Sweat, Soda, Surveys & Sand

Day two in the field. We were off again, picked up our take-away curry and rotis from the local diner, and hit the ground running. I gave an impromptu, and short, speech to the Ampara office staff about HQ, who we are and what we could do for them. The mother-ship is such a far off entity, that it is easy to understand the confusion and sometimes apprehension that surrounds its mystique. A face to my name, assurance that we are there to help the field office get the support it needs, and a bag of dark-chocolate Hershey kisses, all seemed to elicit friendly smiles.

Today we headed north to an area that had been held by the opposition until the last year or so. This seemed especially evident by the increased number of check-points and armed soldiers standing on either side of the road. I had tried to sneak a few pictures of said armed guards, but on this particular drive, it was confirmed that that might not be a bright idea, since one of the staff sitting behind me in the van apologetically said “Madame, you must put your camera away, they might think you are taking pictures of them”. And, well, they would be right. And so away, is where it went.

In the village we visited, we were observing the staff conducting a final survey of participation and knowledge of beneficiaries in particular programs. It was hot, hot, hot, and while we found shade to sit in, and the occasional breeze blessed us, I proceeded to sweat, sweat, sweat. Some kind and hospitable hostesses brought us cream soda and bright orange soda, which tasted so, so good, and much like the coconut yesterday served to get me through to our very late lunch stop, though I had acquired a throbbing headache. However before that, we visited some farmers growing eggplant, peppers and squash in very sandy soil just inland from the beach. So what’s a group of expats to do? We visit the beach of course. This was a tricky business because the military guards the beach. So our poor staff convinced the guards that we were of the harmless, silly foreigner variety and they would keep an eye out for any shenanigans – or else they just said a bunch of NGO staff wanted to visit the beach – and to the ocean we went. It was deserted and beautiful. But no trip to the beach is complete without the requisite sneaker wave which dosed us all, soaking our community leader's front, splashing straight up my skirt, and getting James’ socks (yes, socks with sandels - crazy) and trousers sandy and wet.