German Memory in Asia - A Night in the Rebel-Held Jungle

We were moving towards the political office in Kilinochchi passing the Finance Division and stopped near the "Pandyan" restaurant for dinner.



As I had come with on our previous trip with the German Praktikum (Internship) students, when I was moving towards the restaurant front entrance, the earlier incidents came to my memory. There were sweet memories to be recalled over and over again.

When we were seated, I watched there were a few European ladies and a lady with an infant having dinner at the next table. The staff of the restaurant amused the infant with many pleasantries. Steffani was trying to smell out who these European ladies were.



She might have guessed already that they were probably from Germany or around and tried to confirm her guess by observing their lip movements to identify in which language they were speaking.
She said at one point they were speaking German and approached them and had a good chat.



When we walked into the garden after having our dinner I found a number of Europeans who were working in the various NGOs, entering the restaurant.


Once again our journey in the jungle highway started with our witnessing the nearly stone-age life-style and the strange silence everywhere. The twinkling lights from chimney lamps in the houses were a reminder of the people who were undergoing various hardships in the war-ravaged areas which could be hardly expressed in words.



It was only when we met the LTTE media coordinator and its spokesman that I realized the difficulty we were to face in undertaking such a survey in the LTTE - controlled areas. The prominent columnist and a Pro- Tamil nationalist Sivaram's murder had put everyone in a sad mood in Kilinochchi. They had forgotten to arrange accommodation for us and the alternative accommodation after many failed attempts was congested and far from comfortable.


The rooms had been by occupied by many foreigners, leaving us only one room with a broken bed. We were truly in a mess and as it was late in the night we had no option other than staying there.




Steffani was running here and there as the leader of our team and decided who and who should sleep where and told the driver should take the room for the night. It was such interesting to see Steffani who was in her early twenties acting as commander in the isolated deep rural jungle surrounded by LTTE-controlled areas as though she did things at her home. She was at times shouting at me saying it was my fault for ending up here for the night. Steffani decided to stay in the van and I went to sleep in the hall and Romy and Yong in the front veranda which they preferred as there was more ventilation.



The Jaffna Lagoon's mild wind wafting from the jungle soothed my mind and drifted me into sleep.



The place where we were spending the night was just close to where the Irish-American Area Director of CARE International was staying.



I could recall an incident vividly. At times we used to have meetings with dinner at her residence when there were officials visiting from CARE head office in Colombo or from overseas. Once a visiting evaluation team had come and I had an unforgettable experience with a Scottish young lady while at dinner. She was such interesting person and in her late twenties but a little aggressive when our discussion touched on Scottish issues in medieval times.


She burst out at once, placing her palm on my chest, told how the Scottish people had been deprived by the then English rulers some centuries ago and asked me whether I would accept that. I was shocked by her emotional outburst and was able to imagine to what extent the Scottish people had been affected by the practices of various atrocities by the English Lords.




I couldn't reconcile myself to the practice of newly married Scottish brides spending their first night with English Lords instead of their newly-married husbands.