Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is the first Asian country I've been to where people seem happier to eat alone. In Japan, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore people prefer to make a big event of eating together even daily lunch with colleagues. The only exception in my experience has been that Bhutanese families will eat in the kitchen while guests eat with the father of the house in the living room. During my time living in Sri Lanka, I was only joined for a meal on four occasions. My meals were all laid out on the dining table and cleared away once I was finished, but my hosts ate in the kitchen or in front of the television. Every other volunteer had the same experience and all were as baffled as I was. This isn't to say that Sri Lankans never eat together. Over the New Year period, most families host a dinner for their relatives, neighbours and friends. I was invited to five or six of these, all with a similar pattern. Social groups formed cliques - family groups not mingling with friends and they all shunned the neighbours. The exception seemed to be the men of drinking age who sat around a small table laden with arak, whiskey and some nibbles. I'm still confused as to why Sri Lankan people don't give food the same social emphasis that other Asians do. Indrani, the lady of the house, sat with me while I ate on a couple of occasions. When I asked why the family didn't eat together, she explained that she and Charley did eat together in the early days, but that her doctor had recommended she change her eating patterns after some gastronomic difficulties. That doesn't

While volunteering in Sri Lanka, I heard stories of other volunteers who acted as if they knew better than their supervisors. Naturally, they did not have as good an experience as they could have and were considered to be intrusions by the organisations they were meant to be helping. I'm not suggesting that they were bad people - you have to be the right kind of person to give up your time and money for the volunteer experience - but good intentions only go so far. I've led many camps preparing exchange students for their time living in another culture with a new family and I believe that the same traits are essential in a good volunteer. With all my experience, I still struggle when my expectations aren't met, as anyone who's read Dragon Bones would know, so I was very impressed by one young volunteer on this trip who who was as close as I've found to the perfect volunteer. Within days of arriving on Sri Lanka he was eating with his fingers. He never complained about the food, as others who became homesick did. He respected his supervisors and colleagues at the hospital and in return they respected him, making extra effort to teach him what they were doing and eventually letting him take part in surgical operations that he was unqualified to join in his own country. Without having any lessons, he knew a range of useful Sinhala phrases that allowed him to perform simple exchanges with locals in their own language. And he took his role seriously. When out at a rave party one night, a local came up to him and said 'I know you. You operated on me last

Apparently out of a desire to obtain a good rating for his hotel on my first morning in Sri Lanka, one of the staff pointed out the traditional dress in a wall painting, then brought a bed sheet to show me how to tie a sarong so that I could do it myself when I bought one. He seemed to think that I was very likely to do so, and I thought wearing the local costume to work would be a cheap, comfortable and respectful alternative to wearing stuffy trousers every day. Unfortunately, the size of the sheet caused problems, requiring more folding, tucking and adjusting than usual and he got a bit personal a few times much to our mutual embarrassment. A sarong is definitely an item of clothing to don without assistance. With a few hours to kill before Charley came to collect me, I decided to go off in search of a sarong along the main street as directed by the kindly waiter (who told me not to pay more than 300 Rupee - about A$2.50), but found mostly electronic shops. The closest I came to any store selling sarongs were a couple of boutiques displaying sari-like dresses. Looking at the other pedestrians, I decided that I was probably better off without the sarong anyway. In over an hour of walking, I only saw one man wearing a sarong and he was probably the oldest person I saw. All the younger men wore western style trousers and collared shirts with either leather shoes or thongs. When Charley picked me up, he explained that a sarong was perfect for New Year and generally relaxing at home, but not appropriate for wearing to work.

I heard a story about a medical volunteer who wanted to work in particular department of the hospital she was in. The director of that department was happy to have her there, but began asking questions about why she was there, with which organisation, how much she paid etc. Eventually he began asking where the funds she paid went and why he wasn't seeing any of them when it was costing him to have her there. Whether or not the story is true, I take a few points from it. Firstly, that the money we bring is (perceived to be) of more use than our time or skills and may be more use in the short term. Since most volunteers only come for a few months, most of us lack the training required to be productive and we are actually a drain on our supervisors. In my case, I have many years of IT experience and understand computers better than the paid teacher, but my inability to explain concepts in Sinhala hinders my ability to help the students. Most of the medical volunteers are students who don't have the experience or qualifications to assist directly in their work and basically attend to accrue hours for their course. I would prefer to provide aid through my time and skills than my money, but I have to recognise my limitations and choose ways beyond the existing courses. The students at my IT Centre are exclusively taught Windows and MS Office so I can contribute by creating a lesson or two on Ubuntu for the more technically inclined students. The second point I take from the story is that funding needs to be communicated clearly. My induction package