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[November 30, 1999]
Dear friends,
As some of you already know, Jeyanthy and I are on our way again, like a short-period comet, to South Asia. In fact, as I write this we're on a British Airways 777 over the Atlantic. Looking out the window I've seen a very bright shooting star and a lighthouse on the coast of Newfoundland. We're helping Jeyanthy's parents settle in for a trial move to Coimbatore (a decent-sized city in Tamil Nadu, India).
We'll also be continuing our research and work regarding Sri Lanka. Jeyanthy and a friend Dharini started a video project in Toronto last summer, interviewing refugees and others in the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora. The interviews I've seen so far (still don't know enough to understand the ones done in Tamil) are great, people's personal stories drawing a diverse human story. I'll be helping Jeyanthy to continue the project, interviewing refugees from camps in India.
We've been getting a lot of training in Non-Violent Communication in the last year or so (I know, it sounds like a generic term, but it's a "brand name" process/language/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, see www.cnvc.org or the book Non-Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg). We've also found out about some people in Sri Lanka with training in it who have started organizing trainings there, some with Tamils & Sinhalese together. Naturally, we'll be hooking up with them to find out more about what they're up to, and ways we can support them. And we'll be researching other kinds of bridge-building work, and people interested in process in general.
Just before we left the Bay Area, we also connected with a bunch of Sri Lankan activists (Tamil & Sinhalese), who are interested in much the same kind of work that we are, and are starting a project interviewing Sinhalese and Tamils in California. Needless to say, we're pretty excited about all this.
Back to the personal, we're hoping to go to Jeyanthy's home town again. Last time there were four flights a day. Since one was shot down, they're more intermittent, but we'll see. We'll be as safe as we can given our other interests, but if you think worrying will help, go ahead :-). There is a lot of fighting going on, but we won't be in any war zones.
I'll be studying Tamil again. No motivation like the need to communicate with the people around you every day, plus this time Jeyanthy's mom has promised to teach me something new every day.
Our search for cohousing will continue when we get back to the Bay Area. We almost got a unit in a project that will be done in January in downtown Oakland, but weren't 100% sure, or 100% organized, and missed out. We're still on the waiting list there, and have gotten involved with another group that is still in the looking-for-a-site stage.
In mid-February (9th-14th), we'll be back in New York for my college friends' wedding (Hi Robert & Michelle!), assuming Very Bad Stuff doesn't happen from Y2k. We went back & forth on being away for the big double-zero and when the timing worked for Jey's parents, finally decided what the hey, at least we'll have different stories to tell.
We'll have intermittent net access in South Asia (hoping to
leave this Powerbook and an Internet account with Jey's parents),
so please feel free to e-mail, though preferably no big attachments
or blizzards of political causes or humor. If you want to make
sure I get it soonest, cc it to
naayahi@yahoo.com, an address that Jeyanthy set up which we'll
be able to access at cybercafes even if all we can get is web
access.
Hope this message finds you and yours well.
Life,
John