SRI LANKA: After 20 years in Irish advertising, John Devlin upped stakes and went to a remote part of Sri Lanka to teach English. He explains why
For me Ireland was a hard place to leave. My dreaded fear of leaving Ireland was fear of being homesick - now at the tender age of 40 I had become sick of home.
Our bent little nation was getting on my nerves. Corruption, congestion, pollution, homelessness, suicide, social inequality, dumbing down, the Bertie Bowl - all played their part in shoving me out.
The idea to leave had being addling me for some time - then one evening while out jogging along Sandymount and after stepping in one dog faeces too many, I decided: "that's it I'm outta' here".
Not being content to head off to another country, I booked a one-way ticket to a remote spot in the central highlands of Sri Lanka, staying and teaching English in a Buddhist Temple - 11,000 km from Dublin.
The first week . . .
Needless to say there are differences between living and working in Dublin 2 and doing the same in remote Sri Lanka. For a start we had no common language.
As I was the first and only westerner to stay at the temple, if not in the whole area, I was the biggest event since electrification in 1991.
For the first week or so my every move was shadowed by the silent shuffle of monks, trainee monks and other monastery dwellers. At one stage there were at least 10 people crowding into my small room just watching me retrieve something from my luggage.
The biggest audience was at bath time - where a crowd any theatre manager would be proud of would gather to stare at me perform my daily ablutions. Watching a novice bather bathing with a bucket from a trough would be entertaining enough - but the yard's surface was slippy with slimy algae, which added to the comedy.
Think of a cross between Mr Bean and Norman Wisdom and you have the idea.
Meal times . . .
In this part of the planet, rice with cold runny curry is served across all meals. The Sinhalese eat their meals elegantly, using only their right hand with no cutlery. After much miming and hand signals, I was informed that the monastery had no table knives or forks.
So for the first week I ate with a large soup ladle, you can see why the monks were fascinated. Even after I journeyed to the nearest town, I could not find any cutlery - the closest I was offered was a bowie knife and garden fork. I know I have a big mouth but . . .
Insect life . . .
Mosquitos are a big problem especially due to global warming. Every eveningI retire to bed under a mosquito net, wearing a full length tracksuit, in a sleeping bag, and marinated in more repellent chemicals than there are in Pádraig Flynn's hair - and still I wake up covered in bites, pimples and bleeding spots.
Most of the others sleep on the floor with only a flimsy covering and wake without a mark. I reckon the entomology wing of al-Qaeda are resident in my mattress - and carry out suicide attacks on the only western in a 25-km radius.
As this is a Buddhist temple, the killing of animal life is forbidden. Cockroaches have taken advantage of this amnesty, casually sauntering about the kitchen, rather than their usual furtive scurry.
Not that the kitchen has much totempt the cockroaches - I once found two in my bedroom, I amconvinced they were looking for my Rennies. At night toads come in under the back door to feed on the varied supply on insects.
Once while having my dinner I saw a platoon of soldier ants marching up the wall carrying a dead lizard.
Teaching . . .
The reason why I am here is to teach English. I teach about 70 students a day across five classes. A big fear was remembering names. I'm one of these people when at a dinner party of more than six, I'm constantlyrepeating "and what's your name again" -and that's just with my family.
Sinhalese children are a fairly homogeneous looking bunch - everyone has jetblack hair, dark skin, smooth complexion, dark hazel eyes, no glasses and no fatties.To complicate things further, most of theirnames have three or four syllables, e.g., Chathuranga, Dhanushka. Sanjeewa. The fact that the nearest bar is 40 km north-east of here helps keep the head clear, so remembering names has not been a problem.
As a teacher I have afew advantages - firstly, beingperhaps the only foreigner the children have been close-up to, many are captivated; secondly, being a "look-at-me" type, Iam in my element whenI have a captive audience of 30 children hanging on my every gesture.
The biggest advantage is the children are so eager to learn it is embarrassing.I had childrenshow up at 10.30 a.m. for a class that starts at 1.30 p.m. as they are keen to get a front row seat.
Mountain valley people . . .
Whether living in the Cork and Kerry mountains or the highlands of Sri Lanka, mountain valley people are the same all over. They have little interest in affairs outside their domain.
Even still I was a little surprised when the temple's chief priest asked me did Ireland have many monkeys?
When I replied we didn't, he was saddened.
He then asked did we have any elephants - I also replied no - he was further dismayed.
For the impish mischief of the monkey and the stately regal strength of the elephant are a source of enrichment to the lives of the rural people.
When I informed him that we had no coconut trees either - he nearly fell out of his high chair.
In the New Year John Devlin is heading to India