On strike!
Time passes quickly for the anthropologist in the making (hardly a revolutionary remark, I know). I've sunk into an everyday routine of sorts - a routine I'm afraid involves too frequent trips to the internetcafés of the city. Still, my health is fine and I've managed without the drastic weightloss I anticipated. I'm even quite happy where I am and have been so most of the time. That is, after arrival on the island I had a day of panic and a week of anxiety. The period thereafter is best described as a gradual motion from discomfort to content. I suppose this settling in was a result of the settling of some of the most overwhelming issues I had to deal with before getting to work. I chose my field, I made my entrance in it, and now I have even found a semi-permanent residence which is not a hotel. Still there are a number of things to be sorted out, though.
1) The university has yet to accept me as a "casual student" (their term) and have, it seems to me, in stead attempted to stall me. The casual studentship, which they set as a prerequisite for giving me permission to conduct research, is to be discussed in a meeting this week. My final application consisted of a letter written by me, a letter from the Department of Social Anthropology at NTNU, a rather flattering letter of reccomendation from the head of the master degree program and my transcript from NTNU. It took a while to get this all sorted out, especially as it took some time before anyone would tell me that these items were necessary. I suppose that is just how south Asian bureaucracies work. I may be conceited to think the Vice-Chancellor has it in for me... but then again? Could they be afraid that my research would damage the university's reputation? Either way, the situation of today is that I am not officially doing fieldwork on campus - I'm just paying it a lot of visits.
2) My other worries are more methodological, related to the research itself. How should I spend my time on campus? Should I focus on one group, and then perhaps the group that has more or less adopted me now, consisting predominantly of freshmen Indian Tamils (also called estate or upcountry Tamils) at the Arts Faculty? Or should I spend time in other areas of campus too, perhaps in the Faculty of Engineering or the Faculty of Medicine, where the instruction is in English and interethnic relations therefore may be of a different kind. The latter option is what I had planned but I'm afraid of spreading myself "too thin". Then there is the question of learning a language. Should I devote myself to learning either Singhalese or Tamil? If so, which one? The majority language or the language of most of my informants as of today? Deciding to learn a language would mean having to invest a lot of time and energy into it. Perhaps that time and energy would be better spent on campus, with my informants? Then again, there is a lot I am losing out on now, especially when the informants are talking to eachother.
I am hesitant and most often when I am heistant I end up doing nothing. In fact, I have been wondering which language to learn, Singhalese or Tamil, for half a year which is why I haven't learned any of them. Good on me!
Still, I do believe some insight, paradoxically enough, can be gained from NOT knowing the local languages. Many Tamilspeaking students do not speak or even understand Singhalese. These are effectively cut off from the majority's information channels and fora. This I have known for a while but just really understood it this week. When I arrived at the university this Monday I immediately noticed that the non-academical staff, who had been on strike from Wednesday the previous week were back at work. They're strike had been about what seemed to me a minor issue - a new policy issued by the Vice-Chancellor demanded that they would all sign in at one place in the morning, in stead of at their respective work places. The argumentation was that it would be more difficult to show up late but the non-academical staff complained that this policy is demeaning and a waste of time. The students remained apathic towards this strikes. When I asked them about it, they complained it disrupted their studies. Most students were in the middle of having their mid-semester exams but the strike saw the library closed and several lectures cancelled, as the non-academical staff are in charge of the keys. Other unpleasant results of the strike were dirty toilets and overflowing trash cans. But like I said, Monday this strike was finished, although I have not heard if the VC's new policy was defeated.
Monday there was talk of another strike, though. This time the students would go picketing it was said. At noon 3-400 students showed up for a General Body meeting, led by the Student's Union President, who also happens to be a buddhist munk, a bhikku. He spoke charismatically for fifteen minutes or so. After he finished I asked one of my Tamil friends for a translation. He said something in the line of "How would I know.. he was speaking Singhalese". Still, the gist of the speach was relayed to me by my good friend Selva (a pseudonym as I may chose to hide his identity in my thesis) who is bilingual and in addition has a reasonable command of English. The students were upset about the government wanting to privatize the tertiary education system by allowing private colleges to become degree-awarding. Most Sri Lankans are proud of the fact that education (as well as health care) is free for everyone. There are no tuition fees in the university and most students are offered accomodation for 75 SLR (0,75 USD) a month and recieve scholarship money or no-interest loans to cover most of their living expenses. Still it is difficult for people like Selva who come from very poor families. Indeed, as I was do discover while going on a trip with Selva two weeks ago to his village near Badulla, he is the first from his village to go to a university and is considered somewhat of a hero for that. This is because most estate workers can't afford to pay for their childrens' expenses on campus, even with the support of scholarships, but also because there is a lot to be desired from primary and secondary education in rural areas, and particularly in the hill country. There is an acute shortage of qualified teachers, especially in mathematics, science subjects and English.
There is reason to believe that the selfproclaimed socialist JVP-party has been involved in staging the student protest, which would be a nationwide venture. Students would spread out to all major towns and cities. The JVP has ever since the student uprisings of '71 and '89 been a force to reckon with in Srilankan campuses and students I have talked to claim the Student's Union President as well as several of it's others executive members are strigent JVP supporters. The executive committee has a composition reflecting the language make-up of the student body, meaning only one of seven members is Tamilspeaking, effectively rendering the Tamilspeaking students powerless in that fora. This was again quite appearant as I showed up on campus early Tuesday morning, ready to go picketing.
I met Selva and a number of his friends and we had breakfast together in one of the student cafeterias. The atmosphere was relaxed and nothing special seemed to be in the air. At 9am the Student's Union President gave another address, but this time his audience had shrunk to a mere hundred or so listeners. Again, the students were only addressed in Singhalese. Following the speach however, the Tamilspeaking Student's Union representative took charge over "my" group, giving them instructions. Turns out we were sent off to Hatton (a dirty town en route to the holy mountain Adam's Peak, nearly 3 hours from Peradeniya by bus), not to picket but to collect money to cover the campaign expenses. We were given a bunch of flyers (printed in Singhalese only) and money-boxes and sent off. On our way to the busstop the students were joking that Selva could speak to whoever needed information in Singhalese and I could speak if someone needed information in English.
Arriving in Hatton and taking to work we soon encountered problems however. The flyers we were carrying only seemed to provoke the predominantly Tamilspeaking population of the area. Some were downright angry at the fact that we had no information in their language. One of our crew had sought to correct this before we started by translating the essence of the flyer to a separate note that we carried with us. This, I suspect led some to beleive we were running a scam. Some were also startled at my presence, but seemed to accept that I was a foreign student when this was explained. After making 3-4 calls on businessowners it was decided that the flyers be put away in my backpack as they did more harm than good. They would only occasionally see the light of day when we entered the odd Singhalese shop.
As this first barrier was cleard people's generosity surprised me. We ended up collecting a good bit of money by local standards, in fact more than 1700 SLR (17 USD), in less than three hours work. I am still at a loss in understanding the Student's Union's complete disregard for the Tamils, however. Wheter they were just underestimating the Tamilspeaking populations' magnanimousity or whether they were plain ignorant, it seems to me to be a sign that the Tamilspeaking people of Sri Lanka are exluded from many arenas where the majority population are calling the shots. The students were themself trying to explain this to the first shopowner we spoke to, stressing that at Peradneiya the Tamils and Muslims are by far outnumbered.
I don't know if the "strike" on national level was a success or not. It recieved minimal attention from the media, but then again this is a nation that is quite used to strikes and protests of various kinds. Then again, if student turnout was as bad in other universities as it was at the Faculty of Arts at Peradeniya, then this cannot be interpreted as a massive protest from a unanimous student body. The low turnout came as a surprise to me, though. I have not been able to track down a debate on the issue of privatization, either on campus or in the media. Selva first claimed all students were in agreement on this and explained the low turnout by people being lazy and wanting to sleep in. I suppose that would be the case with most Norwegian and Western students too.
Personally I have to call the strike a raging success. It raised a number of interesting questions for my research as well as bringing me closer to my informants.
To make a drastic jump to something else: I mentioned in the beginning of this text that I have found a new place to live. Living in a hotel was safe and comforting, but lulled me into feeling like a tourist most of the time, doing "9-5 anthropology". The move is I think, a move in the right direction, although perhaps not an ideal sollution to the problem of residence. I met by chance an American man on campus - a man with a rather impressive appearance, sporting a wild beard and a pony tail. John Mensing is researching Buddhism and has been working on an M.Phil. degree for the last 3 years. Up until recently he was kept company by his Japanese wife and two children, but they decided to return to Japan as John finishes up his work, and he should be done in a couple of months. John is renting a large house set in a tranquil forrest near Kandy and had as a result of his new bachelor existance several vacant rooms. He gave me a ride home on his motorcycle (and doing that we blew the shock absorber) and although the interior was in a serious state (the word messy has recieved a new dimension for me) I could se potential. And most importantly, John seemed like a nice guy and I could see him helping me out with a thing or two in my own research. So it was decided that I'd move in and make this my home for a while. It is still inconveniantly far away from campus, however, and if I should be offered accomodation closer I will probably go for it.
/haakon/in/kandy/
23.2.05
6.2.05
A Week of Breakthroughs & Bureaucratic Hurdlejumping
There are so many things I'd like to write about. I could e.g. write about the unseasonal rains in the hill country (but where is there normal weather nowadays?). I could write about the giant shopping complex that's being built in downtown Kandy. I should write about politics as socialist (and Sinhalese nationalist) JVP these days are threatening to withdraw from the government alliance, complaining they have too little influence. There's the issue of the no-construction buffer zone of 100-300 meters from the coastline (not 1 km as I first heard on the radio) - a recurring matter of debate in newspapercolumns. I could contemplate on why locals prefer their food so spicy it leaves my mouth numb when I eat it (I have an idea that heat on the inside perhaps takes people's minds off the heat on the outside). I could write about the Independence Day celebrations on Friday as Sri Lanka celebrated 57 years as a sovereign state (but these days there's really not that much to celebrate). I should definitively write about public transport... how the busses are never too full to pick up another passanger (and yet I never manage to flag them down when I need one). I could go on about all these things and many more. Yet, there one thing that occupies my mind more than anything; the reason I am here, namely the research I'm supposed to be doing. The fieldwork. 3 weeks into it now, I should be making good progress. Yes and no.
As I drafted this text this previous Wednesday (I usually prefer to draft what's on the blog, although I don't always. Most of what's coming isn't drafted.) I was sitting in a waiting room outside the Vice-Chancellors office. The Vice-Chancellor, his deputy and a number of important men (I didn't hear any female voices through the door), including all the deans of the faculties, were having what I assume must have been an important meeting. Two days previously, I had met with the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (hereafter DVC) and told him about my research. He told me this would have to be discussed with the Vice-Chancellor himself. There would be a meeting on at 10AM on Wednesday and he told me to be there in case there were questions I needed to answer. I assumed I would be a part of the meeting. I didn't expect to be kept waiting for 2 hours. At noon however, the DVC appeared in the door and sat down next to me. Dr. Arachchi is a friendly looking, well-groomed man, with an important air about him. As he took a seat he started explaining. There is no formal agreement between Peradeniya and NTNU. No MoU. MoU, MoU, MoU. Memorandum of Understanding. He repeated this again and again, as if driving a nail into my brain. Anyway, this MoU seemed to be a requirement in order to accept me as a temporary student at the university, which again seemed to be a requirement to let meg go about with my research. However, he explained, there was another way. NTNU needed to send a letter to Peradeniya, asking for my enrollment, via the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry who would have to accept my presence. The Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry! It seemed to me to be a black hole of ungraspable proportions. Any letter going there would surely not return to see the light of day? There was no mercy though. My plea that I had not come to study at the university but to study the university fell dead to the ground. My oh my.
I caught a bus back to the city and the traffic jam struck me as very symbolic of the general mess I was in. The previous days, however, I had been cruising.
Monday I had talked with Prof. Amarisiri de Silva, head of the department of Sociology. He praised my research proposal ("very interesting") and he promised to put in a good word for me as he was to meet with the Dean at the Faculty of Arts. I also went to the dean myself and he seemed a reasonable man. Surely he would talk to the Vice-Chancellor and they would give me the greenlight! To celebrate the progress I'd made I had a 25 rupee rice-and-curry meal in one of the campus canteens. For the first time I felt like an anthropologist. Alright, I hadn't actually talked to any students yet, but I was there with them. It was only a matter of time. As I sat there philosophizing upon spicy food - sure enough - three girls came along and claimed the three vacant chairs at my table with their bags. This would be an opportunity to strike up a conversation. The girls disappeared however, and after a few minutes I realized they were only waiting for me to leave so they could have the table to themselves - this way also effectively hindering anyone else from talking with me. Oh well, you can't win'em all. There would be other opportunities. And there was, a little while later, as the girls, tired of waiting, had picked up their bags and sat down elsewhere. Two other girls showed up out of nowhere and they even sat down. I was amazed at how they managed to do that while completely ignoring me. Not as much as a side-glance was coming my direction. Having nearly finished my curry, bar a miserable-looking fish, I waved the fish at them asking "Hi, ehmm.. can tell me how to eat this?" - probably not a line they hear too often. Uncertain giggles. That was it. Back to their own conversation, still without having uttered a word to me. Must have been good gossip to keep them so completely apathetic about my fish. Either that or they didn't speak a word English. I settled for the latter explanation, smiled to them and left my fish as I said goodbye.
If I felt like an antrhopologist on Monday, Tuesday gave me the first feeling of doing fieldwork. I had come to campus primarily to talk to Dr. Sivamohan, head of the English department. Unable to find her I went to a canteen (a different one from Monday) to update my fieldnotes. I noticed the place was filling up quickly. It was the lunch time rush hour and I realized I had stumbled upon the perfect way of getting in touch with students. With the number of people and the lack of tables it would be a question of time before someone sat down next to me. I waited with excitement, at the same time trying to spot and decipher any "canteen code of behaviour". To make a long story a little shorter: after an hour, when there was no longer any other option, a boy joined me at my table. He must have broken a spell because 10 minutes later there were 6 og 7 young men there (and a steady stream to and fro), eagerly asking questions about me and my business. Turns out they're a very friendly, although a bit shy, bunch of Indian Tamils (also called Estate Tamils or Up-country Tamils as opposed to the Sri Lanka Tamils of the North and East) and Muslims, all first-year sociology students. I was cordially invited to see their rooms in the Marcus Fernando Hall and was stunned to see each room of about 16 sq.m. occupied by 3 or 4 students. I had already told them I was looking for a place to stay on campus only to be invited to stay on one of their rooms as long as I needed. I politely rejected that Marcus Fernando Hall is probably not a bad place to live, however, despite its congestion. There are common areas and a canteen, a large green lawn, a volleyball pitch and a girls' hostel just down the hill that they can shout lewd remarks to (I have no idea what they would shout but I seriously doubt it would be anything lewd or rude). The Hostel, or "their Palace" as the ironically refer to it, is horse shoe-shaped with rooms in two stories, porches running along both the inner and outer rims of the horse shoe, on both levels. Covering the porch, at any time, will be clothes and towels drying off. The boys certainly seemed happy, joking with eachother constantly, and their curiosoty for me of a genuine and unwanting kind. As I said good bye it was with a sincere wish that I can get to know them and their lives better through the next 7 months.
But that was on Tuesday. On Wednesday the rosy sky seemed to have turned pitch black. On the bus back to Kandy I went through my options. I could:
1) Do everything the "correct" way. It would mean suspending my research on campus until the letter (possibly) found it's way to the Vice-Chancellor and I could obtain a permission. In the mean time I could read background literature.
2) Keep on as before, doing fieldwork without a formal permission, focusing on the areas of campus farthest away from the administrative building.
3) Scrap my research proposal and do something else.
I decided to put off the decission until I had talked the Antrhopologydepartment at NTNU.
An immediate response calmed me down a bit. Both my supervisor, Tord Larsen, and the first secretary, Gunn Kyrkjeeide, were on the case, seeing what could be done. The matter was out of my hands for a while. And come Thursday a draft for the official letter waited in my inbox.
Back on campus I hunted down the DVC, asking if this letter was what he had in mind. He refered me to the Dean of Arts, too busy to deal with such minor matters himself. The Dean of Arts (first attempting to send me back to the DVC), upon seeing the letter, commented on some adjustments that needed to be done. I asked him who to contact in the foreign ministry and he went silent for a while, clearly pondering. When he finally spoke he gave me the answer I had been hoping for all along. There was no need to go through the foreign ministry. The letter could be sent to the university and they would then contact the foreign ministry themselves.
An emailed copy of the final letter is in my bag, the original going by airmail. It is Sunday and tomorrow I'll be showing up at the Dean's desk, begging for my enrollment, hoping the best but expecting more trouble. On the upside of all this enrollmentbusiness is that once I'm a "casual student" as it's called, I'm entitled to campus accomodation. I have heard rumors of a hostel for foreign students. I hope this means I can finally move from Expeditor.
/haakon/in/kandy/
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