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Ja-Ela comprises mainly of a busy road
intersection leading away from the Capital towards Bandaranaike
International Airport. Shops and stalls litter the roadside selling
vegetables, clothes, plastic buckets, sarongs. The National Bank of Ceylon,
an unexpected KFC and a humble, run-down post office have also sprung up in
recent years. There are two competing internet shops with IDD (international
phones) and a shoe shop authentically providing leather, shelled or beaded
sandals and heels. A huge gold painted Buddha in a glass display is set high
above the central junction, scattered with fawn petals and the remains of
incense offerings.
Other than the intersection Ja-Ela is a
complex maze of narrow roads and pathways hidden back and behind the main
road. This is where the people of Ja-Ela live. Sheltered from the traffic
horns and the aroma of steaming roadside delicacies. The lucky families live
here in large, sometimes deteriorating, colonial style houses.
Ja-Ela is a dusty orange town animate
with tuc-tucs and lively discussion. Ripples of energy pulse out of the
island’s Capital. This is the outskirts of city life. This is where the real
Sri Lanka takes place. Ja-Ela is not a place that tourists would stop at as
they pass from the airport to their hotel. This is a pity, because Ja-Ela
epitomises Sri Lanka. Bartering in good spirits on a street stall for a
pineapple with a man whose children you taught volleyball that morning is an
experience the Sheraton doesn’t offer. Ja-Ela residents are busy people with jobs
and chores and studies to complete each day. Ja-Ela is densely populated,
although far less so than those roadside towns progressively further into
Colombo. Everything is on the move and the chaos and routine of Ja-Ela is
embraced early each morning with the walks to school, buses hurtling people
to their work destinations and street sellers calling out a reminder of the
day’s lottery. The locals are poised people who will often dissolve into
delightful laughter at the efforts of a confused Westerner stumbling across
their path. They know one another and in the constant mill of daily activity
they swap anecdotes and laugh, they discuss politics and shout, they trade
with one another and they enquire about family, scandal or local cause for
concern. It is clear that the inhabitants of Ja-Ela know the importance of
their local network in an island competing for limited space in their
economy. Contacts are important. The people they know can dictate how easy
their life will be.
Hierarchy is clearly established here. It is
evident even from a passing glance through a three-wheeler’s open door. The
poor men with intensive labour jobs wear bright blue chequered sarongs, in
large square print. They may of may not wear a white vest too. These men are
lean and strong, they work hard to survive and stand proud with a focused
stare and solemn conduct. The men with jobs walk quickly about town in brown
or black suit trousers, a shirt in beige or white and they carry a suitcase,
they are less lean, less strong. They would never wear a sarong.
The rich men with their own business or
contacts with police or politicians saunter. They look different to the
other men in the street around them. They always drive and rarely walk far,
they never cycle, travel by tuc-tuc, or get the overcrowded bus or train to
their destination. They have drivers and they know everyone who owns
anything in Ja-Ela and, more sporadically, in all the larger towns within a
5 hour radius of Ja-Ela. They wear jeans which they bought in Europe or
Singapore and racing green polo neck t-shirts emblazoned with a subtle logo.
They don’t carry anything. Their ‘gold leaf’ cigarettes and some rupees are
kept in their back pocket and they are talking animatedly on their mobile
phones, to a business college or friend. They have a bit of a tummy and a
wife and children. They work hard and continuously and they receive respect
if they are decent community giving people. They are the subject of private
gossip in late night, kerosene-lit bars, if they are not. Segregation is apparent with
the women too. The ladies with good jobs, who also have husbands with
good jobs, command instant respect in their walk and their exquisite
sari’s in deep purple satin or turquoise with gold trimmings. Their
black hair is groomed and shining and their makeup, perfect. Whatever
label you are wearing as a tourist to the country, you cannot compete in
elegance or grace with these ladies. With the rest of the local women it
is harder to see division except by perhaps the quality of the clothes.
Ladies are ladies in Sri Lanka, whatever social stratus they happen to
live in.
There are four schools in
Ja-Ela. St Mary Immaculates is a girl’s school producing equally
immaculate girls in white school tunics with blue ribbons securing their
twin plaited hair. St Mary’s is run under the thoughtful watch of its 74
year old head nun. There is St Josephs, a mixed school for primary and
middle school pupils. The proud new owners of a dirt floor volleyball
court preening by the school gates under the luminous white sign for
Travellers. The court is inevitably used mostly for havisack, the
ancient game of keeping a sand filled bag jumping from kick to kick
between a group of players in a circle. Then there is Holy Rosary, a
primary school with a grand entrance, a field of grass and an impending
rail separating the high building from the roadside. This school is only
open until 1pm. And last but certainly not least is Ekala, a mixed
school of middle and senior students with a reputation for its lively
students!
This is Ja-Ela and these are
the schools where Travellers volunteers become a local face in the world
of Ja-Ela.
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