by A. Archie
My mother’s constant nagging at me running a business from home and my father often trying to keep the money to himself whenever he came to my assistance lead me to apply for jobs I did not ever want to do. While I was learning English after my GCSE A/L’s, I attended an English class and they introduced us to a national examination for English teacher. If you had scored very high marks, you got a direct teaching appointment. If you passed at a satisfactory level, you were given a chance to go to a training college for a one or two-year course. Upon completion you were given teaching appointments. I sat for this exam not necessarily to be a teacher but to test my knowledge. Most of my friends however did with the hope of getting a job.
A couple of years after the English exam, which I had almost forgotten, I received a letter from the department of education saying that I had passed the exam. They invited me in the letter to attend an interview to be considered for a direct appointment. I just did the exam for fun. I did not want to be a teacher and end up like my father earning a very low salary and being poor. You have the prestige and loads of holidays. But what was the point if you do not earn enough to live a decent life. So I did not tell anybody in my family about the letter. I tore and chucked the letter in the bin in the hope that I could forget the whole thing. I only read it once. I was shaking. That was not something I wanted to do. I felt guilty. I felt very uncomfortable. It was not something I wanted to do with my life, waste my youth on. However, the teaching job offer troubled me and hanged at the back of my mind. My sub consciousness questioned if that was the right thing to do. However, I overcame it after the interview date had passed.
My parents nagging about me staying at home and running a farm continued. My mum kept asking me to find a job. I always wanted to go and live in Colombo. I tried several jobs. But no one contacted me. My village home address about sixty miles away from the capital would have been a deciding factor. I was so pissed off with my parent that I just wanted to leave home and be independent. I needed a job. The one in hand was the teaching job. I got my father to contact the department of education and told them that we had not received a letter for the job interview. It worked as it had happened to some other people. There was a column in one of the national newspapers highlighting this among other national issues. My father also wrote to that newspaper. My case was appeared on the column with an answer from the department of education, with an apology, asking me to contact them.
We went to Colombo and it was an informal chat with the commissioner. He told his clerk to prepare my letter of appointment. The poor fella came to me with the letter and said to both myself and my father “Have a chat with your postman about your post going missing”. I felt very sorry for him. I tried to hide my guilty feeling and a sudden burst of laughter. I was jubilant because I could leave home. I was on my way to freedom. That was what I thought anyway. The letter said “Ruwanwewa Vidyala in Padawiya”. I did not know at the time that the area was and had been under LTTE attacks. I did not want to go that far up in the north, it was very remote, the climate there was very hot and what else was I going to do there? Life is harsh.
Chapter Two
My parents were happy now because I have a job now. They wanted me to remain a teacher for the rest of my life. I never wanted to. This was ok for the time being. My farther had spoken to a distant cousin of mine who had political links. They had been to a local MP to see if I could get a school not so far away. The MP had said that the MP in charge of Padawiya was a friend of his. He had given my farther a letter to take to this MP. My next task was to go and see this MP with the letter, try and persuade him to get me a school nearer to the town. I despise politicians but I had to go and beg him having no other alternatives. This was not typical me. You even try to hang on to a straw of grass when you are drowning as the saying goes.
I found out when the MP held his surgery. Then I went and stayed with a friend of mine the day before the surgery. He was an English teacher I met at an English class we both had attended. He advised “Do not take this job offer or sign up until you get a school of your choice”. With that in my mind the following morning I went to the surgery and waited among many others. Luckily I was at the front of the queue. Everybody was waiting for the minister, the supporters and henchmen seemed to wield the power they did not have and were not entitled to. Everyone pretended to be nice to them as we did have little option of not doing so. We were all there to accomplish our objectives.
A Mitsubishi Pajero arrived accompanied by a couple of pickup trucks mainly manned by henchmen. I hated to see it. I was prepared to put up with this despicable behaviour of political power for another hour or two, until I had spoken to him. And not any more. The minister went inside and we were led into a large hall with a very long table created by putting tables together. We sat round it. I was closer to the minister. I came early and was at the front of the queue. Soon my turn came and I smiled at him and handed over the letter I had brought with me from another minister who claimed to be a friends of his. My English teacher friend had given me the name of a school nearby. The school was looking for English teachers. My intention was to get me transferred to that school. And I explained to the minister. However, he insisted on me taking the current school first. Then he said he could do the transfer. He added that he could not do it without. That was exactly the opposite of what my friend had advised me to do. There was no point in arguing with the minister. I felt that it was a total waste of time coming to see him.
Frustrated and having very little options left, being let down and the pressure from my parents, I decided to go to Padawiya on the very same day. I boarded a bus from the town and secured a seat. It was a couple of hours’ journey through army check points. I hated being checked, having to get off the bus and board again. The thought of it did my nerve. I sat comfortably in the bus thinking. I did not want to talk to anybody, I was not in the mood. It was my life, my future that was at stake no matter what the others say not even my parent. Yes, I would die doing what I want to be doing with my life and what I enjoy. Not this. I needed to shape my life, my destiny and the course I was taking. I was not going make some idiots out there do it for me. No way.
The bus left at 9.20am. I did not talk to the passenger who sat next to me. I just smiled. I had a window seat and the views kept me occupied. My passenger did not bother talking to me either. He must have had his own worries to think about. I had my own. I was thinking what I was doing. I watched the businesses and wealth the others had created. I had nothing. Virtually nothing. But I will. The area we were going to was very rural with basic amenities and the life was very hard there. Most of the people who lived there were poor re settlers. The government had this scheme to provide the poor with a plot of land and a grant to build a house there. And most of the passengers on the bus were among them, either been to the town to sell their produce or buy house hold necessities or back from visiting relatives. They kept to themselves and hardly smiled with others.
In less than one hour, the bus stopped at the first check point. We all had to wait in a queue to be checked ourselves, our bags and our ID. Then walk to the bus which had parked further up from the point we were dropped off. They were doing it for our own safety but it was painful to go through it, mental torture. In about ten minutes we were back on the road, not many houses, dry land scattered with few tress and low grass. Barren. Another hour and we arrived at a small town followed by a check point. There were several shops, a bus station with connections to other locations. The driver stopped there for tea and I was hungry. Our buses did not have on board toilets. The tea shops had facilitated conveniences. I went for a quick wee then a hot cup of dark Ceylon tea without milk, that was how we had it there usually and called it “Kahata” and a hot bun stuffed with meat and vegetables. I had to keep an eye on everyone I recognized from the bus as I did not know how long the bus was going to stay. The others being regulars and this was my first visit. I did not board the bus after my tea had finished. I stayed o
utside taking in everything I see and the life there and people. I questioned myself “Do I really need this?”.
That was the final stop before I got off and in less than one and half-hours’ time I would be getting off. The bus took off and no habitations to be seen apart from the burnt down houses and buildings by the LTTE. The driver rode very fast, everyone was very quiet and watchful as you never knew when you were going to be ambushed by the LTTE as had been before. A journey of life and death. I was concerned. I pondered “Why do I have to do this?”. The area would have been prosperous but for the terrorists, now it was barren and no humans to be seen. We drove for about one hour without seeing a bus stop or houses with habitants living in them. I knew that I was nearing the school I was going to and told the conductor that I was going there. He agreed to tell me where to get off when we were there.
It was a T junction with a few shops and a large tall tree in the centre of the junction. The bus stopped just before the junction. We had to go through the security checkpoint. I was getting off from that stop. The conductor pointed at the direction I should be heading to get to the school. Lonely it looked, few small shops and very rural. “What am I doing here?” My subconscious logic had kicked in. So remote and cut off from the main stream society and culture. After the checkpoint I kept walking towards the T junction. Few other passengers set off there as well. The bus went passed us straight over the junction. I turned right at the junction into another road and started walking. One side of the road was covered in low forest and the other side the forest was disturbed buy a few houses at long intervals. It was a road with few bends. I hardly met anybody on the way.
I could see the sign to the school on the left. There was a shop just before the turn to the school. Further on the road, houses started appearing on both sides and the low forest had gradually cleared. I turned left into the sandy driveway that lead to the school. I could hear the students playing and creaming. It was the interval. They had broken up for dinner. No one really brings a lunch box here. Instead they enjoyed the free time playing games. The nearer I got, the louder the noises were. In less than three minutes, I had arrived at the entrance to the school. There were students playing about the ages of 7 – 12, I believed. They all stopped playing. Everyone started gazing at me. They were excited to see a well-dressed visitor. They all greeted me with un spoilt genuine smiles I could never forget.
I felt very guilty and so sorry as I was going there just to sign and then get a transfer request to a school nearer to the town. These children needed help, I wanted to help them, but I could not help them at that moment in time. I nearly cried and tried hard to hide my feelings as I got nearer and nearer to them. I smiled back at them. They started following me holding hands with their friends. I asked “Where is the head teacher’s office?”. They pointed at a small adjoining office on the side of a hall and kept following me. I had a tail of young students following me. It was still building up along the way. Some of the little girls and boys wanted to hold my hand. They were competing for a chance. I wished I were very rich. Then I could help all of them. I would make their lives better and give them the opportunities they would otherwise never have. But I could not. I was very sad and sorry. One day I would get rich. I would go back and help them, that was the only way to rectify my guilt.
The school had three open plan buildings in cream colour and three quarters for the teachers, the large one, more like a proper house, was for the head teacher, a playground and a hand operated water tap far end of the school premises and a deep well. I walked into the head teacher’s office. He was talking to a fellow teacher. I waited until he finished his conversation while observing the office and those who were there. It was a small self-contained room at one end of the open plan class room hall. The office had a separate entrance door from the front and a two panel window at the back.
I introduced myself to the head teacher and gave him the letter of appointment I had received from the department of education. He gestured me to sit down with his hand and happily read the letter. Having seen my home address, he said “I am not far from where you live”. He signed the letter and I followed. I was now officially a teacher there. Then I said to him “I need to go back today”. He looked at me in surprise. He thought that I had come to stay. Little did he realize that I had brought nothing with me. No clothes, books, beddings, food. Nothing. I was only there to get his signature and the school rubber stamp. Then I go back and sort my transfer out. He asked why I wanted to go back and I explained to him “I came today to accept the offer and I had not brought my stuff with me. So I need to go back and also need to find accommodation”. Then he said “There are quarters for the teachers. You can stay here. Teaches are already living there and one from the neighbouring school”. I thanked him and hurried back to catch the next coach back.
A week later, I went back to see the minister again and said to him “I have been to the school and signed up.” Thinking that the transfer was now possible. He said this time “I can’t do anything now because you have signed up” on the contrary to what he had told me to do before. I felt furious and let down. I was bursting with anger. I wanted to kill him. He told me at first that he could not do the transfer as I had not signed up. And now he says he could not do it because I had signed up. I left him angrily and went back home with little option but to go back to that school. Such were the politicians.
A week later I was back at the school. This time to teach.
Chapter Three
After I had walked out of my teaching job in 1996, I made one final attempt to revive the farm and stay self-employed. That was what I wanted to do, to run my own businesses, whatever it would take. I could change the type of business I would do for a living. Right now I needed the poultry to generate the necessary capital. I considered the farm as the agricultural revolution in my life and whatever I was going to do later as the industrial revolution and so on. Would my parents get it and allow me to do it? No.
Failure again trying to convince my parents and sudden drop in egg prices brought my profits to negative. I could still make a bit of money if I could take the eggs to towns where the wholesale prices were higher. But I did not have a car or a van. And my parents did not want me to buy one either. They were not supportive of it at all. I on my own went to see bank managers and leasing companies to buy a van. They said they could help me but if my family was not prepared to support me, it was going to be a hard job.
I kept applying for jobs without any luck. Then I saw an advertisement on a Sunday newspaper by a new recruitment agency. They had advertised jobs for a new IT company and asking the applicants to come with their CV for an interview within a three-day time period they had scheduled. So I did on the very first day. The girl who interviewed me was friendly and told me about this new IT company looking for sales reps. She said they needed three sales reps and that she had found three now including me. She added that she was not going to interview any other. She arranged three of us, I had not met the two others yet, to go to the IT company to meet the director there and discuss the job.
A couple of days later, I went to this company called Computer Tech. It was a two storey newly built building on the outskirts of Colombo with a front garden and steps to the open flat concrete roof where you could sit and have a chat, meal or a drink. The director was a middle aged man. And there was the general manager sitting next to him and the secretary called Edit. She was pretty, slim and long black hair. She gazed at me as I walked in. She did not move her head. She had a big smile on her face. She really wanted me. But I had to look away. She did not want to change her gaze.
I looked in the direction of the director and walked up to him. After all I was there to get this job I desperately needed. It was going to be in IT. I could not have asked for more. The other two guys were already there sitting and waiting. I sat next to them. We briefly chatted while the director was going through our CVs and then it was my time for a private chat with him. I did not have an
y previous experience in selling computers. I only have had a basic computer training with the Open University. The director said after a chat with me that because of my enthusiasm and willingness to learn, he was happy to offer me the position and we discussed the pay. We were all offered the same amount of pay, a lot less that what we had asked for. While three of us were waiting, we agreed to ask for the same higher amount with a view to securing it. But it fell far short but not bad for a start. Edith kept looking at me. She was very fair in complexion, European like and I liked her.
Chapter Four
The two other marketers were friendly. They lived within a daily commuting distance. One of whom was to become a good friend of mine later. But I had to find a place to live first. I had gone through the Sunday paper accommodation column before coming to the interview. I highlighted few ads and decided to go and see a place not far from my new job. I had the address. Back then most of us did not have a mobile phone. The only option I had was to go there. The landlord was friendly, the rent was very reasonable, the place was quiet and basic. Without any hesitation I took the room. However, there was no facilities for cooking nor did they have a kitchen. There were few takeaways and hotels just outside the gate. The main town was about ten minutes’ walk. There were private buses every few minutes. Single bed with facilities for tea making and there was a desk to be shared with the other two people in other rooms. There were no doors to separate the rooms with privacy. I told him that I was coming to live in a few days’ time and he agreed to secure the room for me and I paid. I normally would not but he seemed someone you could trust and his house was on the same premises. He was an elderly single pensioner. I believed he enjoyed a few pints.