Sri Lanka
I flew from Geneva and landed in Colombo—my first visit to Asia. It was December 1984, and Sri Lanka was volatile, on the brink of widespread civil war. The struggle in the north of the island by the Tamil Tigers was beginning to spread. The ‘Million Houses Programme’ was clearly also a political response to increasing civil dissatisfaction. The housing activities had been focused on the rural areas, and the urban component was now getting underway. As I joined the DPU team, I was aware of the high expectations, and I knew that the government was keen to have a positive report on its flagship programme.
The plantation sector was not part of the ‘Million Houses Programme’ yet and so would not be included in the itinerary programmed for my visit. Jurgen’s words sounded clearly in my memory, and I knew that getting to the plantations was a priority. I was fresh from my own research into dark places and could read documents lying out of reach on officials’ desks, while they spoke earnestly and persuasively about their objectives. I was like a sponge, holding information in my head until I could get the notes down in the seclusion of my hotel room. No iPads then, just intense focus, retention, and long- or shorthand, almost in code. So, I had my own agenda, going through the official programme of visits and materials provided, filling in the gaps in my own way.
I managed to connect with a Dutch NGO working in the rural areas of Kandy and Nuwara Eliya, including some plantations. My ‘official’ programme provided a space on the weekend for tourism and relaxation, so I went on a sightseeing tour with Pieter into the sizzling areas of Kandy where Tamil tea plantation workers were seething.
From the bakkie winding up the contour tracks of these plantations, I looked out at the undulating fields of tea bushes planted in neat rows in all directions. Every so often, there were a couple of rows of roofs packed into areas where the tea could not be planted. The terrain was too steep, too shady, too moist.
We stopped at the top of one hill, looking over this scene rich with deep green and grey tones, the contrasting red clay earth visible between the planted rows. Into my mind sprung the stereotypical image from Sri Lankan tea labels: faces of smiling, sweating, colourfully dressed women with huge baskets on their backs. As I got to know more details about this ‘delicate’ labour process, in which women ‘were better than men’ because they don’t damage the ‘top two leaves and a bud’—which is all that is picked—I could see that when the baskets were full (helped by their children ‘with their little fingers’), the weight of these loaded baskets was supported by straps digging into their foreheads.
All this I was to learn later, but now I was gazing out at this landscape, and there was a misty moistness rolling up the hills towards us. Out of the openings in some of the buildings, children spilled out like little ants and started running to us—and soon I was surrounded, engulfed in a sea of small dark ragged beings, their faces excited and all chattering away at this unexpected diversion on a Saturday afternoon. I felt as if I was in an ocean of sound, picking up the highs of shrill laughter, squeals, and squeaks, then arpeggios of chuckles and laughter.
I kept staring into the distance, listening to the ragged sounds close to me, and then slowly they quietened down, also looking out in the same direction I was—curious as to what held my attention. Then, in this silence, I heard it. I heard the sound that stayed with me for years, and I can still hear it as I write these lines. I heard the sounds emanating from within these little ribcages, wheezing, whistling, wet. They all had bronchial conditions, and then some started to cough. Rattling, dry, spluttering—every kind of cough I had ever heard.
Going into the first row of rooms, I saw why: open fires in the single space, a family of six or more in each ‘room’. The pitched roof space between the rooms was open, and the walls did not go higher than perhaps two metres. Smoke from the fires in each ‘room’ circulated freely across the rooms, merging in communion. I imagined the sea of microbes also circulating freely and wondered if this space was ever free from infection. I estimated that possibly seventy-five people lived under this roof in the eight to ten rooms it covered.
This was very familiar ground. Single migrant workers’ ‘hostels’ in South Africa—which had become settled with households over time, in structures unsuited and unsuitable. Here it was again, the topic of my research in South Africa played out powerfully in another context on the other side of the world. This first experience outside South Africa was demonstrating everything I’d researched and written about. I felt my motivation surge.
Then, of course, the other overriding impression of my brief covert visit to the plantation was the roles and situations of the women responsible for picking the crop, dealing with these appalling living conditions, and seriously exploited in their role vis-à-vis men—their husbands as well as their bosses.
We drove away in silence as I mulled over how to write about the ‘Million Houses Programme’ after what I had just witnessed and experienced. I knew this was just the start. I had received an unambiguous signal. The sound of the children’s chests had literally launched me into a new focus, a whole new, compelling chapter of my life.
***
One other related rencontre I had in Colombo was also off the ‘official programme’, but contact with workers’ organisations was acceptable as ILO business, and I had several delicate questions following my weekend of sightseeing. In the cramped and dusty office of the trade union—Ceylon Workers’ Congress, I believe it was—I had the chance to talk with a shy man after the more formal introduction by an official. He had the air of a scholar, with small round glasses, hunched over yellowed documents. He was writing the history of the trade union movement. I was struck by his earnest, apparent dedication and sensed something like disillusionment as he tried to record and capture the history, even as the situation was unravelling in this small country.
I was genuinely interested as he described the origins in some detail, pointing to dog-eared documents and old newspaper cuttings. Then, out of nowhere, he said, ‘And then, we had the Brace-Girdle Episode’. The Brace-Girdle episode! I was transported immediately back to the kitchen in Wandsworth where Mark Brace-Girdle, looking uncannily like Einstein with his wild, white flowing hair, kept me enthralled with stories and his memoirs as the red wine in our glasses kept disappearing. And here I was, hearing first-hand about one of those ‘episodes’ in his eventful life, and feeling the immensity and impact of his actions, and the deep appreciation he had been held in beyond his home.
I had the opportunity to share all this with him a few weeks later as I returned to London directly from Colombo to finalise and submit my thesis, which now felt as though it had been taken over by other events—my energy wanting to move urgently into other areas.
Before leaving Colombo, in those last few days after my clandestine visit, the reality of civil war became impossible to ignore. After the final wrap-up session with our Sri Lankan hosts, visibly nervous now, my two DPU colleagues left for London. I was scheduled to leave a day later on Air Bulgaria. Feeling increasingly insecure at the beachfront hotel, I took a rickshaw away from there, anonymous in the bustling, crowded, and highly charged streets. The atmosphere was confusing, electric, and I made my way to the address given to me by a couple I had been introduced to earlier. Entering the high gates to their compound, I felt a sense of calm and gratitude.
Together, on my last night in Sri Lanka before I took the final flight allowed out of Colombo for several weeks, we discussed many things. Hema Goonatilike, a feminist and gender activist, gave me a quietly powerful introduction to this huge topic in the Asian context, broadening my understanding of what I had glimpsed in the tea plantations. Her husband and respectful partner, Susantha Goonatilike, a passionate academic and writer on colonialism, now coined a title should my thesis ever be published as a book: *The Architecture of Racism*. I had been exploring the architecture of racism.