Community Friends in tandem with a local partner has just purchased 40 acres of land in the upcountry region in the foothills of the Knuckles Range. Our land has a sweeping westward view of thousands of acres of planted tea and Victoria Reservoir. Above us, the terrain becomes more mountainous and is covered by lush, virgin jungle. There are several villages dotted around the area, although village is not really a correct description. Actually, they are “company homes”, owned by the plantations, placed on plantation property. The inhabitants of these villages are fourth and fifth generation descendants of Tamil workers originally brought here by the British during colonial times. Today they still live as ethnic Tamils, speaking their own language and practicing their native Hindu instead of Buddhism like the rest of the Sinhalese majority in Sri Lanka. They work the tea plantations, providing the necessary labor to make the whole enterprise possible. This means fertilizing, pruning, and plucking the tea, tending to roads and trails, managing terraces, and providing maintenance for fire protection.
Jay Goodfriend
