While the focus of the local media and public interest has concentrated on the relief work of the larger international aid agencies based in the North East, dozens of other foreigners continue to work quietly in other needy regions throughout the rest of the country. These people are international volunteers and each year, at the request of the Sri Lankan government, over 200 of them travel here to work side-by-side with local people and organisations involved in community development, education, health and vocational training.
For over 30 years international agencies have been sending people into Sri Lankan organisations and communities to share their knowledge and expertise. Agencies such as The American Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV), The British Volunteer Service Organisation (VSO), the Australian Overseas Service Bureau (OSB), The Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) and numerous others, recruit people who are willing to forego the comfortable wages and living standards of their home country to work in developing countries for a minimum salary and to live in difficult and often primitive conditions.
"When I was in Liberia, people were convinced I was CIA, because they couldn't understand why an American would possibly want to live without running water and electricity," laughs PCV Sri Lankan field Director Kathleen Corey, who was a PCV for four years in Liberia back in the 60's.
The American Peace Corps was established in 1961 and over the ensuing 35 years the primary objectives of the Peace Corps have remained the same, namely to promote international harmony and understanding through a skilled and qualified volunteer workforce.
Most other volunteer agencies operate on much the same philosophy - a combination of skills and cultural exchange. All foreign volunteers are qualified or appropriately skilled for the positions they hold and arrive in-country , fully briefed and prepared to work. The majority of volunteers are placed within NGO's, English language centres, technical colleges, medical centres or rural communities working as teachers, technical assistants, medical specialists, documentalists, administrators and vocational and educational trainers.
"Volunteers come here to do a professional job of work over the two years they are here and are expected to meet certain objectives set out by their local employer and VSO," said VSO field co-ordinator Alison Aldred.
But as many volunteers soon discover, the experience of volunteering is often far more complex and ultimately more rewarding than they expected.
"I guess when you come here to do development work you expect to get a lot of assistance," said Peace Corps worker Cori Welbourn. "You don't expect to get thrown into the deep end as I was," she said.
For the past year Ms Welbourn worked in a village near Embilipitiya on the edge of the dry zone. During her placement she established a community centre in her area which the villagers have dubbed the "Cori Welbourn Community Center". For two years she lived and worked under much the same conditions as her workmates and neighbours, drawing water from the village well and working at night by lamplight. It was, she said, all part of the experience.
"It was more satisfying," she said, "you got the chance to do things on your own, to have more responsibility. You get used to no electricity and things like that - although it was a bit of a pain to haul water - I did miss having a tap!"
"I think some people come here thinking they're going to be a martyr perhaps, to sacrifice things. But actually I found it more satisfying having less and living in a village, the people were more satisfying, the job was more satisfying - the important thing was being part of a community and being trusted.
"The important thing for them [the villagers] was that I went to all the funerals, the weddings and festivals and community activities - it made all the difference."
Alison Aldred agrees the work situation is only part of the volunteer experience.
"I think a lot of people start the programme thinking "I'm going to do something for the third world," but the reality is that they find themselves benefiting hugely from the experience," she said.
VSO worker Tracey Sampson who for the last two years has worked in Trincomalee and Anuradhapura as a teacher trainer says she has thoroughly enjoyed her two years in Sri Lanka and that it has been everything she expected and more.
"The flexibility of the job, the job satisfaction, honestly, it's fantastic - I have the possibility to try out my ideas and to work them with other people," she said. "I think for me [this experience] has helped make the world a smaller place," she said, "So if I'm in Manchester and I hear a news report about Sri Lanka or South East Asia - it's now a real place with real people as opposed to an idea on a map."
Australian Volunteer Isabel Guymer who is currently working as a documentalist with Voice of Women in Colombo, said her experience here has enabled her to move from textbook learning to "real life" learning.
"I studied anthropology at university and now I feel like it means more. it's so different when you actually live in a different culture, you don't make as many value judgements, you become more tolerant," she said. "You do feel like jumping up and down sometimes but in the end, when the frustration subsides you see thing for what they really are - and it's so much different when you start to see things through local eyes."
John Ball, an Australian Volunteer teaching English at the Church of South India in Wellawatte believes one of the biggest benefits of a foreign volunteer experience is the new understanding a volunteer gains about their own country.
"I think I came here among other things out of a sense of solidarity, of helping in some small way amid a society struggling with the issues of war and peace and development," he said. "But what I've learnt while working here, particularly with a minority group, is a real an insight into cultural differences. I think I've begun to realise better the difficulties faced by Australia's minorities, by the migrants and by the Aboriginal people who have been swamped by a different culture and language."
But while for the best part, volunteering in Sri Lanka is a positive experience, it is not without its trials. Many volunteers find the positions they come to fill quite different from the ones they expected and some even find they are not really needed. One volunteer placed in Hatton discovered she was not wanted by her organisation and another placed in Galle found his position unworkable due to lack of administration and a discriminatory and unenthusiastic staff.
Some volunteers find the dominant stereotypes of white foreigners and white women, particularly difficult hurdles to overcome.
The perception of the white female perpetuated by American media imports such as "Baywatch" and "The Bold and the Beautiful" have made sexual harassment a major issue for many women volunteers.
As one Australian volunteer illustrated "I have been wearing a full Shalwar Kameeze, with a headscarf and been standing beside a Lankan girl wearing tight jeans and short sleeved tight fitting top and I have been the one the sleazy comments have been directed at. It doesn't matter what I do or what I wear - I can't win".
In the Australian ranks alone over the last few months there have been instances of men flashing their genitals, the ubiquitous catcalls and touching on the buses and a few instances of physical confrontation on the roadways, one woman even had a Sri Lankan man ejaculate over her on a bus.
"It is precisely because of the imported American imports that sexual harassment of female volunteers is getting worse and it is therefore even more incumbent that [volunteers] show the genuine face, of the foreigner" comments Kathleen Corey.
One European volunteer who declined to be named, noted that the perception of the white foreigner made it difficult for him to form true friendships with Sri Lankans because of the automatic belief that foreigners are wealthy.
"You get into a conversation with someone and soon after they are asking for financial assistance or for help getting a visa - you can't always give and it happens so often that you begin to wonder if it is possible to form a relationship with a Sri Lankan without there being an ulterior motive, he said.
Australian Volunteer John Ball faces this problem regularly too.
"It is difficult and sometimes you have to get tough, perhaps get a little cynical and put up a bit of a barrier initially, but I still talk to people and I have managed to strike up a few relationships, but maybe it should be expected - there's so much poverty and hardship here," he said.
Despite the difficulties though, very few volunteers opt to return home early and those who stay, not only contribute in some small way to the needy communities and organisations throughout Sri Lanka but also take back valuable learning experiences to their own countries.
Many volunteers return home to take up positions within directly related to or influenced by their foreign experience. Some go on to become foreign aid workers, some return to start up literacy and health programmes, some go on to be special education teachers, researchers, networkers, lobbyists, politicians, etc. and all with a new view of the world.
"The more people who have this kind of exposure and experience the more global citizens we will have," said Kathleen Corey.
"Volunteering is not all about economics, it;s about people meeting people... its about people getting along better," she said.
Continue to Plus page 2 - This is what you are! * What a lot to learn from the 'handicapped'
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