The thirst for tea is now gnawing, she keeps eagerly looking at the occasional shack whizzing past on either side, as the road continues through the dry zone evergreen forests.
Driving back from Trincomalee, they do not realize how close they are to the hotel.
---------
Big Teacher (let’s call her Sharon) returns to Lanka at least annually, the land where she was born and bred. These holidays are much looked forward to.
Life did not come up Trumps in the early years, but she educated herself, worked hard and finally did quite well financially in administration, setting up offices for some reputable institutions before one fateful year, deciding to go on holiday overseas.
This time, life held a full deck of cards, and she met someone who was perfect for her.
When Sharon moved overseas to be with her husband, despite being qualified and experienced in both the Montessori system and Business administration, finding a job was difficult.
But true to her style she was never idle. She got involved in running of her local church and when a position as an administrator to a big College came through, she decided to handle both.
---------
Suddenly spotting two young men making tea in some sort of a hut, she demands to stop, and her husband pulls to the side.
The men are making tea for the Army camp up the road, and not for selling.
But conversation ensues, and when Sharon asks whether there is land for sale in these parts, hubby J is looking at her incredulously.
No, they are not from this area, but look! That old man coming towards them will surely know.
Numbers are exchanged, and Sharon is confused at herself and J is smiling weakly and shaking his head.
Weeks pass; a call is received. By now J is going back and Sharon has a few weeks left of her holiday.
“Why don’t you just go check it out, you have nothing much planned anyway?” is J’s recommendation.
The First land Sharon sees is The One.
She does not visit any other.
The whole transaction takes nearly two years due to a combination of documentation,
bureaucracy and laws governing sale of State gifted land to the poor.
---------
Sharon tells me that God spoke to her.
Been more Agnostic in view and a childhood steeped in Buddhism, this is hard for me to understand. The only thing similar I can relate to is the voice in my head, an intense gut feeling that I have felt and heard many times in life.
God wanted her to go back, and do what she “Knows Best”
She and the church, both were baffled by this revelation.
Wouldn’t she be better off, earning well outside and helping Lanka, from afar?
Everybody is involved in trying to figure this out and it ensues further confusion.
But ultimately Sharon decides the decision is hers alone. Armed with a husband, whose quiet, thoughtful input only supports and strengthens her resolve, they sell up and return.
----------------
As the land is being prepared with all their savings being invested, Sharon and J move nearby to a rented house.
When Sharon offers her services as a voluntary English teacher to the Catholic school in Allagollawe and the government run Primary in Thimbirigaswewa, the principals in both schools are baffled.
Why?
The Government School Principal cannot believe someone walked in and offered her services for free to a school that had no English teacher for quite some time.
Why?
The Catholic priest has another concern. Sharon is of a different denomination, and with conversions all the rage,
Why?
The Buddhist priest in the area is watching carefully. If she is not here to convert, then,
Why?
…and J who accompanies her to what he thinks is exchanging pleasantries with the important people of the area, has his own question with Sharon’s blurting.
Why?
To be fair, Sharon is baffled too.
When she offered to be a voluntary English teacher, up to that second she had no idea what the plan was and what she was going to say.
God told her to do What She Knows Best.
For two years, Sharon teaches in both schools, simultaneously.
At times, travelling by rail, daily from Colombo.
The small house they built for themselves finally opens its doors as an Early Learning Centre and they have 5 students.
J goes back to his adopted country to work and send money back to what has now become, Their Dream.
-------------
The faithful are at the Temple.
The old biddies and their hobbling men folk are up in gleeful sarcasm in front of the younger lot.
The Head Priest listens gravely.
‘Panala giya, panala giya, Bombay waduna gamman ma!” (Jumped and left, jumped and left, moment the bomb hit)
They keep repeating loudly, hopping from one foot to another, with gestures worthy of a Shakespearean play to further emphasize the point.
The Bomb referred to is the Easter bomb attack by radical Muslim terrorists on several churches and hotels in Sri Lanka.
“….Aaah? Ade ara Loku Teacher neda?” someone points out. (…hey, isn’t that the Big Teacher?)
…and there drives Sharon, large as life in her small minivan, past the temple, back home.
She has landed back in Sri Lanka after her holiday, the previous night; a few days after the bomb attack, determined to carry on.
The group at the temple are split in two.
The frowning lot and the smiling lot.
The priest does not know whether to be silent in despair or howl in anger.
---------
At first, all accept invitations to school functions, more out of curiosity than anything else. They want to know what’s going on.
As they realize that the Centre does not focus on religion, nor do they teach it, there is a level of comfort in all communities.
But Sharon is still considered an outsider though she is a Sri Lankan Burgher, with strange looks and ways, and teaching.
The Priest still seems to have a problem with the omission of religion.
He visits the school and requests that Sharon considers at least starting the day with a few prayers.
After a meeting with parents and teachers, Sharon conveys her decision to the priest.
She cannot segregate children to different religious groups for prayers, as it goes against the spirit and ethos she is trying to establish.
Religion should be taught by parents, temples and churches. Not School.
Sharon refutes the argument of her being from a Christian Evangelical sect, with that it Only brought her to Her-Own mission of Education. And not that of spreading religion, which she considers a private personal thing.
(The school does have children of all faiths, and I do not observe a partiality towards one.)
The priest keeps away from the school, after his request is turned down.
He also does not make an appearance, when the school organizes a procession to the Temple, the same way they celebrate during Christmas, to the Church.
This is a slap in the face for most parents who attend the temple. And their anger is duly relayed to the priest.
There is a quiet resistance on both sides.
---------------
The priest who is educated and holds a couple of Degrees, was made the Mahanayake (Chief priest) of 80 temples in the area, recently.
A message was conveyed to Sharon, after this appointment.
“Tell her, I know she is doing good for the community and I will not bother her, as I do not have to listen to certain forces anymore.”
With that, there seems to be an unspoken truce or some sort of peace being established.
--------------
When I visit the school for the fourth time, I get to join the staff for lunch.
The school provides lunch for 25 staff including cleaners, cook and gardener and the children of the staff, 5 days a week.
It is a simple, happy lunch.
There is much laughter.
The school buys all of the produce needed from the farmers and parents at fair price.
They also provide uniforms, bags and all school material, and are periodically funded in this area by organizations such as Rotarians in Japan.
The nominal school fees and J’s monthly contributions go towards salaries.
The infrastructure of the school is purely financed by Sharon and J.
I gather from the stories around the table so far, that there are a lot of men and women, whose last resort is this school and Sharon.
There have been many instances where the Big Teacher has got involved in domestic violence and mediated. Instances where desperate families have been uplifted, and their children given a subsidized education, the parents helped with jobs.
And sometimes the school is a safe haven or a halfway house to many.
With all that is going on, Sharon is now well known in the Department of Education, the Police and the Hospitals.
The school donates and finances various things, from stationery to plumbing, to schools and Pre-schools in the area, as and when possible.
Listening to Sharon speak to teachers and parents over the last days, I notice the way she leaves them with some interesting thought or morsel of information to contemplate. Something that makes them think or analyze for themselves and perhaps open up a dialogue; question or come up with their own take on it.
In her own subtle way, she is teaching parents too, to understand the world beyond their little patch and comfort zone, and adapt and embrace positive elements of change.
__________
I watch Sharon serve some dishes on the table to the workmen sitting outside, who are here to attend to a building.
She has tremendous presence but a gentle and firm way of steering.
When the Cook’s kids ask for seconds, she pours Wood-apple milk over ice cream (a special treat today) for them, while relating a story of some of her young students with great hilarity, to me.
The rule is they have to eat all what they have taken on to their plate, then they can ask for more.
No comments:
Post a Comment