How to Describe Today

I have just watched the sun set. One can do this here. One moment the sun is a huge red globe sitting on the horizon, next it has gone beneath the sea.

How to describe today? Today three soldiers were killed in the north. Today Erik Solheim arrived from Norway to attempt to restore the peace process. Today everyone feels unsettled: some are getting in supplies, others buying tickets for India - to get away from unsafety.

I arrived at Belangwila Temple and before I had managed to get out of the car Anoja was at the car door. I was with Padmini, a friend from Hounslow. Anoja told us that the Trinco members of the cast have to travel back tonight. It is uncertain what may happen. By 25th Sri Lanka may once more be at war.

The cast were in the middle of a voice class. I realised at that moment that the putting on of this play, Mother Courage, is as important to record as the finished performance. I hadn't brought my camcorder with me, so I went back to the hotel to get it. We may not see these Trinco lads again. I hope we do, but so much depends on the next few days.

Travelling back through the traffic allowed me time to reflect and re-jig my rehearsal plan. I was going to spend tomorrow telling the cast about Brecht, the play, its historical significance and the acting methods. When I returned to the temple, I moved Tuesday plan to today, Monday. I want these young men to know why Abhina is putting this play on - a story of the futility of war, that the human race never learns from history. Never has talking about a piece of work ever felt so significant or live. At one point when talking about the effect of World War 1 in Europe, of the way populations get tossed around by events beyond their control, Anoja just broke down and wept her heart out. There were a lot of tears today. And also a lot of laughter.

I carried on the work in the afternoon, reaching for ways to help our inexperienced cast to understand the skill, courage and abandonment required to be in that reality of doing, to be an actor. Later, after tea, I showed them a scene on DVD from Howard's End; the scene where Margaret (Emma Thompson) learns of her husband-to-be's ten year ago affair with Mrs Bast. This Belangwila cast have never seen really skilled emotionally connected acting in their lives before. They were riveted, even though most of them could not understand the language. The discussion afterwards enabled them to glimpse at the skills of those actors, they make it look so easy and we all think we can do it.

After this, Visaka led a circle: a circle of farewell to one lad whose parents are sending him to Canada, it is too unsafe for him here. He cried openly at leaving this creative and connected group. The others promised to keep themselves safe. They all want to get back here as soon as they can. Let us pray for their safety and their continued participation in our project.

I had spent all Sunday morning making a schedule for the rehearsals. Anoja and I spent all Sunday afternoon casting the play. As I got out of the car this morning at Belangwila and heard the news I mentally tore up all those plans. Take each day as it comes. This is the only way any of us can live now.

Think of those boys travelling back on the train tonight. May they be safe. May Erik Solheim's peace process be successful.

Mother Courage Auditions

Last week we held auditons for Mother Courage. I requested that each actor improvise a short scene in which the situation required saying his or her name a number of times. This was a ploy for to me learn their names as well as a way to find out their imaginative capability. At great length Anoja and I explained that we wished a real - in their imaginations - situation, and that they do not to come out on stage and say their name twenty times in twenty different ways. We explained this several times in three different languages: Singhala, Tamil and English.

Tuesday morning. First audition, an experienced actor kicks the session off. He comes out, he starts saying his name over and over with no situation, he gives different emotions to each recitation. I stop him. I explain the task. I offer a situation. Then we see a lttle scene. Lovely. As each actor emerges onto the stage this happens over and over! One lad, from Trincolmalee, after saying his name a few times and once he had clicked into our request, started to demonstrate being searched at a check point. Stop. What emotion does your body feel in this situation? I asked him. We talked about this together, and then gave him time to prepare. This time his fear and helplessness were palpable. This was a man being beaten, tied up, imprisoned. Later he told us of this occasion, how he had been held and questioned for over 24 hours with no food and no access to outside help. He was beaten and his hands were tied. He was told his parents were outside and they had told the police their son was a member of the LTTE. At one point he thought it would be easier to say he was, but then thought to himself: Why lie? So he didn't, he endured. Finally he was let free, on the proviso that he report and sign every Sunday, which he did for the next two years. Then he smiled. Now, when the police do a 'round up' they know me, and tell me to go home!

Next day, Wednesday. The company have now understood the task. Another check point, and yet another check point scene. I begin to get a picture of life in Trinco for these young men.

I ask the next check point actor to not be himself but to be the soldier arresting him, become the man working at that check point, a man afraid, fed up with being away from his family, angry at the situation, seeing the local people as a threat. He thought about this, he found the feeling, he went for it. His anger was huge and real, he knew this situation well, he had observed the soldiers working on these road blocks all his life. Not all of them, but some of them.

Through these auditions Anoja and I are learning what life is like in a war zone. A learning curve for us as well as our actors.

Murugan, Abhina's Yoga Teacher

Murugan is a young man from Trincomalee. I did wish to publish a picture of him, as he has a gentle nature with enormous inner strength. This can be seen from this unpublished photo. But this internet cafe computer is not too sophisticated....

Murugan is from Trincomalee. North East Sri Lanka, a place suffering from the effects of the tsunami and twenty years of civil war. All his life Murugan has known only war. He has follwed the path of yoga for several years studying with the best teachers he can find when the opportunities arise. Yoga is his heart's path. He has been in Colombo studying with Abhina now for a month, and during this time he leads an early morning yoga class each day for the other students. They find his way of teaching and what he offers benefical and inspiring.

An intelligent, educated man, he has taken the only job he can find in Trinco: a peon. Jobs are few there. He works for an NGO, his work consists of delivering documents and other simple tasks. This pays him RS9,000, about 50 pounds sterling. A month. Mururgan has a wife and two children to support. They are still in Trinco. Murugan reported that they sometimes have to stay with friends and relatives when it is too unsafe in their neighbourhood: when there are shootings, riots or bombs. The peace in Trinco is very delicate. Murugan was friends with the five students recently killed on a beach there.

Abhina now employs him as their yoga teacher. His pay at Abhina is a little more than that of the NGO, and he does get free board and lodging. He will be acting in the production, Mother Courage (showing at The Lionel Wendt Theatre, Colombo, March 30th, April 1st and 2nd, do hop on a plane and come)and be the company yoga teacher for all the rehearsals.

When the production is over, Abhina hopes to be able to find sponosrship to send Murugan to South India for three months so he can deepen his yoga practice, learn at one of the wonderful schools there. This will mean he can teach more widely and start to be able to support himself and his family above the poverty level they live with currently. Further training will give him a future.

Murugan is just one of many Abhina members, young people like him: intelligent, talented yet living in the direst circumstances.

Would you like to help him?

The Abhina Foundation UK supports the work of The Abhina Foundation in Sri Lanka. To contribute, send your donation to:
The Abhina Foundation UK
c/o 8 St Johns Court
Isleworth
TW7 6PA
UK

Please tell your friends, work colleagues and relatives about Murugan and his fellow students at Abhina. Their talent deserves to be nourished. And anything you can offer will be of tremendous help.

I am truly grateful to have met Murugan and his fellow students. They are truly grateful for the practical and spiritual help they are receiving from Abhina. They are using it well.

Visit: www.abhina.org for details of their work.

Facilitators' Course, Belangwila Temple

The intensity of the work here is exhilirating. The openess of the students and their absorbtion of all offered is heartwarming. Last day tomorrow, I invited requests of what to work on and they requested: how to deal with participants who do not wish to participate! Yes.

Today we went deeper into the NCV (Non Violent Communication) work I introduced earlier this week. Anoja and I went round the small groups of three and offered suggestions to the students attempting to make observations, connect with feelings, needs and requests. The move from blame and the critical mind, the jackal, to an accepting heart, giraffe, was slow and painful. But immensley inspiring to witness as belief systems were turned on their head and new way of connecting, a connection with the heart, was being discovered.

One very moving experience was working with a young man who has grown up knowing only war. His issue was around someone who was not, in his view, studying properly, this made him angry and he hit her. The hitting, to begin with was not his issue. When the hitting of women is modelled as normal behaviour, how can this be a problem? Slowly together, and with himn listening to his heart, he moved froma place of blaming her behaviour for his anger and hurt, to attempting to find a new way of connecting to his heart, of understanding the sadness he feels when he does connect, at this sort of activity towards another. He managed to connect to his feelings and needs, but for today being able to make a rquest, to maybe ask for help, was a step too difficult.

At the end of this session, and hourt or so later, this young man came up to me and in halting English thanked me from his heart for the process we had gone through together.

Later, at the final circle, he said, with a huge grin, that he had discovered a big jackal in him. His smile showed his giant heart, his giraffe nature.