A WHOLE OTHER WORLD

Yesterday we were taken to see one of the shanty areas of Colombo and to meet some families who live there. I must confess that Colombo still remains a mystery to me. Unlike Darren, who has made the trips you have read about here, I have only been to Colombo twice, both times on a Sunday, when it has been much calmer. My untrained eye, with it's limited experience, struggles to distinguish it from many other areas of Sri Lanka. Busy streets are lined with multitudes of shops and advertising as far as the eye can see. Back lanes lead to a maze of alleyways and hidden places of residences and smaller retailers. Large abodes sit with more modest ones, but as we drive I do notice the houses become smaller and more humble.

We drive down an unsealed, red dirt track and it is here that we pull over and get out. Even Prince seems amazed, commenting that this seems more like a rural area than somewhere to be found in the nation's capital. But this is not the shanty community - not yet. We balance across some logs thrown down to make a crossing for a stream (when it's dry weather anyway; when it rains it's all underwater). Across this simple bridge we find ourselves in a whole other world. Here, on the other side, is shanty town.

These shanties are the homes of 51 families. Makeshift shelters of planks, black plastic and sheets of corrugated iron huddle tightly together, each reached via a maze of muddy paths. When the rains come the tin roofs leak badly and the rising waters can flood the houses. The puddles of water that form outside can be used for washing clothes. There are two toilets for this community to share. The area has electricity, a pre-election gift from the government, but not all are so fortunate when it comes to water. Those who do not have running water to their homes either have to collect water from community taps or from holes that they have dug in the ground. The people are squatters, living on government land. Should the government decide to reclaim the land, these people would lose their homes. If the occupants are tenants, leasing the shanties from someone else, they would neither be given somewhere else to stay nor have their rent returned.

The first family we visited lived in a two-room shanty. The front was a small type of living area and the back was a rough kitchen that also housed a cage of chicks. There were no beds in this home and we were told the family just slept where they could. The second family had a bed - but that was about it. This house was one simple, dark and otherwise unfurnished room. The man who lived here worked picking kankun (forgive me if the spelling is incorrect), a vegetable used for Chinese cooking. He earns between five to twenty rupees per bunch with which to support his young family (that's roughly about five to twenty cents) but will earn nothing in the rainy season, when he cannot pick kankun. The third place was not so much a visit as it was the house we had to pass through to get to and from the second house. Still, we paused to exchange pleasantries and to give lollies to the children. The next family was fortunate enough to have a bed and a tap line. Their house was only one room, but they had set up a curtain to divide it into two. The last visit was to a young man who is using all his means to pursue his education and training. His surroundings are humble but he has his eyes trained on the hope of the future.

So, when it is so easy to focus on what these people don't have, let me turn your attention to what they do have. Well, they do have an amazing ability, in the face of dirty, unsanitary conditions, to keep their homes as clean and in order as is possible. They also have an air of human dignity. Simple possessions are cared for and each person is neatly presented. Meet them on the street and you would never know the environment they have stepped out from. And they have a spirit of hospitality and generosity that should bring humility to those of us who take the finer things of life for granted. There are no outstretched hands, begging for your money, even though they desperately need it. Instead, at each home we were offered tea, coffee or soft drinks. How many of us, in the same circumstances, would choose to keep these things for ourselves?

It is amazing how desensitised we can become to scenes such as these. We would see them on charity ads and television documentaries and, though we might be moved to an extent, it all seems so distant, as though it couldn't really be real. It is scary how easily we seem to accept that some people must live in these conditions. As long as everything seems O.K. we can forget that, in circumstances such as these, children must die of preventable diseases; parents must grieve; the sick must suffer; the elderly must struggle; widows must grow weary and people must go hungry. Makes you rethink all those little luxuries, doesn't it?!