Water, water, water!

October 10th, 2009

Water, water, water! - The drought continues on the east coast of Sri Lanka. The rains were due weeks ago, not heavy as the later monsoon rains, but enough to allow the farmers to start work on their paddi fields. Alas the ground is bone dry, rock hard and useless to work with. All the rivers, lagoons and tanks are dry. Wildlife continues to die. Many Elephants and Deer have already perished. Elephants now becoming more dangerous than ever as they search desperately for fresh water. Some areas are using water bowsers to transport water to watering holes so as to prevent all of the areas wildlife from dieing! Yet it is not only mother nature who has caused this drought. Huge pumps have drained massive amounts of water from the rivers. Pumps that feed water to a water filtration plant. Don’t get me wrong, the unit is extremely beneficial to many. It is invaluable but at a cost it seems. It is probably unfortunate that the two have coincided and hence why so many locals are critical of the huge pumps and feel powerless to do anything. They feel that they could have achieved something towards working on their lands and trying to grow some crops! Although there is no proof of this. It is painful to see everything dieing around us. So dry and dusty. Surfers are happy because the swells continue to come with the lack of rain, whereas the fishermen are crying out for the rains to come as well, hoping for better fishing! Egrets are coming into the garden looking for food. Normally in the Paddy fields, in huge numbers, eating frogs and small fish etc. The lagoons dry, the fish dead! I don’t know where the crocodiles are!

Entry Filed under: Sri Lanka 2009, Tim's Diary, Tim's Travels