Picking Up The Pieces

It's been a while since I've made an entry. And one easily succumbs to the usual excuses of insufficient time and energy. But this entry needs to be made.

The short recce trip to Sri Lanka last week, for the school's Youth Expedition Project organised by the Singapore International Foundaion, was a memorable experience to say the least. But the term 'memorable' has too many connotations of a pleasantness, in addition to the many cliches it evokes with travellers bandying such terms easily.

It was, to be more exact, a disturbing experience ...

I thought I had seen underdevelopment and poverty in Cambodia - that, unnervingly, was nothing compared to what I saw in Sri Lanka. In addition to the fact that the country is already despressingly poor with more than 20% of its population living below the poverty line, the Tsunami had to cripple her and her people further.

Setting aside my usual stereotypes and prejudices, I felt an unexplainable sadness. Driving south along the coast from Colombo to Matara, the beaches were just filled with fallen trees, debris, and the remains of houses ravaged by the waves. Scores of tents littered the coastline and though the wounds of a tragedy are slowly healing the scars seem set on remaining.

Yet, the victims I encountered and interacted with at the IDP camps were happy, uplifted and more than joyous to see us. Were they glad because we were foreigners and therefore 'exotic'? Were they rejoicing because they knew we could provide aid and assistance (and some even demanded a TV)? Or was their happiness founded in a more lasting permanence and contention with a simple life? I could not quite tell.

What disturbed me the most on the entire trip was reality that foreign aid has become a competiton and matter of national and/or organisational pride. NGOs fight and vie for projects to assist these people. SIF lost several projects and in the midst of finalising details with a school that we were tasked to help refurbish, we lost the project to an NGO "Save the Children".

I find it ironic - that we should be vying and competing to help; that international aid has become a race, a matter of 'glory'. Is it true altruism? And what disturbed me further was the knowledge that the Sri Lankans have become so dependent on foreign aid that they are unwilling to try, unwilling to 'go the extra mile'. They seem contented living the way they do, with the little they have ... Yet that could be just my ethnocentric point of view.

I don't quite know.