days 3, 4, 5

Day 3 passed fairly slowly. None of the people I wanted to interview were in the village. I went into the center in the morning but mostly ended up sitting around and using the internet. I perfected my survey and in the afternoon tested it out on Radhika and one of her friends. Some of the questions were hard but they were able to do all of them. It’s still questionable how many answers the younger students will be able to give. There isn’t much value placed on individual work and I had to constantly tell the two girls to stop talking to each other as I didn’t want exactly the same answers.

I am really surprised with the amount that people bathe in this village. It makes me embarrassed that I bathe so little. Every day around 4, the women go down to the canal and scrub themselves from head to toe using soap and some kind of husk. Clothes are also washed in the canal at this time. Women wash their hair every day, and wash it with shampoo every other day. The water in the canal is sometimes cold and the closer it gets to the evening, the colder it gets. I would try to avoid this daily bathing ritual but the fear of giving Indians a bad name as a dirty people allowed me to persevere.

At night lots of random people came to see me because I am new in town and we ended up sitting in Radhika’s hall and chatting. They did most of the chatting as there was no common language, but Radhika occasionally translated. The most thrilling part of the evening was that a snake was spotted outside of the house. I, of course, sat under my mosquito net, very afraid, but Radhika’s dad scared it away with loud noises and fire.

Day 4

I was pretty busy conducting my research today as everyone was in town. I interviewed the headmaster and the manager as well as visited the district secretariat to get statistics on local demographics. It’s amusing how formal these district offices are and the formalities it is necessary to go through. I had to meet several intermediary people just to meet the district secretary’s assistant who could finally give me the statistics I needed. I met the other teachers at Horizon and ended up staying there until quite late. I got to bicycle myself there, which was quite fun and much less painful than sitting on the crossbar or pedaling while someone else is on the crossbar.

The night ended with a lot more people coming over. Unlike North Indian villages, women have quite a lot of mobility in Sri Lankan villages. At night I noticed pairs of women walking with flashlights on the road. They were unchaperoned by men. During the day women can go wherever they want by themselves, even for a bath. Girls roam about in sleeveless tops and skirts without a problem, and are free to ride bicycles to school. However patriarchy asserts itself in different ways. People defer to the wishes of the all-male Buddhist clergy. They marry young and have many children, preventing women from being able to pursue a career. They also value the qualities of shyness and timidity in girls and many of the girls in the program are discouraged by their families from playing sports or participating in recitals. That said, I think it’s much more progressive than India when it comes to women in public spaces. As I have stated before, there is very little leering at women in public space so women are not meant to feel as if they don’t belong there.

Back to Colombo

Saturday was extremely busy as it was the first day of classes at Horizon. I bid farewell to Radhika’s mom, a very sweet woman, and headed off to class on the bus. The mood of the students was cheery and we walked the remaining 1km to the Horizon center. The younger students were taught in batches and the senior students helped the teachers as well as loitered about playing carom and chatting. I tried to teach them chess but I am not the greatest chess teacher so the lesson was short.

I administered the survey taking into account the Eastern problems of cheating and made sure the survey was completed in total silence with students positioned so that nobody could see anyone else’s paper. After the survey was complete I bid goodbye to Horizon and got in the van that would take me along the bumpy dirt road to Anuradhapura.

The trains in this country are easy to figure out (there aren’t very many of them) and have much nicer interiors than Indian trains. For some unfathomable reason, they don’t go fast. Even the express train goes really slow and is only nominally faster than going by car. Train is infinitely more satisfying though and I have five hours of gazing at paddy fields as the old woman next to me bought every possible snack available from the train vendors; from peanuts to salted mango. I reached Colombo at night and not being in touch with the news, happily boarded the bus back home, pleased that I saved 300 rs that a cab would have cost.