THE OTHER SIDE OF MY VILLAGE.

I have over the last few weeks been an observer of individuals of my village hence this delay in posting. As in any socially intertwined relationships, there is also a very disturbing aspect of the people I have got to know and grown very fond of over the past few months.

Their sincerity and candor when they talk to me is something that has affected me deeply. They do not hide their problems, very quick to admit their mistakes and acknowledge their inability to deal with some of the issues they face on a daily basis.

Alcoholism is an accepted norm of life by spouses and drug addiction of children by Parents. The generation gap is very evident as more and more of the youngsters find themselves confused as to what should be a role model to follow. They do not have the prerequisites to aspire for a better future! The Parents do not know what they should do either!

Every known problem exists here and sadly, the religious institutes are too busy sermonizing and so involved in getting their coffers filled! Their only preoccupation? Make sure that they enjoy all the known creature comforts necessary to communicate with God! Who cares as to what the flock goes through to make ends meet! The system that is supposed to take care of the problems has other headaches! They are busy protecting the powerful and penalizing the poor who are finally the victims of a social system that has gone completely out of sync with its people!

I have spent a good part of the last six months mingling with every known social stratum in my village. They are hardworking, very conscious of the importance of education and try to find every avenue to ensure that their offspring’s get a better opportunity than they did. The schools teach rubbish or are closed half the time; the teachers are incompetent at best and use a curricular that is irrelevant to the present context of society and hardly relevant to the twenty first century! I found this out when I started spoken English classes for my landlord’s grandchildren. Of course, there are a handful of Parents who can afford private tuition, the majority cant.

Soon I will have to leave the village and I know it is going to be heart breaking for me! My desire to start using my talent and experience and getting back to the IT industry is something that I need to do and it will be difficult to pursue that line of interest here. The infrastructure is expensive to set up and I will have to get closer to Colombo so that travelling to work will not be a hassle. But I have also got a couple of tricks up my sleeve and one of them just might work allowing me to enjoy both the village and pursuing my career that I was trained for!