I haven't blogged in ages. Truth be told I've felt to outpour many times since the Cricket World Cup finished. Debates erupted over the politics and sports question, worthy of causing actual tectonic activity. It did my head in - and i've concluded that discussing this further is ultimately futile. So i'm here today to write up something I found fascinating, yet relatively light-hearted from my days in Jaffna.
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At 6 foot tall, and gorgeous, there are other reasons why Diana stands out in the assembly hall. Every single girl at the international school in Manipay has perfectly braided pigtails and that manner of a disciplined young school girl. Diana slouches back on her seat as if saying "see if I care" and her is hair volumized and stylized into a beehive. As I walk past her, I'm thinking, "that must be her".
The morning assembly is very formal. I disregard most of it, but a particular address to the students by the headmaster makes me chuckle. He admonishes the boys for their spiked-up gel-ed hair. Insisting that their celebrity heroes look horrendous without make-up and airbrushing, he urges boys to return to what their forefathers used in order to keep the head cool in such temperatures - gingelly oil. Anyone who has smelt its ghastly stench will know that this will unlikely change hair-styling behaviour at the school.
At first, I was not at all interested when my Uncle, who works at the school, asked me to come visit. However, my ears had pricked up when he mentioned that there was a 16-year-old British girl who had been ex-patriated and sent to the school as punishment from her parents. I had met guys who this had happened to, but I was so intrigued as to what this girl had done and how she was coping.
Walking through the corridors of the school with Diana, it was evident she is very popular; hollering out to practically all the students walking past: "Link ya at lunch yea? Peace bruv." I could not help but find sheer amusement witnessing Southall, England in conservative, rural Jaffna.
At first I got to interview her with other students in the classroom, and we moved into an unused classroom for more intimate details. From her greetings, I could tell that she was sweet and didn't put up any attitude or bitterness that I expected. She seemed ecstatic that she was meeting someone else "foreign" after 5 months of being dumped in Jaffna. My first question, looking to ease into the deeper stuff, was what she made of the culture change. She answered, "you see this yea?" and pointed up and down at her uniform. Judging by it's modest coverage, it was easy enough to understand what she meant. She flashes a smile at the girl sitting next to her and speaks to her in Tamil. Her bestfriend here is the daughter of a Pastor, one of those girls with perfect pigtails, who has lived in Jaffna all her life, never wants to step out of Jaffna, wants to be doctor, but has a secret boyfriend from church.
Turning back to Diana, I then asked her how different life was for her, and what she got up to in her spare time as opposed to in England. "It's way different here bruv (brother). In England yea, there are bare (many) clubs and pubs and parks. Here there's nuffin' bruv." She goes to the net cafe so she can watch hours of Vampire Diaries. Music on her blackberry also keeps her going. She doesn't get to leave the house much, but she gets her teenage-girl boy kicks by talking to some on her phone in her room. Figuratively, as well as literally, she's miles apart from the world she knew in England.
"Were you involved in the decision to come here?"
Her parents had told her that her grandmother in Mannar was not well. (Sounds like the beginning of one those South Asian forced marriages doesn't it?) She was more than willing to make the trip to Sri Lanka. When they got to Mannar, her father said that he was going to Jaffna for a few days. The next day, he skype-d her from England. She was absolutely livid. "I really should 'av guessed from the size of the suitcases that somefin' else was up." She ran out of the house with her passport and cash, soon realising she didn't even know where East was, even if the sun rose from it. Returning back to her relatives house, she refused to eat or drink for hours, and then she got hungry.
Soon enough, she agreed to go to Jaffna; the hope of returning back to England eventually carrying her through. She first stayed in a hostel. Finding out no phones were allowed, nor leaving the hostel lesuirely, she flatly said "no way" and moved to her Aunt's house in Manipay. As I scooped further, I asked her how this all happened.
From the age of 14, Diana had been smoking cannabis everyday. Drinking on the occasion too. She hung out with many people from different backgrounds - Tamil, Indian, Black, White, Mixed. "It was all about getting respect and status, and the contacts you had. That's all that mattered to us." She says she presented herself to world as a "whore" even though she knew she wasn't one. Every night she would come home high, and argue with her parents. Eventually the tensions between the family got so agonizing, her parents agreed for her to go into foster care. Personally, I think they knew what the outcome would be. After 4 months, she couldn't take being away from her family and returned.
I asked her if she had any siblings. And here for the first time I saw something of a deeper sadness . Teary-eyed, she softly begin to speak of her little sister. "She hates me... I used to beat her. I didn't realise what I was doing. She's scared of me."
"Do you regret all this? Do regret being here?"
She believes she's changed immensely since being here. Her little sister had even mentioned over the phone how different she sounds. Diana goes on to speak with a sense of hurting resentment about the past and determination for the future. "I've never ever realised how much my parents mean to me. When I go back yea, I wanna be a new person. I'm becoming a new person. I don't wanna hang around my old friends". She speaks of a change in priorities in her life and how being here in Jaffna, has not made her bitter and angry, but given her all the conditions to realise her destructive ways, realise what's important and realise the urgency to change herself. She acknowledges there is always the danger of returning back to old ways, but that she is adamant to thwart it. My mind hopped to two guys I knew who had been sent to India when they were around 13 for a couple years, and how back now in England, they are still losers. I have more hope in Diana. At least reality has shouted in her face. And as if for that single moment, all the beauty in the world rushed in to make her smile, she then asserted: "This is the best thing that ever happened to me".
