• Rainforest revival
• 'We are not dumb'
• Stirring sitar strains
• Not fiction, not factual
• Revolution of the world, word and body
• Serenity
• Kidney helpline
• It's Christmas time, lamb chops and wine
• Culture and cuisine, that's what's cooking
• When the 'nobodies'made their mark
• Booze and the bourgeoisie
• Stories of true humanity
• Reverse reaction
• Your last will
• No stopping YAH!
• School for 'learning disabled'
• Esto Perpetua sports fiesta in January
• Letters to the editor

High in the hills at Agrapatana, a unique project seeks to preserve our vanishing heritage

Rainforest revival

By Nilika de Silva 

"Oh brave new world that has such creatures in it." Miranda's words flash through my mind as I gaze at the most gorgeous frog I've ever seen. An indescribable green, it has a fragile beauty. No small feat for a frog!

I am at 'Agra' with the nearest thing to a magician as my guide. Here there is no Taj Mahal, only the pulsating urge to recreate rainforests on lands which have for close upon two centuries, seen only arid tea cultivations in place of burgeoning forests. This brave experiment is the Wildlife Heritage Trust's (WHT) 50-acre arboretum at Agrapatana, 1,700m above sea level.

Winning the internationally famous Rolex Award earlier this year for his WHT rainforest project provided conservationist Rohan Pethiyagoda with the confirmation that his work was being understood, his vision no longer questioned. 

A rare species himself, Pethiyagoda is a publicity-shy visionary, who spends most of his money and leisure searching for lesser known species, their main qualification being that they weigh less than 100 gms. The work involves exploration - scientific description and nomenclature (known as taxonomy) - biological research and conservation activity. 

One of the recurring questions Pethiyagoda, himself a vegetarian with a great reverence for life, has to face from lay people is, "Why do you kill all these animals if you are a conservationist?" He answers that, to clearly differentiate between two closely related species, it is essential to examine their internal structure, and this can only be done by looking at a specimen under the microscope. 
Mr. Pethiyagoda embarked on his rainforest project more than one and a half years ago, seeking to preserve a heritage that Sri Lanka is fast losing with every passing day. 

Sri Lankan forests are fragmented into 140 segments isolated from each other. "These little pocket-handkerchief pieces of forest really cannot survive by themselves in the long term," he explains. 

"The smaller the island of forest, the smaller the chance that it will survive. This has nothing to do with people cutting trees. Even if you don't cut trees, put a fence around it and don't set foot in it, it just keeps decaying," he says. Pethiyagoda's solution is to link the forests with corridors.

"In order to be viable, a forest has to be large. In Singapore, for the past 110 years, they have conserved a small forest called the Bukatema Forest Reserve. Now most of the species of trees are not pollinating anymore. As a result you have this situation where you have to take cuttings from the old trees, try to root them and grow the forest manually, because the forest as a natural entity is dying." 

"The problem here is that for most of the species we have to plant in the forest, nobody has ever learnt how to propagate them. For each tree, it's a different technique. For some you have to use cuttings, others tissue culture, some you do from seed, but some of these trees don't seed very often. For instance, this plant seeds once every twelve years, and doesn't give you notice before it comes, so you can't always be sure of collecting enough seed to save a species," he says. 
"We must have a National Seed Bank, for all our species of trees because we have almost 800 endemic species of plants in Sri Lanka.

"We need to make large collections of seeds, so if a species does become extinct, at least we'll have material from it. Then we must have an Arboretum to learn how to propagate these trees, plant them and keep them as a living genetic resource." 

Mr. Pethiyagoda hopes to use his US $ 25,000 Rolex Award, to build a dormitory at Agra. This would enable schoolchildren and university students to visit the site where this spectacular experiment is taking place, the main motive being to create in them a love for the environment and to give them an opportunity to learn the subject firsthand, also through nature walks and for the more adventurous, treks to Horton Plains.

He also plans to build a community centre where the plantations workers can gather to watch television. Right now their only relaxation after a hard day's work is drink, he says.
As rainforests require hundred percent shade, trees are being planted to ensure the forest has at least its first two years in shade. However, Pethiyagoda points out that no Sri Lankan indigenous species found in the natural forest around Agrapatana will grow straightaway without shade. 
"Our job is over the next twenty years to make this a pioneering project, to tell all tea plantations to take material from here for their wastelands and plant them," he says. 

He blames the country's rapid deforestation on the lack of a National Energy Policy. If people are given an alternative to fuelwood they are ready and willing to change, he says. 

WHT's four-man scientific team at Agra comprises Mohomed Bahir specializing in freshwater crabs, and Kelum Manamendra-Arachchi, specialising in frogs (Kelum is currently touring museums in Europe), Madhava Meegaskumbura presently doing his PhD in Boston university and Sudath Nanayakkara who is in charge of the Arboretum.

'We are not dumb'

By Uthpala Gunethilake

Kajanthini, 10, could hardly contain her ex- citement as her 'teacher' pulled the magenta cloth over her head, twisted it loosely around her small, shalwar-clad form and tucked it in her waist. Then he tied a mask around her head and handed her a sash of bright orange. The moment he stood back, Kajanthini, plunged into action. Waving the orange sash in the air and gesturing with the distorted comic face much too big for her, she danced to a rhythm of her own, sending everyone into fits of laughter. The music hadn't even started yet, but she didn't know. Kajanthini is deaf.

Not that it mattered right now. What mattered to Kajanthini and ninety-nine others during these few days from December 7 to 14 were that they were coming out of a shell to express and discover themselves as never before, through art: dancing, acting, painting, puppetry and drawing. 

They were all part of the seven-day workshop conducted in Vavuniya by the Sunera Foundation, chaired by Ms. Sunethra Bandaranaike. The workshop, funded by the UNICEF, brought together experts from the Foundation who made these troubled children dance, sing and laugh till they were dizzy with a newly gained confidence about themselves.

The hundred children who romped and pranced around in the abandoned college building in Vavuniya where the workshop was held, came from all three communities, Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim, 25 from each. The other 25 were disabled children brought together by an NGO called SEED (Socio Economic and Environmental Development). The majority of the disabled children were deaf. Some came from families fortunate enough to live in a house of their own, while others were from the Poonthottam refugee camp.

The workshop was launched, in drama coach Wolfgang Stange's words, "for these children to find out 'what am I?' "what can I do for my community'?" Before the workshop, 20 local teachers were also trained and involved in the workshop activities. 

Little Naganandan, eight, also deaf, lived in this camp with his parents. The workshop was a fund of attention and love for this little bundle of energy. He readily, if not persuasively offered his hand to everyone who happened to look at him, busied himself with the pens and paper his charm earned him and in his language of gestures and signs, asked many questions. But neither he nor two of his friends from the same camp, also deaf, nor any of the other children would have answered the questions that nagged most visitors' minds. Why are they in the camp? What happened to them? What is it like to live with a war raging in your backyard? What does the future hold for them? 

"I don't talk about mother and father here because I don't know whether they have ever seen their mother or father," says Krishna, a percussionist, who conducted music lessons for the children at the workshop. Wolfgang Stange from Germany who directed the drama sessions shares Krishna's sentiments. "We don't try to pull out their experiences of the war. But if they come out with it accidentally while in the thick of these activities, we deal with it."

The security situation has made their world a closed one with not many choices, which outsiders have to reach past strict army scrutiny, well saddled with security passes. After Medawachchiya on the Anuradhapura-Vavuniya road, the number of houses dwindle to be replaced by woodland and frequent pockets of uniformed men and women. 
At the Vavuniya work shop the first day was disheartening because the children's response was limited.

For the majority, paintbrushes were a novel delight, and musical instruments were wonders sometimes heard but never seen. "It was horrendous. Much as I knew of their situation I didn't imagine they wouldn't have even seen the two instruments used in kovils. So I taught them to make their own instruments," says Krishna. 

But the making of the instruments was not that easy either. "When they were told to bring sticks to use as drumsticks, and tin cans, those from the camp said they just couldn't find them in the camp." 

Their shyness of the first day soon disappeared. Many couldn't wait for their turn in the dancing circle, and all were eager to show what they learnt at the puppetry class. When the group of twenty trooped inside the classroom for music, the greetings were hearty. "Ayubowan!" bellowed Krishna and the children yelled after him. "Hello!", "Vanakkam!" and "Assalam Aleykum!" rounded off with an exhilarating hoot. It's easy to see why, in Krishna's own words, "they come bubbling with enthusiasm for the music lesson."

Another room was converted to a makeshift theatre. An excited king in an orange head dress sat on a wooden throne, hearing complaints. You could only guess as to what was happening, because the play had a strange language, a mixture of Tamil, Sinhala and a fair bit of sign language. 

But the cast members who constantly slipped away to form the audience, seemed to understand each other fine. "It's a play without a language. Some can only speak Sinhala, some only Tamil and some can't speak at all. Language is the cause of all conflicts so we did away with the language", said Rohana Dewa perera who together with his wife Ramya Damayanthi conducted the drama sessions. 

Of course language was no barrier for them, because they were so eager to express themselves. Abdul Aziz who followed us around wearing his mile- wide grin managed to tell us through a series of gestures and broken English that he is in Year Ten, and loved to dance. "You realise they've had so little opportunity to express themselves. And in this type of work you are not being asked to give up your identity. You can be what you are, and you'll learn to respect others for what they are. And these few days I have seen the kids change," said Wolfgang.

In the painting class that day, they were drawing their town. Many to whom a box of colours is a luxury were practically splashing their sheets of paper with watercolours. George Beven, their director commented that he was amazed at their creativity.

But seven days pass quickly. On Thursday, their final day, they were to have an exhibition and a concert of sorts, showing off what they learnt. And then? Will their experience become a once in a lifetime taste of the outside world, of which they might not be a part ever?

"In short workshops like this you can't expect miracles. They have come out of their web now: but they'll be going back to the camps, to that regimented life again," lamented Krishna adding that had he the chance he would stay on longer.

"It's going to be terrible to leave them: now they are very close to us. At present, I don't think the Foundation plans to carry on the programme. But hopefully the teachers whom we have trained will continue to work with the children this way," says Damayanthi, who with her husband has been involved in programmes like this for nearly ten years.

Siri Kumarasiri who conducted the puppetry lessons insists that people should come to these closed worlds. "Because we have abandoned them, they are cut off from the real world. We should visit them often. If you have the heart, you can do something for these children." 
Man of courage It takes a certain amount of courage to offer hope to others, while living in fear for your life every moment of the day. D. Ravichan-dran has that courage, and he has hope. This 21-year-old has come to Vavuniya from Madhu in 1992 to study. His family followed later, in fear of their lives and as refugees. They lived in the Poonthottam camp till recently and are now in a housing scheme. Ravi studied at the school in Chettikulam and has passed his A/Levels. Now he is training to be counsellor for people traumatized by the war. "Some of their stories are horrifying. Many have come to the camps with only what they were wearing. One of them told how his father had died when their house was shelled. The parents had sent him and his sister to a bunker and stayed back. Once the attack was over they had come out to discover the father dead, and the mother without a leg," says Ravi, recounting an experience that may be common to many in the area. "I wanted to do something to help," he adds. His role in the workshop is to help the teachers and act as translator. He enjoys the experience. "The children get to do as they like. If they like something they can do it: if they are too shy, no one will force them. Also they don't feel any difference in being Tamil, Sinhala or Muslim.

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