Time takes me back
To my life in the Vanni,
That strange and remote land
In the age of ox carts
And oil-wick lamps
A guru in a primitive school
With a dark room to live in,
A rope-strung bed
To lay my head
Woodfires in the outhouse
Stinging my eyes,
A twig broom for sweeping,
Sloshing home water
In a pot at my hip
Too young to endure
Hardships of rural life
Life in the backwoods
Was to live a life
At slow pace
In step with folkways
Revisiting in memory
In hindsight I see
Adversity taught me humility
- Farmers in Vanni district, Sri Lanka
Kamala Gunasekara
Nugegoda
Sri Lanka