Being Australian we have many friends with Sri Lankan backgrounds and it is fun to visit the places and eat the food that they speak of from their past, but I had not expected this to transpire into a full-on personalised tour of the Jaffna peninsula by the uncle of one of Tom's work colleagues. Thilaka comes from a typical Tamil diaspora family, well educated, sophisticated, with relatives geographically dispersed and a strong connection to the homeland - Eelam. With typical Tamil hospitality Thilaka arranged for her Uncle Manu to show us around. So on our first day we were collected by the very affable Uncle Manu and a driver from the family village in his Hi-Ace van.
Jaffna and the surrounding peninsula was the birth place of the Tamil separatists groups that combined to form the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the 1970s. In the war that followed, Jaffna was the LTTE stronghold and suffered extensive fighting between the Tigers and the army and navy. The LTTE was forced out of the peninsula by 1995 and they moved their operations to the area called the Vanni, just south of the peninsula. As a result Jaffna was cut off from the south of the country for almost 15 years and became economically depressed, leading to thousands of Tamils seeking to build new lives in India, Australia and other western countries. Although the peninsula has been opened up since the end of the war in 2009 the area remains depressed with high unemployment and limited opportunities. It is not surprising that in these conditions tourism has been slower to progress than in other parts of the country. So we decided to lend our weight to the economic development of the region and make a visit before joining our fellow travellers to visit the more well-trodden tourist has paths in the south.
Having a local take us around was a huge bonus: there is no way that alone we would have been able to negotiate the trip to the 17th century Dutch fort which required registering at the gate to the naval
camp surrounding the fort, then liasing with the hotel staff for the trip out to the fort on their launch. The fort is now luxury accommodation for the navy run hotel - but the story of the military and their move into commercial enterprises is one for another post.
Uncle Manu then took us to the family village where our first stop was the magnificent Hindu temple, of particular note is the vivid colour, which apparently needs regular painting to retain the colour. We ventured in, and while I am sure we were doing it all wrong the people inside were gracious and accepting of our clumsiness. And yes we did find out later we had stuffed up: Tom sent Thilaka a photo and she laughingly came back and pointed out he should have taken his shirt off and not been wearing shorts: I think I was in the clear.
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| The Temple |
After the temple we visited the family home and met Thilaka's father and other uncle and aunts and we were graciously invited to share some lunch. Okra was on the table, but Tom managed to avoid this vegetable he has an undeserved aversion too, but he wolfed down the rest of Thilaka's aunt's excellent fare. Sadly the family are in Sri Lanka currently for the commemorations for Thilaka's aunt who passed away recently. The important 31 day ceremony was to be held the day after our visit, where the family will host around 500 villagers for the event. When we arrived the family had just completed some prayers and Tom and I were each dotted with the traditional ash on the forehead. Overall a very Tamil Hindu experience for us, and a somewhat special one we would otherwise not have experienced had we not had the chance to share the day with the family.
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| Joanne helps with the cooking |
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| The Family |
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