Weekend in Jaffna Peninsula
I was thrilled to apply as a mentor for Yarl IT Geek Hackathon — this was partly from my interests in Hackathons and Jaffna. I have never been to Jaffna before and it had always been in my mind to travel to the peninsula.
Me and 5 other colleagues got into the Bus that leaves to Jaffna on 30 Thursday Evening. It was raining and gloomy around. We got ourselves few burgers from Burgers King and we were off to Jaffna. The wet weather outside made us all drowsy and we woke up at Negombo where the bus stopped for dinner. We had a Kotthu and drunk a milo to keep ourselves energized.
It was early morning in Jaffna when we arrived. The best part is the straight road that’s available — A9. Gliding through that in the bus, we felt like we were flying (in our drowsiness).
We got down from the Bus near Hotel Tilko — our travel and hospitality partner. They generously gave us a 50% discount on accommodation. Since we had a bad sleep in the bus — we were ready to crawl up in the bed and rest for the rest of the day. But we were on a mission. We were going to Mentor Teams in the Hackathon and the event starts at 8:30.
I loved the enthusiasm at the hackathon and all the teams had marvelous ideas. After getting chossen to mentor a group — I went to meet team n-Vision.
Their idea was to build a FairShare taxi app -much like Uber, but tailored for the Sri Lankan Tuk culture. At first I didnt’ buy the idea much because travelling with strangers in Sri Lanka is a big no no. But after listening to them closely and hearing out the idea — I came to believe that it could work.
That evening we were dead tired and arrived at the hotel in the night. We pored some vodka and said “C’est La Vie” and went to sleep.
Next day morning — I went to the buffet in the hotel and tasted the best palmyra juice. It was sooo good that I drank 3 glasses of it.
Teams were enthusiastically building their idea and making presentations to pitch to investors -the same Silicon valley vibe I felt in San Fransisco.
In the evening — we decided to explore the Nallur Temple. On our way to to Nallur by foot, we saw many beautiful sights.
I have never really liked Religions (got nothing against one in particular) — but Nallur temple’s majesty made even an atheist like me humbled. The giant structure it selves pompously display the tamil culture that has been cultivated in the peninsula from it’s historical times.
We really wanted to try out Rio — the famous Ice Cream joint in Jaffna that has a branch even in Colombo. Unfortunately they were closed down for reservations. We decided to settle for another near by Ice Cream and Juice bar. Beware — Food Porn warning.
We had a fellowship dinner in the evening by the Yarl IT hub. After chit chat — we went on give comments and suggestion to the organizers. The organizers have done a great job — Kudos to them. After failing to eat Crab Legs and stuffing our stomaches with Pittu Kotthu — we went to get tipsy.
Next morning we woke up and went to the Jaffna National Library — where the final pitching round was held. Eventhough it was final pitching round, the actual final was to be held in Colombo. This round was to pickup the best 5 teams to go forward to the next round.
We also got some Thambili (King Coconut Water) — the best hangover cure in all of Lanka.
Today was the day that we were going to leave back to Jaffna so we decided to do some shopping. This included buying — Karawala (Dried Fish), Juices (Nelli, Grape, Pomegranate), Jaggery etc.
We didn’t have time to explore the Kytes islands or go near to the Sea. We only saw the Jaffna Lagoon (which was huge).
After 30 years of war and cultural prejudice — I say we are still yet to start development of the peninsula. I believe — the effort put on by Yarl IT hub is specially commendable where IT knowledge is cultivated in the peninsula. It’s time for us to let go of cultural barriers and truly empathise the difference. As we have difference in our ways — we do have similarities. It would make everyone’s lives brighter when people appreciated the similarities and empathise the differences. I believe culture, religion, languages are not barriers created to section people. Those are there to keep variety in the world. If everyone talked the same language, believed the same things, think the same way — it would certainly be boring.
