Sinharaja Eco-tourism
In its project for conservation of Bio-diversity and Hydrology through community Programme, the GTZ, in collaboration with the Forest Department and the Upper Mahaweli Environmental Programme, will take 30 students of the Kandy District to visit the Sinharajah Forest this month. The children are from schools in the Meemure, Kaikawala, Pussela and Kumbukegala areas.
Meanwhile it has also been decided to develop Eco-Tourisim at Pangirimana. A camp site will be in place by end April and a programme launched for the training of guides. Thirty families of the area will be involved in this programme.
Pill boxes
It was the British who introduced the pill box when we were guarding our coasts against the "enemy" during the wars. The pill box became a feature of armed camps and "places to be guarded." In Kandy there is one such pill box but with some strange sense of direction. Walk the Garrison Cemetery Road and see for yourself. As an ex-British army officer told me, it is normal for the guard in the pill box and the pill box itself to face away from the position it guards. Guns are turned outwards... not pointed at the position that is to be guarded. Makes perfect sense. One faces the threat from without while guarding what's within.
At the top of the Garrison Cemetery Road, the pill box faces the Maligawa. The guard stands there and if he were to point his weapon, it is pointed at the Maligawa and the road around it. Now what is he actually guarding? I hesitate to ask because I do not know what answer I will receive. At best I may be told to mind my own insufferable business.
Oh well....
The grave of Father Joseph Vaz
In 1821, according to John Davy, the road leading from the tail-end of the Queen's and around the lake was Victoria Drive, and the fork, Mosque Road, led past the jail to fall into Jail Road and up to the present clock tower. The new market stall complex was the old Victoria Gardens within which stood the War Memorial.
According to Father S. G. Perera, the area which is now bounded in part by Ward Street, Yatinuwara Street, the Police Station, the Kandy Central Market, part of the jail and Victoria Drive, an area that also holds the Library, the Empire Theatre and the old Malay Mosque, was the extent of the old Bogambara Lake, and it was not far from the shores of this old lake that Father Joseph Vaz, the Apostle of Ceylon, was buried.
As far as I know, there have been several attempts to trace the burial place. "Not far from the shores of the old Bogambara Lake" gives us so much ground to cover that it would be like trying to divine, in a maze of present day haystacks, the proverbial needle. As far as we could hazard, the grave could be within the jail itself, or beneath the market, or beside the present lake or anywhere in the area between Devons and Mark's bookshop; or anywhere near the police station or under the new market complex or beneath that built-up area between Yatinuwara Veediya and Ali Mudukkuwa.
There is precious little that can now be done but perhaps some record, some map, some letter may still lie even in the Vatican Library, or in the State Archives of Goa or among the records of the Oratorian Missions in Lisbon.
And does all this really matter. I am sure there are many who will say it does.... but surely a saint lies amongst us still.
An elephant called 'slowly'
The creature wears a livery of dark green. On its head lies a green cover upon which must surely be a target of sorts - a bold white circle within which, also in white, is the number 21. And it walks - all over the city, slowly doing its round, an adolescent jumbo and an old keeper who makes it plod along, almost gingerly, up and down, about and throughout Kandy.
An electioneering stunt, of course. A pachydermic reminder that it must be the elephant, the colour green and, don't forget, the candidate's number 21. But did anybody ask the poor elephant what it thought of it all? All it can do, poor devil, is walk and walk and walk. Well past its bath-time too. Saw the creature plodding determinedly along at two in the afternoon along William Gopallawa Mawatha.
Now if we can persuade a chair to walk behind it, perhaps the elephant could take the weight off its legs every now and again!
New hope for cleft-lip and palate sufferers
Cleft lip and cleft palate patients will soon be able to undergo corrective surgery in Kandy thanks to a funding of US$17,500 by the USA's Rotary International.
The funds have been made available to the Rotaract Club of Kandy and will be all spent on the necessary equipment which will be installed at the Peradeniya Hospital.
Rotaract Secretary Malik Saheed says that quotations for the equipment as listed by Dr. Vijayakumara of Kandy, have already been received from Japan and import procedures are now being finalised.
Plantation companies go for Paulowina
Following the successful planting of Paulowina trees on Lower Hemingford Estate on the initiative of Mr. Vilhelm Balthazaar (ref. this column of January 17) six more plantation companies have decided to put in this fast growing timber.
Agalawatte Plantations will plant half a hectare on Doloswella Estate, Ratnapura and half a hectare on Weddemulla Estate, Ramboda; Horana Plantations will plant a small block of 50 trees at Nuwara Eliya beside their Kincora Division; Pussellawa Plantations will put in a hectare at Duramptiya Lower Division; Kahawatta Plantations will lay down 250 trees at Denawaka Division, Rilhena Estate, Pelmadulla; Dambaghena Estate will plant on its land on the Rakwana-Deniyaya Road; Kelani Valley Plantations will put in 50 trees at Kegalla.
The Planters Association has recommended that total cost of such reforestation be subsidised by the Estate Forest & Water Resources Development Project (EFWRDP), Kandy, and the Project's team leader has assured that companies will each receive a 50% subsidy.
Long wait for compensation
With the launching of the Accelerated Kandy Sacred City Development Programme, five prime properties in the city were earmarked for acquisition, and a Gazette Extraordinary notification No. 997/2 of October 13, 1997 laid out the terms of such acquisitions.
A Special Presidential Task Force then went into the mechanics of acquisition. One of the properties on 39.4 perches of land, close to the Temple of the tooth, is the former Sinhaputhra Building.
Sinhaputhra Chairman, Kithsiri Wanigasekera said that the Task Force was chaired by General Anuruddha Ratwatte and comprised four other Cabinet Ministers and other senior officials.
"We handed over the building with no fuss," Kithsiri said.
"At current market rates, the value of this property is well over Rs 30 million.
The formal acquisition was detailed in Gazette Extraordinary No. 1051/11 of October 29, 1998, but there has been no further notification under Section 7 re- payment of compensation."
"Today, this building is occupied by the Ministry of Buddha Sasana"
The Sinhaputhra Chairman says that the administrative delays in the payment of compensation is hard to understand.
"We willingly handed over the property. The losses we sustained on rentals, etc., and the large sum of money involved in relocation at Hill Street, Kandy, lies as an unwarranted hole in our books and a deprivation of revenue."
Perhaps the government will even now make compensation.
Pushing people around is one thing, but at least pay them for the privilege of being given the heave-ho!
Honoured by K.S.M.
Two eminent doctors, Nihal Karunaratne and T. Varagunam were awarded Fellowships by the Kandy Society of Medicine at a ceremony recently.
Both doctors are founder members and past Chairmen of the KSM which was started 35 years ago and is today a prestigious body, noted for the quality of its research by international circles.
Royalist doctors from the hills
It' was Nihal Karunaratne agina... as he led a goodly team of old Royalist doctors of the Central Province to participate in the first-ever get-together of its kind at the Taj Samudra's roof-top Ballroom on March 6.
Nihal said that hte purpose of this inaugural get-together was to raise funds for the Royal College new hostel building fund. The occasion broughttogther up to 350 doctors, consultants, specialists and senior GP's who were felicitated by Royal's Principal, Lakshman Gomes.
Out in the cold
People at the Kandy Nursing Home are wondering what's going to happen next. The hospital has everyting to offer - top - grade medicare too - and it is being dumped for the more accessible medical institutions... all because the Maligawa Road is closed and atients, doctors and even channelled specialists are now giving the hospital a wide berth. There is this hassle of circuiting the lake to get there and this hassle is not to anyone's liking.
Recently, I was told, the Mahanayake was warded at the Kandy Nursing Home and while there, he very kindly gave passes to some of the doctors, but even this thoughtful gesture is not giving the hospital any real relief. Empty wards, empty neds, no doctors to respond in an emergency and a staff with little to do, and all because the orad past the Maligawa remains tightly closed.
"What's the use in having the best medical services and facilities if we are of no relevance to the sick?" a doctor said. But there's no help for it. Not until some people here stop shaking in their boots and return the city to normalcy.
Cricket Ball
Dickie Dunuwille was Chairman for this year's Cricket Ball, that annual revel presented by the Old Boys Assosiation of St. Anthony's College, Kandy.
Co-ordinater, N. Unamboowe tells that this yera's Cricket Ball, was held at the Queen's on March 13, with a dinner dance as over 400 guests kept the innings going till 4 a.m.
No coconut oil please
Our Minister Fowzie was in Kandy on February 25. Various things were done - the sort of things that are kept undone until a Minister comes to do them - and then, in company with Minister Lakshman Kiriella and a goodly party of 20, arrangements had to be made, naturally, for that midday meal.
The instructions were very clear. Minister Fowzie would not mind chicken or fish... but absolutely no coconut oil must be used.
Hmm... less taste, less waist?
Police teach life-saving techniques
On the initiative of the DIG, Kandy and under the able supervision of SSP Daya Samarajeewa, the Kandy Police have begun a series of swimming events for all Kandy schools where children are being taught life-saving techniques. This programme was first launched at St. Anthony's College and then, in order to centralise, the second event on February 24 was held at the Queen's pool.
|
