26 juillet 2006, Hikkaduwa - Quentin

6 h 30 this morning. It is raining in Colombo. The sky has a grey wash in an autumn morning and the air is saturated The capital is already teeming.

At 4 a.m. we left Hikkaduwa with the new Mayor, the President of the Community of Communes. After the last road check of the military police, we arrive in a long calm avenue, up a wall blocked by a metal door. Security men open up for us, one waits for us, and accompanies us into a huge huse, the residence of the Minister of Justice who receives us this morning.

Mr Amarasiri joins us in a living room for breakfast, without protocol. He begins by thanking Green Hope whose work he knows about. The Mayor tells him our future plans to which he listens to attentively.
We speak to him freely of the daily work of Green Hope, of certain difficulties we have met. In return, he assures us of his respect and his grateful thanks. After one hour of a convivial meeting he walks back to the car with us. He is going to write to the Prime minister to inform him about our meeting.

We are fascinated by this simple and good, kind, unassuming, deep and fair man.

We have just learnt with great joy the nomination of a new French in Sri Lanka. We know his reputation of free, humanist and sensitive man, very attached to artists and to cultural life. We shall have numerous opportunities to reflect together and to put together plans for the recognition and broadcasting of the values and culture of our country.

The family of a catamaran captain	Signing the Convention	Araliya Design	Fishermen and GH staff

Yesterday evening, late, after a tight negotiation, Green Hope bought new land, big, with a house and the possibility of making two plots for two other houses. We will be able to continue the rehousing of the fishermen whose houses were destroyed by the Tsunami
We passed on the house immediately to the family of a catamaran captain who has been living in a "interim" village of wooden shacks for more than one and a half years. We had said nothing as long as we were not certain of getting this purchase.

Kumara went to get him, at his arrival from fishing, to drive him directly to the Notary, where his wife and his two children waited. After so long suffering, with bitterness and hopes intermixed, he did not know if it was just a dream. So from yesterday evening, this family own a nice stone house which tey will move into in the next few days. Green Hope will construct, thanks to the fishermen's cooperative, two other houses on the plots shortly.

In the meantime we finished the reconstruction of the local sanitary buildings in Hikkaduwa, and are going to inaugurate three toilets and three public showers at the beginning of next month.
We did the first concrete act for the plan of the Country Medical Health Centre by signing, with the Manager of the Health centre, Mr Wimal Lokugamheva, the Convention which binds us with " Secouristes Sans Frontières ",the financer of this plan, under the watchful of Ranjani Ekanayaka Kalupahana, Notary.

The signed conventions were sent by express to our friend Dominique, delegated by the Directorate of SSF. This will allow to release the first funds of this allocation.

After one year, Araliya Design has opened a manufacturing workshop in Patuwatha. All the workers formed as part of the Green Hope Factory were kept on and will begin in this new place on August 5th. So, we are going to be able to start a new programme in the Factory and hire new workers. We met with the workers and with Christelle from Araliya Design, yesterday. They reacted very positively to the logical idea of our plan for job creation. The new workshop of Araliya Design will be dedicated first and foremost to crochet and to embroidering. It will be inaugurated on July 28th of this year.

Fishing is particularly good at present, the three trawlers came back to the harbour with eleven tonnes of fish, which are sold every night in the Fish Market of Colombo.

Little Pravin Mihiranga was operated on successfully on his first eye. The operation on the other eye will take place in ten days in Apollo Hospital of Colombo.

Delphine, responsible for the new Green Hope antenna Kogala will offer us a special edition of the Journal next Tuesday.
Information is particularly rich to Green Hope at present.
(We think of Jean-Christophe, Alain, Karl, Jordi, the web masters who put these online texts, and translate them!)

And we are a week from the beginning of the second edition of the Green Hope Festival …
This morning, in Colombo, after our appointment, we could meet François, our Colombo correspondent. With Bouddhika, they translated the advertising posters into English and sinhala. Eléonore is going to be able to finish the posters and brochures.
Laurent came up with a solution to accomplish monocycles with recycled materials found on site …
Andrew has just joined us with Virginia, to do a short film on the event …
Alice and Léo have finished transforming a tuk-tuk it into huge fish with the children. This fish with a motor will move through the villages for the "videoscrew" …

All day, in Narigama, Sportes practices, with the professional musicians from Colombo. His concert will be splendid …
Axel, the one who talks with the birds, arrived. With other children, he is making instruments of green music, for a natural fanfare of bamboos, coconut trees, reeds …

Without forgetting the Dance workshops , air dance, the puppets, decors and costumes with the workers from the Factory. There are two hundred children involved in this second edition accomplished by Jean-Christophe, assisted by Priantha, and by Rummy and Mawanadu for technology …
" Against the worship of profit we must set up a religion of Beauty. The sacred is the backbone of existence. " Theodore Monod

July 19th, 2006, Hikkaduwa - Quentin

" Everything that ascends, converges. ". Teilhard of Chardin.

Since the beginning of July, the team of the second Green Hope Festival sets itself up, under the supervision of Jean Christophe.
It will take place in the villages on August 3rd, and on August 5th and 6th at the stage of Morocola.
A splendid job: will, passion, courage, feelings, an exchange of knowledge, which weaves into a collective, altruistic, profoundly humanist creation, with the taking of risks and humility which gives the true place to the artist in our society, a place too often forgotten, reduced to a common product for immediate consumption.

Here, at present, on the fifteen kilometres of coasts, where on a morning in December 2004 the waves of the Tsunami tore into the shore…into the fishermen and workers ….here now, thanks to the artists, the schoolchildren, the inhabitants of the villages gather and converge for a festival which will say the words of silence.

Effervescence and magic in workshops …

Patou and Isa are hatching a puppet show on the topic of the " Book of the Jungle " in Dodanduwa …
During this time, in Patuwatha, Laurent and Magali initiate the children into the arts of the circus, monocycle, juggling of balls and neckerchiefs, acrobatics …

On the facade of the new stadium of Morocola, rebuilt by Green Hope, long ropes are ready for air dancing, a vertical dance, a flight of fancy harnessed by Nicolas and Stephane and the participation of the sportsmen of the stadium, who have come forward in great numbers to assist in this perilous show …

Benjamin Sportes practices his show with musicians, bases and drums, come from Colombo to Narigama. Like when we did the " Festival in the Desert ", along with Lo Jo in Tinessaco in Mali, for the preservation of the Touareg culture, an impromptu studio has been installed to record this work on a CD - five tracks at least, one of them "Live" on stage, which will be sold to support the third edition of the Festival …

Eight Sri Lankan carpenters are constructing the structures of the show at the stadium, and also the structure of the Giant who will open the parade, and decorate the tuk-tuk which will serve as the theme of vidéomaton …

Nice encounter also between Berny, Srilankan professor at the Green Hope traditional dancing school and Nicolas and Stephane, from France, and Veronica, contemporary dancer from New York, living in Dodanduwa. Yesterday evening we took part in the rehearsals of this show in the Green Hope school in Patuwatha along side the locals inconspicuously sitting on the ground, immensely respectful and fascinated by this original choreography …

All year long Berny teaches, with a hundred children, in traditional dances, assisted by Satish, Samira, Rasika. They will also introduce one performance this year …

The Parade will be impressive, with the Giant, the stilts of Philippe and Karine from the Begat Theatre, the children of the Green Hope schools and, this year, a real elephant, which is going to come to us for three days and will take the children on trips…
The technical direction of the festival is entrusted to Mamawadou, Rummy and their sound and light team from Gall.

And meanwhile the day-to-day news continues in Green Hope …

Thanks to our friends in Secouristes Sans Frontières, the plan for the Mobile Health Centre takes shape. We went over again the agreement prepared by them with the manager of the Health centre of Hikkaduwa, and finalized the final budget. Next week, we shall go to order the bus in which will be installed the medical equipment. We have just learnt that the Mobile Health Centre will be inaugurated, at their request, by the president de la République and the Minister of Health, in his residence in Colombo, with our friends from SSF, in November..

We brought over from France, and delivered the wheelchair given by the residents in the home at Mont Joli in Trouville. Thanks to Thierry, Maud, Stephane, who thus return mobility to this woman …

We also visited the old couple in their new home rebuilt by Green Hope. We could also tell them that the inhabitants of the Mont Joli will give them a monthly private income from now to the end of their life …
Still in Normandy, the Touques-Solidarité association organized its second sale of clothes to the advantage of Green Hope. A sincere thank you for your faithful support …

In Germany, in Munich, the writer Eve Rudschies dedicated her historical novels to the Salonkreis Muenchen-Harlaching of Julia Kalmund, and passed on all proceeds to Green Hope …
Yesterday, two very anxious parents came to visit us: their small 2-year-old boy, has gone blind, became dizzy, fell continuously …
Early this morning, he was transferred to the Apollo Hospital in Colombo….We have just accepted a call of Udaya and Ananda, which are now in charge of transfers….In just two days small Pravin Mihiranga has gone blind….He will be operated on this afternoon…. Without the faithful, attentive help, of the Swiss deputation, Green Hope would have a lot of difficulties in taking on these unpredictable costly operations.

July 6th 2006, Hikkaduwa - Jean-Christophe.

Finally back here. This morning, a tour of the pre-schools. Newly built building or the old ones which are already thriving. Dive straight into the world of Green Hope. The point of departure and the point of arrival. Here as elsewhere, everything begins with the children. Tomorrow belongs to them.

In Peraliya, the teacher is doing an exemplary job with the children. Everywhere the same ritual of a welcome through the singing of the children. In Narigama, work is on the point of finishing. There remains the garden to be done, water and electricity to be installed, but the school is finished. Three big rooms ready to receive the children as quickly as possible. In Pathuwatha, it is all excitement. Everybody prepares the perahera of tomorrow, the pre-school holiday. The children practice dances and singing.

In a country afflicted once again by the demon of civil war, it is every day more important to think of tomorrow. What can we do today to find reconciliation, so that peace impregnates the heart of people? So that the weak who submit and suffer can one day impose their point of view. So that tomorrow the opening of one towards the other grows somewhat.

Culture and education. Education and culture are the humanist weapons in this vital battle.

At the dawn of the start of the activities of the festival, these questions seem to us to be essential more than ever. Without ceasing we pose the rationale of our actions so as not to betray them. Not to betray those with whom we have decided to grow together.

The day after tomorrow the first French artists arrive.

Nicolas and Stephane are part of the Retouramont Company of vertical dance. Those of you who were at the party on June 3rd in Paris know them well. The beauty of this air dance is creating absolute silence in the midst of amazed onlookers. They will work with the children on the creation of a show in the stadium at Dodanduwa.

With them comes Patricia. She delighted the festival last year with her work with the children in the puppet workshop. A part of her heart stayed here, and so she comes to join it for the adventure of this year.

We shall tell you all about it. In the Diary, but also in the page especially devoted to the festival. We shall introduce you to the artists, and the program which promises to be even richer and nicer.

The children are our starting point, and the festival would not exist without them. They are impatient to discover and to share. Their desires are huge, and we shall try to respond to them.

July 3rd, 2006, France - Pierre and Quentin.

The meeting of the delegates on Friday went very well. Mary, will soon forward us a report which we shall pass on to you.

We have just come from talking on the phone with Jean Christophe in Hikkaduwa. All the members of the Festival team are going to arrive in the next three days and get on working fast to prepare the event.
From the next Journal entry, they will be the intermediary, letting you know the growing strength of this nice symbolic event. There will be short reports, illustrated with photographs on the daily progress of workshops, rehearsals, techniques, the exchange of knowledge with the children, authorities, the population in general and the Sri Lankan artists …

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