A day with the etuktuk
Writing by kosala on Thursday, 5 of October , 2006 at 4:12 pm
It was a partly cloudy day and we were afraid that rain would interfere with our journey. We had planned several visits to nearby locations in the etuktuk. Our first destination was to a daycare center located in a nearby tea estate. Estate people leave their children in this day care centre when they go to work during the day. The center is located about 1 kilometer towards ‘Galatha’ area from Mavathura town, approximately 2 kilometers from the Kothmale CMC. The terrain is a hilly area covered with tea plantations.
We got there at around 10.30am and the estate superintendent and the matrons welcomed us warmly. The etuktuk was accompanied by a van and we were able to take two station announcers, researcher, computer trainer, and a local photographer with us. Normally the tuktuk alone could house only three persons including the driver. But occasionally it can be expanded to 4 people with some discomfort.
There were around 20 young children in the day care center. All were Tamil children below 7 years old. When we first got there; they were sitting on the floor playing. Each morning they would have a ‘Saraswathi Puja’ an offering for the goddess Saraswathi who is the goddess of art. The children’s caretakers had prepared some sweets made out of rice for the offering.
We set up the laptop and the mike inside the center and the Children started the Saraswathi Puja by singing songs. We started recording the songs onto the laptop. Saraswati Puja ended in about 15 minutes and then it was time to record some individual songs from the children. They started singing various children’s songs in all three languages Sinhala, Tamil and English. The children were very interested with the newly seen equipment. We didn’t forget to give them a chance to play with the laptop and the microphone for a while.
In the mean time I got the superintendent into a conversation. He was a young Sinhalese man. It was a very interesting conversation. I asked him about the estate. Mahavila is a government owned estate and there are about 200 families working there. Many estate people think that they are born to do labour in the tea plantation and therefore they have little use for education. The superintendent expressed that this caged mentality must be changed. Because of this mentality they are not encouraging their children to learn. He said ‘I always advise the matrons not to let the children feel that they are estate children. We must let them feel they are ordinary children like any other’. He stated over and over again that estate people should be educated and they should not be trapped in the estate. I did not expect this kind of conversation from an estate superintendent because he would lose his work force if the workers start to find better jobs. But I felt that he was thinking of the betterment of the people.
This estate was only 10 minutes away from the Kothmale Radio station and I was surprised that we had not conducted any radio programs covering these estate people. It was like we had forgotten our own neighbours. The estate superintendent expressed his full support to do a radio program at the estate regarding the issues of the estate people.
After the songs it was time to taste some nice sweets. All the children got the sweets made out of rice and they seemed to enjoy it very much. The matrons didn’t forget to give us a pack of sweets. Finally it was time to say goodbye. The etuktuk left the place promising to come back.
Our next destination was another nursery school in the area. We got there at around 11.30am Most children were Sinhala and from the nearby area Riverside. Most parents were there because it was the finishing time of the school. After getting some lovely songs from the children ‘Sanjeewa’ our computer trainer gave a simple demonstration about the computer for the nursery children. Some of them could barely pronounce the words we told them but I felt happy because the computer is not a wonder for them anymore. We did not forget to gather the children around the etuktuk and have them listen to their own voices over the loud speakers.
It was 12.45pm we rushed to the Mawathura school because we had organized a basic computer literacy session for the school children there at 1.00pm. Mavathura Maha Vidyalaya is the village school. It’s a
very small school with two or three buildings. About 200 children learn in the school. Most parents in the Mawatura area send there children to the school in the nearby town Gampola about 40 minutes away. Only the poorest families who cannot afford to send them to a town school send their children to this small school with minimum facilities. Both girls and boys learn in the school and they conduct classes up to 11th Grade.
They had organized the gathering in the school garden of about 75 children and the staff attended the session also. Sanjeewa gave the audience a simple lesson on the uses of the computers and modern
technologies. The session lasted about 45 minutes. All the school boys and girls were invited to see the tuktuk after the session and given a small demonstration on what could be done using the etuktuk. The staff of the school were very happy because these children do not get a chance to learn about computers. They can’t afford the training available in town. We agreed to prepare some lessons for these children.
Our next destination was the Mawathura temple. They had asked us to conduct an awareness program for the small monks in the temple. There are about 12 little monks in the Mawathura temple. We got there at about 2.30pm and as usual we setup the equipment in the temple garden and did a small lesson for the little monks. It was unfortunate that only the monks were there, even though we had announced this in the village that morning. The head monk expressed that he wanted these children to learn these technologies but there are some issues if they want to come to the CMC. But he agreed to consider the possibility of sending the little monks to the CMC to get computer skills.
After the gathering at the temple we packed our things into the tuktuk and wandered into the tea estate to get some radio interviews. As we were getting ready to leave we got a phone call from Mr. Sunil our Station Controller. It was about the opening of the longest road tunnel in Sri Lanka. The tunnel is situated in Ramboda, in the Kandy - Nuwaraeliya road which is under construction. The worksite was about one hour away from Kothmale.
We got there at about 4.30pm and large crowds of labourers were gathered near the tunnel waiting anxiously to see the final explosion of the tunnel. Pavitheran, our Tamil program producer went hunting for interviews in the meantime. Finally, he was able to get an interview from the engineers who were in charge of the worksite.
It was 5.00pm and a loud siren was turned on to warn the spectators to move away from the tunnel. Finally a loud explosion shook the whole area. For a moment there was no sound from anyone. Then began the cheering. All the workers were overjoyed and ran into the tunnel. It was the end of much hard labour, which had lasted for nine months. It was a historical moment for all of us.
We parked the etuktuk near the tunnel and invited the workers to express their joy over the loudspeakers. Overjoyed voices and folk songs of the workers echoed in the Ramboda hills that evening. After a very busy day, the etuktuk slowly started crawling to its den in the hills of Kothmale.
The story above was contributed by Kosala Keerthiratne who is the research coordinator at the etuktuk project and is supported by staff from the Adelaide University and Queensland University of Technology as part of the Finding a Voice Research Project.
Category: field visit
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