spring2life take2

Next month’s wallpapers are available as usual from here. I found this scenery in one of the smaller alleys of Galle Fort, the former Dutch fortress that had secured that strategic port.

Nowadays instead of sailors the tourists are welcome guests, but in the monsoon time of last November we walked pretty much alone there. Definitely a kind of situation I cherish.

Found in Batticaloa downtown. Sometimes all the shapes seem to fall right into place.

Maybe the most unexpected encounter during my traveling through Sri Lanka where those caskets on the platform of Batticaloa train station. As the east coast companies offer substantial lower prices for finishing and decorating, it pays for Colombo funeral parlors to send the casks on two 12h+ train transports to Batticaloa. In comparison to the casks, the full metal cash box looked much more as it would belong to there.

Found in the evening in Kattankudi (where these sad images are from). Being a Muslim traders’ town, Kattankudi is buzzing with activity until late at night, totally different to Tamil Batticaloa, where shops close usually before 20:00 hours.

Sometimes, like here, the horizon has to be in the middle. And, another deviation from standard rules, only the lower half of the brightness scale was used. While the latter might need some modification for printing, viewed on a computer screen it seems just right.

Oh yes, and these fisherman are a recurring theme for me. Every image is different, so I never got bored visiting them early morning on the beach.

Oh yes, and as bigger is better, at least when viewing photographs on a screen, just click on the image to see it larger.

The end of the civil war in May 2009 not only brought a drastic increase of security and freedom to move in the streets for the people of Batticaloa, but also, only one year later, a largely disproportionate number of new banks as well as investment companies trying to make their luck in this up to then forgotten region of Sri Lanka. I can only hope that the land owners are wary enough and check the oh so clever proposals. And just have a look to the 1:1 crop (when clicked on) of the main image: No shoes, paddles, and kids that help to earn the family income. That is more the normality of life on the east coast.

The Neccder billboard to the right, admonishing to protect the wetlands, is just a nice descant, a reminder of yesteryear.

Sometimes a scenery like this flies by, and I am glad that my feelings made me frame and record this scenery as it presented itself. Something in me just said “this works”.

Jewelry business was not flourishing too much during the civil war – not only due to the lack of money, but also because the Tamil Liberation Army had forbidden the dowry system. The dowry system was and is very problematic for the status of women in the society: The necessity to provide a huge dowry often makes baby girls less welcome. And as a better education makes a young woman suitable for grooms with an equal status, additionally to the costs of the education the expenses for an even higher dowry have to be taken into account.

I was not astonished when Tamil friends admitted, that “this was one good thing” the LTTE had tried to introduce.

One of our pumps, built during the last project, was not correctly fixed with some kind of anchors in the sand. It still provides clean water, but is now uncomfortably low for usage. The lady however was still glad to have it, as carrying water cans is impossible for her.

Found in one of the side streets of Batticaloa. In contrast to the blue sky of this image, taken in November last year, Batticaloa and surroundings suffered from torrential rainfalls, cutting off traffic and transports and forcing tenthousands to leave their homes, and many to stay in provisional shelters. Since some days only the situation has improved, and now the damage gets calculated. I hope to receive some images of the situation within the next days.

The American Dream is somewhat faded, but still alive here in Batticaloa.

Some things, it seems, haven’t changed since the British left Sri Lanka in 1948, the stationmaster’s bell among them.

Sometimes the Hindu shrines are very inconspicuous, like this one. The only signs of reverence are the white blossoms, better visible after clicking on the 1:1 crop to the right.

The winter monsoon time also provided some dry hours with a clean, deep blue sky, creating an image impression that reminded me very much of scenes photographed in the U.S., getting the best, deeply saturated colors out of Kodachrome, then often at the expense of the shadow areas.

At least the ads for Kodachrome are still intact in Batticaloa, unfortunately I had no opportunity to ask when they sold their last roll of it.

The Online Photographer today’s post dealt with the different “sweet spots” of the cameras. The image of the dead gecko certainly profited from a broader sweet spot of the camera used: Not wanting to destroy the nuances with a flash, high ISO as well as image stabilisation was necessary due to the unavailability of a tripod.

The result I think is convincing, enough detail becomes visible when you click on the 1:1 crop to the right. The ants of course show motion blur, but the image is not meant as a documentary, and so this in my eyes adds to the message.

As near the equator the length of the days is approx. 12 hours during the whole year, at least part of the business life in Sri Lanka have to happen during the dark hours. Since the end of the civil war it is possible again to go out shopping in the evening, something that was either too dangerous or even forbidden for long periods of time.

Found in Koduvamadu. You can find it here on google maps. Yes, it’s probably in the middle of nowhere. The amount of attention as well as improvements might be proportional to the geographical situation.

Continuing yesterday’s fences with a door.

After Friday’s tragic post it was hard for me to find an adequate topic for today.
The fences in Sri Lanka are continously fascinating me (therefore there’s already a gallery of them), and this last visit I found not only those dangerously looking fencepost-tops, made from palmyrah stalks, but also a young palmyrah plant, showcasing this perfect star-shaped leaf, which’s caulis later can be used for the fencing.

And as always – click on the images to see them much larger! This should work throughout the whole blog and also the galleries.

Roughly like in the lead picture must have been the situation that LTTE killers found when they entered Kattankudi’s Meer Jumma Mosque during prayer time on August 3rd, 1990: Devotees prostrate in their friday prayers in front of them. And then they opened fire and threw hand grenades, killing 103 in this and the neighbouring Husseinia Mosque.

I have to admit that I was speechless and it took me hours to re-gain composure, and now selecting those images with the bullet marks again makes me shudder.

So why did I decide to publish these: I am convinced that truth has to be told and that peace can only be achieved when injustice is recognized by all sides, the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions of South Africa being seminal examples for this. The problem in Sri Lanka is, that this does not happen. When I spoke with members of the Muslim community after the visit to the Mosque, I saw a lot of unstilled bitterness.

In the tsunami of 2004, Saintamaruthu had lost its health care center, leaving thousands of citizens without local medical facilities. Overcoming a sequence of difficulties, setbacks and delays, by donations of the GFK and the citizens of Nuremberg and the management of UN-Habitat, a new health care center was erected and now is serving its purpose. When I visited the site, the weekly breastfeeding promotion consultation hours took place – with visible demand.

Again found in Batticaloa. Networking and Operating System support is really competent, and a broad range of software is available, too.

Found in one of the main roads of Batticaloa

Not far from last post’s school I found this mural/collection of ads on the remaining walls of a house destroyed in 2006′s tsunami. I like the lead image for its repeating patterns and their blending into the wall. The image to the right fascinates too because of that whole universe that opens up behind the corner and the stairs.

The Al-Wahidhiyyah Arabic College in Kalmunai is a small privately funded school for boys. Like the Christian Parochial Schools, nowadays rare in Europe, this school teaches along the official government curriculum, but gives special religious lessons. The boys were interested to use the little English they knew, and really open and friendly. I hope they keep this attitude and not only learn the words of the surahs, but also their deep and in many aspects very tolerant and open essence.

Update: I was thinking about Aaron Vincent Elkaim’s photographic essay about remnants of Jewish life in Morocco. Definitely worth seeing, not only for the photography but also the context and content.

Not from Sri Lanka, rather from a wintery and dark Bavaria, are the new Wallpapers for January available for download from here