So Mr. PQ what is it you do???

This evening I thought I would bring you all up to date on my activities for this week.

As I have said before my rigorous training at the PRDU has prepared me for a demanding role in post Tsunami Sri Lanka. here I am in Batticaloa, or border town between Sri lanka and Tamil Eelam, ravaged by 20 years of war and hit by one of the worlds worst natural disasters only 3 months ago.

Well the obvious thing to do is run a footie coaching scheme. So that is what I am doing. I spent the early part of the week, racking my brains, trying to think of the dim & distant past to remember what coaching I had when I was a lad. I know it is a while ago, and they don't have laces in the balls, and the boots don't have wooden studs nailed in etc, etc.. (heard it all before).

Anyaway I have just got back from our 3rd day coaching. You see, it is quiter simple really, I am english therefore it is reasonable to assume I am the best footballer on the island.

I was supposed to be doing this with Adrian (from Switzerland) but he has got stuck in Colombo, so there is just me and Nelson (a fit young man, who is very good at football, but speaks as much english as I speak Tamil).

Now, the school where we are doing this training happens to be in a place called Kokoddachilai, which is a town in Tiger held country. So every day we travel there in the back of the pickup, loaded with 8 footballs, 3 volleyballs, and 3 netballs. They have local coaches for these two sports, but no balls. This is a very poor area of Sri Lanka. No aid has gone in here for the duration of the war, and very few agencies are working here at the moment, so the TRO is about the only lifeline they have.

To get here we have to cross the border, which is wuite strange. On the SL side it is heavily armed htere are 4 gun emplacement at various points across the bridge, Tiger country is on the far side of the lagoon, and a checkpoint. This is where we have the fun every day. As soon as the army see the TRO truck they pull us over. I then have to jump out from the back and ask if there is a problem, just to establish we have a European on board (this always helps).

Unfortunately we seem to get different soldiers every day, so we go through the same ritual of being asked who we are, where are we going, why are we going, then they look in the back, see the balls and usually they decide they would like one, so they ask for a ball. I say no they are for children in the school and they wouldn't take it from them, they sort of agree, and then decide to go through the whole truck, under the bonnet, behind the seats etc.

Finally we all shake hands, they wave us through and we carry on out to the village.

The odd thing is that on the Tamil side you never see a Tiger. We are told tehy are thre, and they have seen us and are watching us, but they never break cover.

This area is very poor. 20 years of war, no aid and only a little coming through now, has taken its toll.Most of the people we pass on the way seem to live a very simple life in a one room house, no running water or electricity living off the land. We rarely see another vehicle except for a few small motorbikes, tractors and bicycles. The main street of the village is just a dirt track between 2 rows of small buildings. A lot of the houses are mud biult.

We get to the school and all these children appear out of nowhere to greet us and play, footie, netball and volleyball.

They are widly enthusiastic and eager to learn everything you show them. Most are in their normal t-shirts, trousers and barefoot. Of around 80 children for fooite, I counted 3 with football boots, all the rest are barefoot.

We do some routines teaching them to trap, head, pass the ball etc, and then we play some racing games wwhere they have to dribble the ball up and down a row of kids against the other team, and finish with a game of 7-a-sise. At the end we all sit round on the floor and a large bucket of tea is brought out. We dip our cups in, and all share a drink before we go home and throught eh checkpoinmt ritual again. Hopefully the same soldiers will be still there from when we came and they won't hassle us.

We have two days of footie left, then I shall leave Batti, head back to Colombo for a couple of days, renew my visa and head north to Kilinochchi.

Oh yes, almost forgot. We went for a swim today in the Indian Ocean. Had a very nice swim, but you can't help glancing at the flattened trees and houses just up from teh beach and be reminded of the enormous power & devastastion. We did check and people are not offended by us swimming there, but no-one else goes down to the sea these days.

Must go home now.

Cheers, hope I didn't ramble too much.