Morgalogue

Well readers, I left you last time with the cheery little tale of an old man being decapitated by a rather slow, but obviously very heavy, train. You’ll be pleased to know things are looking up.

Work have dispatched me off on trips to little villages on just about every corner of the island. I’ve got to know the inside of our little ‘loaf of bread’ mini-van with its fairground suspension better than my gaff. I have discovered that Sri Lankans spend approximately 97% of their lives travelling - wedged together, hurtling through the jungle in the rain, on the wrong side of the road, wherever there’s room, to the sound of some fantastic spangley-asian-rhumba music. The first trip was up north to Anuradhapura, the ancient capital and then on to some remote villages on the LTTE (Les Tigres Tamil) border. My colleague Bandula, a big loveable guy with the temperament of Baloo the bear, had taken his wife and two little girls along for the ride, so I figured was safe.

The jungle is such a healthy green. It radiates green-ness. Just looking at it makes me feel like I’m drinking a spinach smoothie laden with a whole alphabet of vitamins. Until I look back at the road and an ancient truck is coughing out big black clouds at us. A whiny, sputtering, little bike pulls out into the oncoming traffic and disappears through the swirling wake, sure of his fate. He’ll survive, they all do, somehow. I’ll write more about Sri Lankan motoring another time.

Modern Anuradhapura feels a little like a temporary encampment beside the scattered ruins of the ancient city. Ancient Anuradhapura is to this day, a bold vision – an entire city designed to facilitate Buddhist teachings. Libraries, meditation halls, parks, baths … home to a royal family and 10 000 monks. A tree-lined road takes us alongside a vast excavated reservoir. Reflected on the horizon are the tips of 3 mighty stuppas rising out of the trees like man-made mountains. Looking at the sober details, artfully carved into the stone bathing pools - massive but perfectly proportioned and set in their own gardens - gives an idea of the completeness of utopian vision that was brought into being over 2000 years ago. Imagine ancient Egypt built as an eco-friendly commune and carefully hidden amongst the trees, miles from anyone. In contrast 2000 years later, despite the best efforts of the District Government, who we were to meet the next day, modern Anuradhapura is a dirty tramp of a city that looks like it would blow away in a strong wind. And with major army and navy bases built in the centre of town (to feed the front line up north), bringing with them roadblocks, miles of barbed wire and apparently, large-scale prostitution, you can’t really feel that things are on the up.

Next day the plan was to find a suitably poor, isolated village for a pilot project using Dendro power to generate electricity. This area is a flatland ‘dry zone’ which by anyone else’s standards is still a fairly tropical landscape. They are generally subsistence farmers and have had a war on their doorstep for 25 years so the area is a bit underdeveloped. The national grid is unlikely to make it out there. Dendro power is basically controlled wood burning in low oxygen to create gas and then run a turbine. We want to set up a community based project where villagers plant these high-energy, fast growing trees and harvest the branches regularly. In return for providing wood they would reduce their electricity tariff, so it’s a kind of an income stream too. The economics are slightly shaky, but the solution fits their environment well and at the moment, it’s their only real option for affordable electricity. We rock up and chew the fat with the village elder about the price of kerosene. Bandu has a wealth of experience in marching into remote houses unannounced, asking strange questions and manages to make people feel completely at ease. - even with some big white dude, a councillor and 2 kids in tow. I’m impressed. Mind you, to do things by the book we had to start at the top and work our way down. Covering 150km today we’ve met – The chief minister of the province, the big jowly Chief Secretary (where we picked up the councillors) and in an office, in a temple, on a rock, in a forest - the chief monk of our area – a fiercely intelligent and powerful looking guy. His predecessor was murdered at the very desk he’s sitting at, not by the tigers but by a psychotic, jealous rival.

Back in Anuradhapura, Bandu’s pal the Chief Secretary insists that we stay in the presidential bungalow that night. It’s in the army compound in the centre of town. It takes them 10 minutes to remove all the roadblocks and spikes to let us in and even then we have to take a minder. This, of course, does not make me feel safe and secure. I feel like I’m going to sleep in the middle of a giant bullseye.

The next day we visit a prison to look at a biogas digester that is being used to treat sewage – basically a big concrete egg submerged in the ground where in the absence of air, shit is munched by bacteria and compost and pressurised methane gas are produced as natural outputs. What a holiday the kids are getting ! The enthusiastic guard wants us to meet the warden and takes us inside the prison, across the dusty courtyard past a line of jingling, shackled suspects and up into the office. It’s pure Shawshank. The warden is a cruel, wily looking guy who looks quite intimidated by the United Colours of Benetton reception he’s getting. He fidgets uncomfortably behind his desk clearly not used to ‘discussions’. Above his head is a badly painted, blueprint-style plan of the prison and its grounds. To his left is a scoreboard: Murderers - 15, Robbers - 121, Women -6, LTTE - 15. A comedy interlude occurs when a flunky appears with a bottle wrapped in newspaper and hesitates, unsure whether or not to deliver it to the boss. The warden grabs it from him and as if to prove his innocence, unwraps the litre of Johnny Walker and puts it on full view on his desk. It’s full of water.

We also visit a garbage dump where biogas digestion is also being used. As amazingly well behaved and quiet the kids are, there patience is being tested. It’s been a long trip and there’s an 8 hour drive home ahead in torrential rain. We’re all happy to finally get home.