine Buddhist monk, to distribute some shiny new books over there to the boys. The home was clean, well-run and open to boys of all religious faiths and ethnicities, despite the Buddhist affiliation. The children are found from the Child Protection Authorities. The youngest member, (age unknown as he was found without a birth certificate) was found chained to a post, starving, beaten and mutilated. All his teeth have dropped out and there are scars on the wrists and ankles from the manacles. But he was the sweetest kid. Though I spoke no Sinhala, he took my hand and showed me around his room, and his bed. He couldn't walk very fast or run very fast, but he broke my heart. It was a reminder again that there are bigger problems in the world than my own minimal satellite explosions.

hero

So i've just finished 5 interviews with some really OLD buggers (one was 73 and another was 65)

1) Candidate No. 1 (73 years old, used to be the director of education at the ministry

: " These foreigners are totally useless working in NGOs today. Once, I took a Swedish consultant to a school in Pottuvil to observe the teachers in a primary school and it was an open hall with three classes being conducted simultaneously. Then the crows came to sit on the low parapet wall and after two hours the consultant walked out because he couldn't take the noise of the crows. So I told him: this country is not for you, better get back to Colombo and I was so angry I drove him back to Colombo myself.
..... This government is totally screwed up. It has no understanding of the importance of continuining teacher training.
...... I don't think I can do this job. I have no experience with construction, and I have done enough in my life and I need a bit of a rest now.

Me: So why are you interviewing for the job then?
Him: Because I had some free time and I wanted to find out what was this Room to Read.

2) Candidate no 2.: ( a bald guy with a few strands of white hair plastered onto his scalp with coconut oil and bifocal glasses and a tie that is steadily choking him age 65).

Me: So what do you think is the best method of inculcating reading habits in children

Candidate no 2: Can I have some paper please? And your pen (Draws a graph). One axis is children's ages. One axis is Amount of Play things. Draws a line going diagonally down. So according to this graph, children who are 1 years old need a lot of playthings. Children who are five need less. Children are attracted to colour. The key skill in reading a book is not literacy, but in fact, the ability to turn the page. So therefore if you get a toy that consists of a book with colours on each page, then the children will want to turn the page, to see a new colour and then they will learn to read.


Me: So how many years of experience do you have then?

Him: Forty.

why? why? why can't I interview people who are normal?

Here is a picture of one of my heroes from Jaffna. he's a community leader. I love the way he walks. This picture is on my desktop and every morning, I say hello to him

tissama

Went into the field after a long time, with some donors from a major American investment bank who were suitably thrilled with little children playing in the school that they had funded and sat on the seesaws and swung up and down with three children on the other side. Reminded me of how I was living in spiritual squalor during my old days. Then went into hambantota, where the fields were greener than green and visited some schools in tissamaharama, area of good rice production. Also stayed at an ayurvedic hotel in the absence of any other resting house and at night the wind blew so cold and the rain fell so hard that I might have been back in England. Met a local artist who was exhibiting at the hotel, his stuff would have gone for thousands of dollars in the West but here of course it was in the rupees and nothing else. Met a family who had adopted two sri lankan children here and who were here on a quest to find the birth mothers of these children. Stopped in Hambantota at a site where the tsunami had grounded a naval battleship and a year later, the govt, INGO and locals were unable to float it out to sea, digging underneath the ship. Stopped on the way at a village roadside stall to buy buffalo curd and coconut treacle and made myself sick on the stuff. Met the community people at the school sites, a cooperative of women who were slowly building a nearby community center. Wizened, smiling, skin blackened by the sun, under trees whose leaves shook with the winds that ruffled the rice padi fields. It should have been normal, but even after all these months, I am humbled.

transition

In a fit of post-partum? depression, I dined last night alone, on peanut butter brown bread sandwiches and half a bottle of red wine in my new light-blue hand-blown wine glasses that refracts the light in a thousand different ways. Existential questions crowded my mind. Where we are going, why I am incapable of a successful relationship, why is everyone getting married (another close friend folded, to be registered in three weeks), what is the point of being educated when a traditional Asian family only values marriageability and childbearing capability as a woman, in short, just exactly, what is the point of living as I was and am a complete failure in all these measures. I contemplated (in an academic manner) twisting the nearest breadknife in my throat, but the possiblity of post-life nothingness, in short, my lack of a devout life enables no real eternal future, stopped me dead (no pun intended). Yeat's poem reverberated in my head: A waste of breath, the years to come, a waste of breath, the years behind. Although I wasn't unhappy per se (okay, who was I kidding, I was deeply depressed), in the sense that I realized quite rationally that I was fortunate and lucky to have led my life compared to victims of violent crime for example, yet, I did not have the confidence that quite simply, I would ever get it right. Relationships offer a fleeting elusive (illusive/illusionary)surcease from the daily travails, but only for the first part, after which the sturm und drang ebbs and flows. Work is best described as bailing out a leaky boat with a thimble (no matter what we do it is not enough), coupled with the fact that I was recently told that this work does not validate me, and I am not good at the work that validates me, which leaves me exactly nowhere (or hell in a handbasket) to go. And if both love and work do not work then, what else is left? I felt old. Fought with my parents, stalked my boyfriend (ex), bore a stiff upper lip of not caring exactly what an old friend said, buried my head in bottles of red wine (two over the weekend), contemplated starting on the whisky, deterred only by the fact that it was locally produced and I would be in pain the next morning (i am also a wimp). It takes a lot of courage to live, it is not just a matter of breathing one breath after the next. Hamlet had it right. As did Camus (i think). The only real question is why is it worth living? And I don't really know anymore. I am not suicidal, nor is this an obscure cry for help in our post-modern web world. Its just that, I understand that I am of some value in this world, and have a network of people who value me for myself, but ultimately, my existence is not life or death for anyone and perhaps that's what matters.

And its only the first week of the new year over. Glorious.

because I will always be an idiot

i carry your heart by e.e. cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet) i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)