My Stories 6: Seeing the real world, with trauma and thanks

We finished our studies in Britain and chose to travel through Asia for several months on the way home. It was a deeply confronting time: so much beauty and drama, trauma and discovery of what really matters.

Our first stop was to be Sri Lanka, where we had friends who had studied in Melbourne and others we knew from Manchester. During a stop over in Karachi we encountered the acute differences for women and men in a traditional Islamic society. On the local bus the men travelled in one part and the women in what was effectively a caged trailer behind. We were both very afraid. Walking through the food markets we realised we were the only fair skinned people there and suddenly felt nervous: for no good reason, in a sense, but again this helped us to know how it is for those in our own society who are ‘foreigners’.

That night we learned that in Sri Lanka massive race riots had broken out and all incoming flights were cancelled or delayed, including ours. Hundreds of people swamped the Karachi airport begging for some connection. I saw people offer huge wads of cash to airport staff, hoping to influence a decision. Nothing was achieved.

Two days later the government of Sri Lanka announced that the difficulty was all over and flights resumed. We flew in to see Colombo, a city in flames. The government propaganda was just that. We soon learned that gangs of people were going to the homes of Tamil people and bombing or burning them. As we travelled by bus into the city centre we saw huge queues of people hoping to buy some food.

When we arrived at our friends’ house, they were astonished that we had come. We had been deceived, but they were in deep distress. In anticipation of our coming, they had planned a trip into the mountain areas and had bought a car, their first ever. It had been garaged at the home of a Tamil uncle. The car and the home had been burnt. They expected the same fate any time, as they were a mixed race family. They had a tiny baby of just two months and were prepared to leave (over the back wall) at a minute’s notice.

Friends in that short street took turns in trying to keep a look out through each night and day. They told us that the BBC news was the only reliable source, which they accessed by short-wave radio. Together we remembered how the Conservatives in Britain kept trying to get rid of it, and gave thanks that they had failed.

We were advised to leave if we possibly could. We tried to sleep for one night (impossible) and next day in great sadness left our friends and took a cab to the airport. There, thousands of people were camped, begging for any flight out. Eventually we got a plane to India, which was to be our next stop several weeks later. It was so sad to leave our friends, some we had not seen and those we had. In fact none of them ever worked again in that country. Universities were closed for as much as two years.

In the event there were actually spare seats in the Indian Government plane we travelled on. It shook and lurched its way to Chennai (then called Madras). We travelled into the city and tried to find somewhere to stay. At the Tourist Information place we met some New Zealanders in a similar plight and together we rented a small dormitory which was home for a few days. Every day it raised torrentially at exactly three in the afternoon, for 40 minutes or so, and the gutters and sewers swelled up, flooding our room and surrounds. The locals expected this and just coped.

I’ve never forgotten one meal we had in an open air restaurant there. I remember hearing what sounded like a whining sound, rhythmical and persistent, and wondered what it was: Outside the entrance sat an old man, newspaper on the ground, and reading it out loud. Quite loud! He was reading the only way he knew how, keeping in touch with the world.
I have since recalled what a gift it is for people to learn to read!

In Chennai, as almost always, we used the local transport. It’s the only way to really experience a place. The buses were crowded and the conductor usually rode on the steps, banging the side of the bus to tell the driver when to move on, or stop. The people would each buy a ticket from the conductor, after taking a seat if they could get one. They passed their money for a ticket along and it went all the way to the conductor, and back came a ticket and their change … We were astonished at this honesty.

Next came a train to Bangalore, where we met up with a theological student friend from Manchester. The United Theological College is a wonderful institution, at the time exceptionally progressive in its commitment to theology in indigenous and multi-cultural forms. We stayed there longer than expected as we had both become very ill: probably a combination of shock and infection. In the city at that time the water supply only came for one or two half hour times a day, without notice. You could flush the toilet (much needed!), have a shower and collect some water, if you were at home and ready. Similarly with electricity. Infrastructure was clearly overloaded.

There too I saw the amazing sight of street people living in hovels beneath a huge advertising hoarding announcing the latest video recording machines.

Two very powerful memories remain with me from those days.
First, we went to a Baptist hospital nearby, which was indeed one of the very best in the city. They had a superb program for mothers and babies. They had created a village like compound, where mothers could live before and after delivery, and as part of this program they had a village garden where they could show the most productive vegetables to grow for the health of the children. This was to help restore knowledge which had been somewhat  lost through modern ‘advances’.
On one day there was to be a worship service and for this service a visiting pastor from a US church (and source of funding) was invited to preach. He addressed the theme ‘Jesus is the light of the world’. His simple argument was: sin is associated with darkness—in places such as ‘pool halls’ (whatever they are), people dim the lights because of this sin … By contrast Jesus is the light …
It never seemed to occur to him that almost 100% of the faces listening so attentively were very dark indeed.

Back at the seminary I met a student who was soon to graduate and be ordained. He would be a village pastor and in anticipation of his ministry he had saved all through his four years of study and soon would be able to afford Peake’s Biblical Commentary. With his Bible and this one book he would be well equipped for his ministry, he believed. I realised that not only did I own this book but it had been in a box together with hundreds of other books at home and, truth to tell, I might not look at it from one year to the next. Since then I have supported seminaries and libraries in Asian countries as best I can, and have given a major proportion of my own library to them.

We travelled on in India, though remained ill for some weeks. One day we visited the Taj Mahal and that evening, sitting in the sunshine drinking tea, I realised that I finally felt well again: very weak but well.

The next parts of our journey were a small group journey from Bangkok to Bali. So much to learn and enjoy. And then back to Australia and soon to Hobart to begin a ministry there. On our first Sunday home in Melbourne we attended a local church where I became acutely aware that in the sermon and the prayers there was not a mention of anyone other than the members of that congregation or, more generally, denomination. There was simply no connection with where I had been and where I was going. That too was a profound influence upon me and the perspectives I would maintain in my own journey ahead.

We were privileged to be able to travel and learn so much, albeit including trouble and trauma. We did it ‘on a shoe-string’, but were able to meet up with many of our friends from Manchester and broaden our knowledge of the region in which we live. We came to see that even when we think we are poor, we are still very privileged indeed.