PUTTALAM

Puttalam, an old fishing and pearling village, is a little place about 90km north of Negombo. Due to the road being in good condition and light traffic we can get there in about two hours. It is situated right next to a huge lagoon. I suspect this may cause flooding issues when it really starts to rain. It is a little place and not many tourists would venture here as most of them would go up to Anaradapura. (When learning Sinhala, reading the place names is good because it is phonetic and you dont have to remember what the words mean).

I was a bit concerned about this trip as I had no part in choosing the place we were staying but as it turns out my fears were unfounded. The place was clean, had a toilet and air conditioner but no hot water, as this is considered an unnecessary luxury in the smaller establisments. However, we were warned to cover up as the mosquitos were quite bad. In the early morning, if you sat quietly, you could hear the buzz of hundreds of mosquitos.

We were in Puttalam for the weekend. On Saturday we were invited to visit some of the families living out there. Driving out from our resthouse we followed the lagoon road, with it's prawn farms and salt flats. Compared with the rest of Sri Lanka these are very sad, sparse places, almost desert-like. There are not many small towns around here and it was a bit of a surprise to come upon a house in the town of Kalpitiya.

With land being relatively cheap here (approximately $60 for one perch or 25 square meters) most families have fair-sized blocks. The houses vary, with some made entirely from woven coconut palms, others with timber walls and tin roof and others still made from bricks and tiles, with all variations in between. The woven coconut palms need to be replaced evey two years while timber posts and boards will last up to five years. Tin is the best when it rains but very hot in the day. The best, and obviously the most expensive, are the brick houses with a tile roof.

Families will tend to forgo any luxury, from new clothes to birthday gifts, just to have a house. They will often live in small thatch places while they accumulate the funds to build a suitable brick house (about $1500). As they are mainly illiterate most onsell goods they buy in Colombo to the wealthier types in Chilaw, which is halfway between Puttalam and Colombo. Items they might sell include such things as skin whitening cream and tooth powder. One lady has been lucky enough to have inherited a sewing machine which will enable her to sell clothes to the community but, as so often is the case, she lacks the money required to complete a training course in sewing and buy material.

The climate here is ideal for growing fruit and vegetables and there is water in abundance. Many in the area grow onions, cabbages, chillies and turnips to sell at markets. However, in this area the ground is sandy, amost beachlike, and requires fertilizer to grow a marketable crop. As the saying goes, you need money to make money.

As we travel back, bellies filled from the hospitality of those we have visited, I realise that the problem is not recognising the needs here. It is using what we have in the best possible way to reach as many people as possible. This is tempered with the thought that whatever we do achieve, some people will miss out. This was reinforced on Sunday, when we met a young man who works for World Vision. They currently help three thousand five hundred children, but there are so many more still waiting for help.
.