Down the line…
Driving through the countryside, a common sight is to see the railway winding its way along the side of the road, weaving in and out of trees and villages, and criss-crossing over the road as and when it pleases.
I glanced down one line to see first a cat, peering across the sleepers, a dog a little further down, and then a man in a traditional sarong, walking into the tree line. Always in the background are forested hills, pushing up into the sky.
Hi folks,
Sorry about the lack of contact. I’ve just taken a much-needed mini break, which involved a good deal of shopping, walking up rather large hills, shopping, eating monumental amounts of delicious food, shopping, relaxing on quiet, sandy beaches, and, um, more shopping… It’s been lovely, but it is now about time to return to why I’m here in the first place. In fact, some of the shopping I’ve been doing has been purchasing thank you gifts for my participants, and also printing out photos for some of the girls at the factory. We’ve had a lot of photos together and they asked me if I could print some of them for their family albums, which is the least I can do. They’ve also asked for photos of England, because, of course, not having computers and internet they don’t get the same opportunities I do to see what other parts of the world look like, so rely heavily on books and photographs for these things.
So, tomorrow, some final purchases to make, some packing and planning to do, and some phone calls to make too. Then, on Wednesday it’ll be back out to Ampara.
For now, I certainly couldn’t have taken off all this time without doing a couple of sketches. Here’s one. I’ll post another later!
Nestled.
We passed this little cottage on the way to Adam’s Peak. The colour’s a little muted here, but it was a little pastel pink house, tucked away amongst the palms, with flowering shrubbery cloaking one end of it entirely.
A Canal in Colombo
This is just a picture of one of the many little canals running through Colombo. I haven’t taken any photos of these canals, as I’ve only ever passed them in the car, but they all struck me as being very pretty, with grassy banks running down from little wooden houses with corrugated rooftops. There are always people playing or bathing in the water, and palm trees observe the scene from their high viewpoints above the houses, whilst red and pink flowers spill over and around the houses to get a closer look.
A rural scene
I thought it was about time to pop one of these up. For those of you who’ve come across to this blog from my Bangalore blog, I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to do a sketch! I know I said I’d try but I’ve just been too busy. Today was a day off for the packing line, so I thought ‘Oh, great! I can get loads of reading and writing done’. This however involves my laptop and the internet, and typically, we had a 6 hour power cut. So I’ve had lots of nap time, and also lots of painting time. I’ve done a couple – I’ll put the next one up in a couple of hours.
This one was inspired by yesterday’s drive through the countryside – mile upon mile of lush vegetation, rusty red tractors, plumes of smoke drifting into the sky as farmers burn plots of land, small wooden houses hiding amongst the trees, farm workers in the fields, and the occasional bright flash of lazuli blue, as a little bird frolics over to investigate a different bush. The rains have just arrived, so a lot of the fields are a little boggy at the moment, and there are lots of small bodies of water dotted around too.
If you like this one, there are some similar watercolour sketches of India to be found here: http://buneinbangalore.wordpress.com/category/sketches/
A Selection of Fat Coloured Marker Pens, Multiple Sheets of Blank A2 Paper, Tape of Different Widths and Colours, Lots of Plastic Sheeting, A Nice Big Colourful Map… Is this the beginnings of a children’s arts and crafts session? No! It’s a geographer preparing for research! That’s right, she went shopping…
Geographer’s Paradise
The (rough) plan is this:
The large blank pieces of paper will be used as kind of ‘basemaps’ – using online resources and local knowledge I will create some very simple basemaps of the Ampara area – to avoid bias in this I will try to do this collaboratively, perhaps by holding a focus group with members of the local women’s foundation to see what they think should be put onto the basic map.
Then, during participatory diagramming sessions with around 6 factory employees at a time, the plastic sheeting will be placed on top, layer by layer, as members of the sessions add in details, using pens and coloured tape and whatever other materials they see fit. This way, detailed maps can be built up of the community, according to what the employees choose to map. This should help to get an idea of the places in the community that hold some meaning, so I can gain a little more of an understanding of the places of meaning to the Tamil employees and to the Sinhala employees. I wonder, will they be the same places, for the same reasons, or different places, for different reasons? I’m expecting, obviously, that if places of worship are plotted then these will be significantly different for the Tamil and Sinhalese employees. But what about shopping locations? Routes to and from work? The bus stop, the clock tower, the park?
I will also use maps in other focus groups as ways to stimulate discussion and prompt memories, as thoughts and opinions are very often, at both conscious and subconscious levels, linked to space and place.
As I build up the layers of the plastic sheeting, I wonder whether it’s better to remove each sheet before the next participant/group adds their layer to the map, or to leave it in place so that they can see what the participant/group before them has done. I still have time before any of this is actually implemented, so thoughts and suggestions are warmly welcomed!
I received an email on the 18th March from…
It said:
“Dear Lucy,
Thank you for submitting an application to the Henrietta Hutton Research Grant. On behalf of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), it gives me great pleasure to confirm that you are this year’s recipient of the Henrietta Hutton Research Grant. Congratulations! you will receive an award of £500.
This funding is subject to the standard Henrietta Hutton Research Grant Terms and Conditions attached…”
Incredibly exciting and I am very very grateful to the RGS (with IBG) for selecting me to be this year’s recipient of the grant! Thank you!
I will be in the town of Ampara, which is in the Eastern Province. This administrative map was obtained from http://www.nationsonline.org – please click on the image to be taken to the source of the image!
There are always a number of costs to budget for when going away, especially when for a prolonged period of time and where research is involved. As mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I am very lucky to have my accommodation, internal transport and probably a substantial amount of food provided for me by my hosts once in the country. However, it is important to always plan for the unexpected, have plenty of contingency, and at least approach the trip with a rough idea of the costs that will be incurred. This table provides a very basic guide to my expected costs.
Sri Lanka: A Research Project 