I don't feel that unsettled by soldiers or police with long guns any more.
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At least, I don't feel that unsettled by them at checkpoints, or when they are guarding a stretch of road where it's pretty quiet.

I am in Sri Lanka, involved in communications capacity-building for civil society organizations.

I still feel a bit unsettled by sandbagged bunkers or turrets, or when going by one of the high-security potential target zones like a high-profile politician's residence or office - particularly if there is anything like a vehicle stopping in front. I feel unsettled when I'm trying to walk somewhere and I can't get there because roads are blocked off and tons of soldiers are around and I don't know why. I feel a bit unsettled when, like yesterday, five hours or so north of here, we were driving past a convoy of weapons-loaded trucks.

I checked out the fitness centre at the Hilton last weekend and that whole neighbourhood was uncomfortably high military presence for me - I guess Westerners value physical comfort over psychological, because it's glitzy and they stay there. Too many guns and too many nervous soldiers for my comfort. Lots of army base stuff around there, and I read that it's one of the areas that used to get bombed a few decades back.

But others aren't unsettled by those things, not most locals or expats. Most people in Colombo go about their normal daily lives. They don't feel high tension out of worry for their personal safety. Nor as I understand it do people in the south, or the hill country, or even in most rural areas - unless I guess they are in IDP camps, where they have more concerns than safety alone.

People in the areas where I go are affected by the troubles here in more economic ways - several things are only produced in the north, and they can't get here, so prices for them have skyrocketed. For people in the north, I hear, some things have gone up tenfold.

I think the only time I've witnessed local people nervous about their safety, has to do with nearby elephants (in the north), particularly nearby elephants starting to think about charging them. But that's because I am not travelling in the north or the east. Fear and trauma are not unfamiliar to many, there.

I got chatting to a guy yesterday who had a job at a hotel. So many people, he said, are cancelling bookings because it was near a town where a bombing happened last month. This is
their busy season and they should be fully booked all the time, but they're less than 20% full, have had to lay off many staff, those staff are having trouble with finances, etc. There's a huge domino effect.

Perhaps most troubling for me: the Pollonaruwa area is, I am told, the poorest district in the country. Community-based groups here have no resources to even contact, let alone create, media - eg. one woman i interviewed lives in a town on the border to LTTE terrirory, and they witness a lot of artillery action on both sides. Children, she said, are very traumatized by what they witness.

She said if she had a camera, she could show things she knows would affect people. She wants to be able to contact media when immediacy is essential, but her nonprofit has no access to computers or printers, no cameras of any kind, no fax, no photocopier, even finding enough money for a phone card is quite difficult. I heard a similar story among a number of the groups in that district.

It was about seven years ago that the World Bank did a study asking people struggling with poverty in many countries, what they needed above all. They did not say food, or water, or good government. They said what they needed most was access to a voice.

When I return to Vancouver and my contract is over, at the beginning of December, I intend to begin fundraising online. I will plan to raise money for a few of these specific groups for the needs they have identified, for media equipment, and the training to learn how to use it.