When I was in high school, I decided I wanted to go overseas on an exchange program. A summer in Paris was insufficient. I wanted a year. My overwhelmed parents said, “You figure it out, whatever it is you have to do to get in. You do that and you can go.” I think they underestimated my desire to go. I applied to the American Friends Service Committee’s program and distinctly remember the part of the application that asked where I wanted to go. I put “Greece, Turkey, Italy, somewhere warm”. My acceptance letter came and under location assigned, it said: “SRI LANKA“.

And then we got out the atlas.

Sri Lanka is almost exactly halfway around the world from the Massachusetts town I was living in. Its culture is distinct–a multicultural mishmash of  religions and languages. I stayed with the Abeywickremas, a Sinhalese family I liked a great deal and still talk to today. They were a kind and generous Buddhist family, one that has done all of the right things in raising two sons and one daughter. They have gone on to help raise their grandson and the children of their household servants, who are more likely family than employees. You would be hard-pressed to meet a family that has done as much for the next generations as this one has. They looked after me as their own, as well, calling me their “American daughter”. Many of the Sri Lankans I met were similar, looking after each other and their families.

The violence that had waned long enough for AFS to consider sending students there flared up again. Suddenly school buses were being blown up, school was shut down, and foreigners were encouraged to leave. One day we were there, and the next, our small group of AFS students was leaving the country and headed to Europe. After months of preparation, months with our families, months of language classes, months of getting used to the more conservative culture and how to ride the bus and the dawn wake-ups by the monks on the loudspeakers and curries too hot to eat, we were going to Europe, all of us quite crushed.

I loved Sri Lanka and its quirkiness. The way everyone has multiple businesses running, a little here and a little there. The way a long skirt and a short sleeve shirt are a bit daring. String hoppers. The way Buddhism has infused the Sinhalese culture. The way Muslims coexist with Buddhists. The sprawling families and how they will take in another family member’s child if it is necessary. The super-complicated intricacies of government on an island slightly larger than West Virginia. The way I have to sound out the rhythmic names syllable by syllable to get it right. The love and hatred for the colonizers and the traits they have left behind on the people. The beauty of the ocean juxtaposed with the poor living on the beaches. The languages and the head wobbles.

I went back in 2005, after I had finished business school. I spent two weeks visiting and traveling as much on my own as the Abeywickremas allowed. It was not long post-tsunami, so I was able to visit a refugee camp, see the destruction on the coastline, and witness the aid operations’ results. I also had the opportunity to go to the northern town of Jaffna during a brief ceasefire between the Sri Lankan government troops and the LTTE rebel fighters. Jaffna had long been the center of operations for the LTTE. The Red Cross workers there thought I was crazy, but it was important to me to see the whole picture. I had spent almost all of my time previously in Colombo, the multicultural capitol. What would it be like to be in Tamil-dominated Jaffna? It reminded me a great deal of Cuba, where I had been just a few months prior. Development was 40 years behind. The cars were old. The buildings that were still standing, even older, had bullet holes. The people were generally wary and less curious about me. In Colombo, people would stop me and ask me questions about where I was from and what I was doing in their country. They would touch my blonde hair and kids would stroke my pale white arms. In Jaffna, there could only be a few reasons I was there, none of them a result of anything good. Jaffna is not for the tourist. It was a disheartening experience, to see a whole town afraid of itself, 40 years behind, and aware of foreigners only as aid workers.

Four years later, the Sri Lankan government claims it has cornered the remaining LTTE fighters in one small sector on the northeast coast. One small sector full of some of the most ruthless fighters in South Asia… and thousands of civilians who are trapped there. The LTTE is reportedly using them as human shields and pressing them into service as fighters, resulting in the government being unwilling to let them out. Or possibly vice versa. It’s hard to know, as so few reporters have been allowed in the area. Civilians are being killed at an average rate of 70 a day since late January. While the government is trying to end the 30-year war against the rebels, the civilians are caught in the middle. Civilians who have been displaced, who are dying from dehydration and malnutrition and disease. Civilians who have no work, no money, no homes, and now no reason to not pick up weapons against those who have put them in this position. While the LTTE needs to stop using the civilians, the government is creating a longer-running war with their current relentless offensive.

At this stage, few aid groups are allowed to assess and help the 100,000 civilians who have already fled to refugee camps. The groups that are there are overwhelmed with need. If the ceasefire that’s been called for to allow the remaining civilians to be evacuated happens, these camps will swell in numbers by an estimated 50,000. Conditions are already bad in the camps, as there is little space, little fresh water, and little in the way of supplies in this remote region. It is summer there now, and diseases are now becoming a serious concern with the larger numbers, poor sanitation, and few medical personnel and medicines. The situation has been described as “dramatic” and a “catastrophe”.

There is a lot to love about this country and it what it represents in terms of a group of disparate cultures finding a way to coexist equitably. I hope that in my lifetime I can see that become the case and to visit again and again a country that evolves into a peaceful place for its generous people to live. I hope that in your lifetime you get the opportunity to visit this amazing place–the birthplace of Buddhism, the crossroads of European colonizers, and the amalgamation of wildly different cultures into one people.

What you can do to help:

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US Citizen Advocacy

  • Email USAID’s mission in Sri Lanka to ask them to ask for an increase in emergency aid beyond the US$15M granted earlier this month: infosl@usaid.gov