It happened in June 2011, but is still fresh in my memory. This morning,
as I join Ape Pattauw Special Education School kids at their Aluth Avurudu (Luner
New Year) celebrations and Sports meet, to share their joy and skills and I
thought it apt to repost this picture story I presented in the ‘Daily Financial
Times, Sri Lanka’ nearly two years ago
on my blog.
It also serves to illustrate that there is value to tourism much beyond
that we imagine of the beautiful beaches, attractive resorts, heritage sites
and the like. A tourism, that is about education, about sharing, about caring
and most of all about mutual understanding and of human bondage. These do not
get registered in the statistics and economic analysts and planners have little
use for such in their presentation of the success stories about tourism.
Upon reading the article I urge you to take a few moments to click on
the link at the end to view the photo album that says much more than my words
can tell you.
It was late morning on Monday, the week before (June, 2011). I was at the Peradeniya
Botanical Gardens with a group of special-kids from ‘Ape Pattauw’ of the Deep
South. They were on their annual outing and I went out there to spend a few
hours with them, on the invitation of the volunteer staff-team and parents. We
were all sitting around an open patch at the gardens, participating in the various
acts of the kids, whose skills development is gained basically through the use
of drama therapy. Unnoticed by us, a group 23 of young American students and
their parents had been watching us. A little later, a parent approached us and
asked for approval for the young students to entertain the special kids in our
group. It was indeed a surprise and a welcome change for ‘Ape Pattauw’ and the
staff-team happily nodded agreement.
The young student skip rope jump team ‘Bouncing Bull Dogs’ (BBD) from North
Carolina, USA was on a two weeks tour of Sri Lanka, and this spontaneous
gesture of theirs turned out to be truly amazing entertainment for the kids.
They loved it and their elation and joy were written all over their faces. The
twelve member team and their coach, a most humble Black American gentleman Ray
Fredrick Jr., offered a half-hour of sharing and caring for the special kids
like no other, they had seen before. Their performance arena was the tarred
road and their backdrop the blue Sri Lankan sky and the lovely tree lines of
the gardens. I later learnt that they were the US Skip Rope Jumping Champions
for several years in succession and that they had travelled to many countries
to demonstrate their skills. (Refer http://www.bouncingbulldogs.org/ for more on them).
After its completion we got chatting. I learnt from Coach Fredrick and
Dr. Lalith Perera, (a Sri Lankan scientist now domiciled in the US, whose daughter Hasangie was also a member of the
BBD skip rope jumpers), that they were tourists in Sri Lanka and part of their
tourism endeavour was to share their skills with kids of Sri Lanka.
Their tour has been designed by ‘Sri Lanka Tailor Made of Jetwing Travels’
and included interactions and performances at a couple of schools in Negombo
and at schools in Inamaluwa and Kimbissa near Sigiriya. According to their tour-guide
Tishan Dabarera, they had opted for quality accommodation at the Beach in
Negombo, Vil Uyana and Hotel Sigiriya, St. Andrews in Nuwera Eliya, Elephant
Reach at Yala, Light House Hotel in Galle and the Ramada Hotel in Colombo. On
the part of the Bouncing Bull Dogs, it was a tour of sharing their skills and
on the part of the rural schools they touched, it was a rare opportunity for
them to meet their counterparts. They came with an offer very different to the
gifts of pens, pencils and other goodies, we find tourists bringing along with
them usually to share with the ‘poor kids’ of Sri Lanka.
My thoughts were on their theme ‘Kids are Special’ and I realised how
beneficial this interaction could be for the kids at the village school where I
live in Kiula. The skills they exhibited through their act with skip ropes
would be a lesson for anyone on how to reach beyond one’s perceived potential.
They were not just skippers of rope, but gymnasts, acrobats and dancers all-in-one.
On casual inquiry, I realised that their next locations on the tour were Yala
and Galle. Since Kiula was en-route, I invited them to stop by for a few hours
at the Junior School here. What I had in return was an immediate and spontaneous
acceptance. Upon my return to the village later that evening, I arranged with
the school administration to expect the arrival of the BBD team for a
performance at the school, two days later.
The result was an overwhelming success. Performing in the
gravel-laid-make-do play ground of the school, Coach Fredrick and the team got
the kids and even the teachers involved in skip-rope jumping on a scale they
had never done before and demonstrated various acrobatic moves and gymnastics
skills that could be brought into it. In his farewell speech, the Coach told
the kids “there is nothing kids could not do if they set their minds to it”. At
the school, a group of mothers prepared a treat of kola kanda (herbal soup) for
the visitors demonstrating how it was done with the use of traditional
implements. They also were treated to tala guli (sesame sweets), local bananas
and king coconuts. A kid of the Kiula school, in turn demonstrated her skills
on a hula-hoop (a recent star performer at the Perahara of a village temple) and
the traditional dancing team performed two items. A school prefect made a vote
of thanks in English and the parting was an expression of the emotional bondage
that had developed between the kids, their teachers and the visitors.
At a time when the tourism industry is seeking up-market, high yielding
visitors where with minimalist use of resources and built facilities, much need
be achieved, the experience offered by the Bouncing Bulldogs team of tourists, presented
an example of what is possible.
Most would tag it a sports tour and push it to the low-end of the
spectrum of tour arrangements. At a time when most in the industry still take
the easy route of offering packaged tours where ‘more of the same’ form the
recipe, these tourists and the type of tourism should open our eyes and minds
to the wide spectrum of opportunities we have, that go unexplored.
With the hope that lessons will be learnt, I venture to say a big Thank You
to the Bouncing Bulldogs, Coach Fredrick and the parents for their generosity
and the sharing and caring they did, while they were tourists in our country.
It was indeed an experience that was ‘Refreshingly Tourism’ for me and for the
kids who had the fortune to meet and interact with them.
As was said at the beginning, this is in part a picture story… the pix
link is at :
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