Letters from the Field

July 2005

Dear Friends,

Greetings to you from the land of “Serendib”, (serendipity), the ancient name for Ceylon, or most recently Sri Lanka.  In tour books Sri Lanka is aptly described as the jewel off the tip of India, a beautiful lush tropical paradise rich in culture and tradition.  Sri Lanka is also one of the South Asian countries devastated by the tsunami of December 26, 2004.

I had not planned to work in Sri Lanka this year, but the path of Capacitar often unfolds with serendipity and synchronicity.  A few weeks after the tsunami I received an email from Aiveen Mullally of Capacitar Ireland, asking if she could pursue funds to offer Capacitar trauma workshops for tsunami survivors.  Aiveen, a wonderful young educator from Dublin, had visited Sri Lanka on several occasions and wanted to offer her summer vacation to work with people there.  She also asked that if she secured the funding, if I would accompany her and mentor her with trauma work in the field.  With the vision and connections of Capacitar Ireland Coordinator Toni Ryan, Trocaire agreed to fund the exploratory trip and workshops.  Fr. Tony Sheridan, CSSP, an Irish missionary in Brazil who participates in our Dublin trainings, also donated tsunami funds from his poor Rio de Janeiro parish.  So Aiveen and I were on our way!  Many Irish congregations of sisters and priests have worked in Sri Lanka with schools, health clinics and parish outreach, so contacts synchronistically developed in the months prior to our departure.  Aiveen did a fine job establishing connections throughout Sri Lanka with congregations, NGOs and organizations to visit and groups with whom we could offer Capacitar workshops.

During our planning phase we were advised to focus more attention on the North around Jaffna, the region receiving fewer tsunami resources because it is a conflict zone controlled by the Tamil Tigers.  There is a long history of conflict between Tamils and Sinhalese peoples.  Tamils, mostly Hindu, make up only 5% of the population of 19 million Sri Lankans, as compared to 70% Sinhalese, mostly Buddhist.  After centuries of domination by Portuguese, Dutch and then British, when Sri Lanka finally gained its independence in 1948, the ruling majority of Sinhalese imposed their language and power over the Tamils.  Since the 1980s there has been fierce conflict between Tamils and Sinhalese, with the Tamil Tigers gaining control over a large section of the North, although their armed forces were much fewer in number.  About 68,000 people died in the twenty years of conflict, double the number that died in the tsunami.  In 2003 the Tigers declared a unilateral ceasefire, but tensions continue with daily news reports describing small skirmishes, killings by the Sinhalese army and discovery of Tiger arms deposits.  About 300,000 Tamils currently live in the separate region called Tamil Eealam, near Jaffna. The Tamil Tigers have set up an independent state with their own government, schools, bank and institutions.  A “no man’s land” controlled by the Red Cross separates Tamil and Sinhalese areas, with live land mines, high security, sand bag bunkers, soldiers with semiautomatic rifles and checkpoints everywhere.  In both areas lush vines have grown over remnants of the fierce fighting—rusting tanks and vehicles; bombed-out shells of what were once thriving businesses homes and schools; abandoned fields that once produced local crops.

Because of our packed schedule of meetings and workshops, Aiveen and I decided to take the one-hour flight from Colombo to Jaffna, rather than risk the ten-hour bus trip (with several bus changes and numerous check points).  The Jaffna airport, only recently opened for commercial flights, is a small strip in the middle of a high security zone with numerous guard posts and sandbag bunkers on the landing strip.  Singhalese soldiers with semiautomatics are everywhere.  On our flight we met several people who were moving back to their homes after twenty years in exile in Europe. Most people come back to bombed out homes or businesses having to start all over again.

Our introduction to the normalized, yet precarious, atmosphere of the ceasefire came shortly after our arrival in Jaffna.  Soldiers riding shotgun on the airport bus dropped us at the checkpoint, where the local Jaffna pastor, Fr. Pius, was waiting for us with a van.  After loading the luggage, our driver made a quick U turn on the narrow asphalt road, as Fr. Pius yelled out:  “Be careful of land mines!!!”  We later learned that almost daily, farmers reclaiming their lands, children playing in the fields or livestock wandering for forage, are blown up by mines and unexploded ammunition.  As we drove along, we saw a group of women walking through a field poking the earth with long poles.  At first we thought they were probably preparing the soil for planting until we read in the local paper about several women injured while clearing mines.  International NGOs are also involved in the dangerous task of making the land safe again.

The focus for this trip was to respond to people traumatized by the tsunami, but very quickly in Jaffna we realized how deeply people were also affected by the trauma of the twenty years of violence, as well as by the racial conflict.  As with most trauma, the present natural disaster and its aftermath, trigger all the unhealed feelings from the times of the violence.  During our two weeks in Jaffna we worked with over 600 people—including, tsunami survivors, orphans, counselors, teachers, religious, youth, animators and professionals.  Although our Capacitar methods were new to everyone, men and women of all ages and backgrounds eagerly came forward to participate in our workshops wanting to heal their lives.

One person who deeply touched my heart, and who most embodied the depth of trauma in Sri Lanka is Sister Maria Joseph.  Sister is the principal of a school in Thalayady, a poor beachside village in Tiger territory.  With tears in her eyes she described how her school had been bombed and destroyed a few years ago during the worst of the fighting.  For several years the children attended school in an open-air thatch-roofed classroom near the bombed-out site.  With funds from Europe the community built a beautiful new school that was finished just before Christmas. Everyone was enthusiastically preparing for the large inaugural celebration to be held on January 5.  The classrooms were beautifully decorated and all was made ready for the visit of the donors.  In preparation for the celebration a large number of children were gathered together with the local priest on the steps of the church practicing their songs and dances on the morning of December 26.  Without warning the first tsunami wave hit dragging a number of the children out to sea.  Most of the children could not swim or outrun the waves, so the priest helped as many as he could to climb to higher ground or hang onto palm trees.  In all 20 children died. With deep pain Sister struggled with the dilemma: how could this happen again to her poor community who had so little and had already suffered so much from the war.  Although deeply traumatized herself, Sister Joseph could not leave her children and families and was currently living in the UN refugee camp with her people.

After talking with us for a while Sister Joseph led us to her open-air school where 60 children (4 to 12 years of age) and 10 teachers were gathered. Almost everyone assembled had been dragged into the water by the tsunami and many of the children had lost a parent or siblings. With Tamil translation we taught the children the tapping game (EFT--Emotional Freedom Technique) and the fingerholds for releasing emotions.  Sister Joseph, who was born in India, had already taught the children and teachers traditional meditation and breathwork for inner peace and healing.  She was happy to learn the Capacitar methods and said she would use these daily to help her children to heal so they could better learn in the midst of the challenges.  We asked the children to sing for us.  As their beautiful vibrant voices sang out in Tamil, Sister explained to us that they had chosen to sing us a song about their faith and hope in the midst of their pain and loss.

Along the way we also visited other refugee sites. As we drove into Malenkadu, another seaside village destroyed by the tsunami, a stark image met our eyes—58 crosses stood on a large sand dune, in memory of the dead or missing children, families and fishermen.  There we glimpsed the power of the tsunami.  The waves had reached between a half to one mile inland (1 to 2 kilometers), with a height of 30 to 40 feet (10-12 meters).  A week before I left Santa Cruz we had had a tsunami warning because of several strong underwater earthquakes along the California coast.  After seeing the destruction in Sri Lanka, I very soberly realized that my own home would be gone if a tsunami ever hit, since I live so close to the beach.

In Malenkadu we also glimpsed some of the unique social problems that communities are now dealing with as a result of the loss of life and the breakup of families.  We briefly sat in the Malenkadu fishermen’s tent while various delegations came to offer aid to the local leaders.  Boats for 19 surviving fishermen had been secured with European funds, but the men now needed nets.  So one delegation arrived offering funds for the nets to rebuild the local fishing industry.  Another group brought plans for houses to help the 235 families who lost their homes.  One of the most curious delegations came to talk about arranging marriages for a number of women who lost spouses in the tsunami.  We later found out that marriages were still arranged in rural communities, and that women’s social status was dependent on their marriage.  Several of the younger women we talked with were saddened by the deaths of fathers or brothers, not only because of the loss of their lives, but who would now arrange for their marriages or pay for their dowries.  One young man at a hotel where we stayed lost his business in the tsunami, so he had to postpone his scheduled marriage for 3 or 4 years so he could go abroad to work to get sufficient resources to pay for his wedding and for a home for his bride. A question that Aiveen and I were constantly asked everywhere in Sri Lanka was: “Are you married?”  Some were shocked to find out that Aiveen at 30 was not married.  So then they asked who was arranging this for her?  And how unfortunate that because of her advancing age she would only be able to have a few children, rather than a dozen or more!  I got around the problem by saying that I had several thousand children in different parts of the world.  That usually brought a big smile!

We were very impressed to see the number of Sri Lankans working with the local recovery effort.  Several of the groups with whom we worked were Tamils visiting and supporting tsunami survivors.  In Sri Lankan culture there isn’t a tradition of psychotherapy.  According to one statistic, for the population of 19 million people there are about 50 psychiatrists and psychologists in the whole country.  Psychosocial work is the approach currently used by groups with communities—and rather than traditional psychotherapy this focus includes activities such as problem solving, direct aid for the victims, development projects and conflict resolution.  In some places lay counselors have been trained for recovery work and are called “psychosocial befrienders”.  Their job is to visit people affected by the disaster to give them food, spiritual and moral support, as well as to listen to their problems.  

Synchronistically on our first day in Jaffna at a refugee camp we met Fr. Damien, an Oblate priest who is a psychologist.  Fr. Damien was trained in psychology in Canada in 1984.  He worked in Jaffna throughout the war years, as a university professor in psychiatry at the medical school and in a clinic of Jaffna Hospital supervising counselors.  Fr. Damien described how he lived as a refugee for a time during the worst of the fighting and bombing when the Singhalese army took over the Oblates property.  When he was finally able to return to Jaffna in 1996, he started working with traumatized children and the tortured.  Over 500 youth were killed or disappeared and many youth are currently dealing with suicide.  With funds from UNICEF, Fr. Damien established the Wholistic Healing Center  (WHC) using art, movement, yoga, dance and expressive therapies for trauma survivors.  The work has continued to grow and there are now ten WHC centers in the region with new projects planned for widows and children traumatized by war as well as for youth and schools. One of our workshops was for his teams of WHC psychosocial befrienders who are currently working with the tsunami families in several of the refugee camps. We accompanied these counselors on their Saturday visit to work with children in two camps and were impressed with their skills in play therapy and expressive arts to help the children release their strong emotions, flashbacks and nightmares.  Snaika, a six month-old with enormous black eyes, immediately won our hearts when she was carried into the group by another small child.  Snaika was days old when the tsunami took her mother and family.  As she crawled around among the children, she seemed happy to be part of the community singing and playing games.  She is currently cared for by her grandmother.  During our stay in Jaffna we also offered workshops to large groups that included volunteers and staffs from the Center for Peace and Reconciliation and for Ahavoli Family Services Center.  Members and volunteers from these groups are also doing outreach with tsunami survivors and orphans.

Working with different religious congregations gave us access to many people doing outreach around the country.  Only about 5% of the country is Catholic or Christian, but congregations also work with people from other religions. The Holy Family Sisters of the Northern Province hosted us in Jaffna for a week. In all 140 sisters, over half of the province, participated in our workshops, coming from over 30 different places around the country.  As a congregation the sisters work with a broad cross-section of needs—internal refugees, tsunami survivors, orphans, the elderly and sick, schools, clinics, mentally and physically disabled, Tiger youth, women and families.  One sister spoke of losing 200 children at her school in Tricomalee. Other sisters cared for tsunami orphans along with the hundreds of orphans from the years of the violence.  Right away the sisters started using the Capacitar methods in their communities and ministries and many spoke of the positive outcomes for themselves and their groups.  Because of the years of the conflict and now the crisis with the tsunami, there is much internalized anger, violence and frustration.  Provincial Sr. Ancilla James commented on how she could see the great benefit of the Capacitar practices for improving health and community life, as well as for outreach in ministry.

An interesting NGO (nongovernmental organization) with whom we worked both in Jaffna and Colombo was CPA, Center for Performing Arts, founded by Fr. Saveri over 25 years ago.  Currently there are 20 CPA centers around the country whose purpose is to work for peace and development with youth, women and families from all the different cultures and traditions through song, dance and other creative activities.  Since the tsunami, CPA members have been working with survivors living in refugee camps offering joyful song and dance to cheer the spirits of the people.  Our workshops (in Tamil and Singhalese) included youth animators as well as traumatized survivors.  Part of our challenge as facilitators was to try to give the animators an understanding of the empowering focus and popular education approach of Capacitar.  Rather than entertaining or performing for groups, Capacitar offers skills to empower people to awaken to their own healing process.  In Colombo several very traumatized youth were brought to the workshop with the expectation that we could make them feel better.  One young man ready to graduate from school had survived the worst of the tsunami in Matara.  He stopped talking, quit school and had lost all interest in life, classic signs of PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder).  He was brought to the workshop by an animator who wanted us to help him. We immediately realized that all we could do was give him some skills so that he could begin to do something for himself with the support of CPA.  In the course of the workshop his numbed body language shifted and he began to interact with some of the other youth present.  We gave him what we could and hopefully he will receive from CPA the necessary support and encouragement needed to pull his life together.  Several of the children shared how hard it was to live in the refugee camps after having lost their parents, their homes and all their possessions.  In Jaffna the CPA youth animators worked in a refugee camp after they had learned the Capacitar skills.  Aiveen and I were relaxing in the patio of the Holy Family Sisters when one of the older sisters came to let us know that a busload of young people had dropped in to visit us.  To our surprise and delight the 20 young Tamils with whom we had worked wanted to come to tell us about their successes in using the Capacitar practices with the refugee children.

Because of previously scheduled U.S. workshops I had to leave Aiveen in Colombo to return to California.  While I write this Aiveen is on her way back to Ireland after working for two more weeks in Colombo, as well as in the South (Galle and Weligama) and East (Komari and Batticoloa), the areas most greatly affected by the tsunami.  There is great interest for a Capacitar in-depth training over the next two years, hopefully to be funded and coordinated by Capacitar Ireland.  Our new trauma manual, Living in Wellness: Trauma Healing, developed for this trip, will be translated into Tamil and Inhale to serve as a resource for groups.  Copies of the English version of the manual, along with Tamil and Singhalese pages of basic practices, were distributed to many individuals and groups around the country.

Often as we introduced ourselves to groups, Aiveen would poignantly say that she was from Ireland, a country about the geographical size of Sri Lanka with likewise a long history of North-South violence.  As Capacitar we came to walk in solidarity with the people offering what we could to bring peace and healing as well as to learn from them.  The trip was filled with so many remarkable experiences, but what most stands out most are the warm loving hospitality and the resiliency and beauty of the Sri Lankan people.

With peace and blessings,
Pat Cane