You don’t have to be famous to save the world.The Sea Turtle Project in Bentota is worth your help to save marine turtles. Sri Lanka Tourism involves marine conservation. Elsie Gabriel.

You don’t have to be famous to save the world.

The Sea Turtle Project in Bentota is worth your help to save marine turtles. Sri Lanka Tourism involves marine conservation. Elsie Gabriel.

The Sea Turtle Project in Bentota is only one of the initiatives on the Island of Sri Lanka to help save the marine turtles from extinction. The island has many benefactors, specially after the Tsunami disaster, several crusaders have taken it upon themselves to save the sea creatures.

So, as the saying goes, you don’t have to be famous to save the world , surely applies here!!

Visitors and research students alike come in to study or observe the baby turtles and depending on the season and time of day can watch them being released in to the ocean. There are five different species of Sea Turtle to be found along the coast of Sri Lanka – Loggerhead, Olive Ridley, Leatherback, Green Turtle and Hawksbill.

 These turtle hatcheries were constructed to rescue and protect turtle eggs because of the rapidly declining numbers of marine turtle in Sri Lankan shores. Marine turtle eggs are purchased from the  local fisherman and re-buried along the beach and left there for two days allowing the eggs time to hatch. Thereafter the baby turtles are collected from the beach and kept in tanks for another week, and released into the ocean to fend off for themselves. And believe it or not,the few female turtles that survive may return to their natal shores after a decade to lay their own eggs.

My favourite was the three legged albino turtle, with not a care in the world. But the image of this turtle tells a million stories, nylon fishing lines destroying limbs, plastic bags in the ocean suffocating the ocean creatures, and harsh climatic conditions throwing them ashore. The harsh stories are endless. When will all this stop.

We can not change the old mind set who refuse to believe that our children and their children may never get to see marine turtles in the near future, they are among the endangered lot. But what we can do is educate the young adults and children, adopt, sponsor or campaign for creatures who can not fight for themselves.

Marine turtles were roaming the oceans for about 190 million years, much before we were born, so the ocean is their habitat not ours. Do not forget to visit and promote the conservation of marine turtles, wherever or whenever you take a vacation to a seaside destination.

Come with me and do the devil mask dance in Sri Lanka! Elsie Gabriel

Come with me and do the devil mask dance in Sri Lanka! Elsie Gabriel

 I loved the drama, the entertainment, historic ritual and of course the anthropology involved in the beautiful colorful ‘masks’ worn during the charade. Sri Lanka is fascinating. An island famous for its pristine beaches and wild life, you have to give in to the ancient cultural mythological stories when it comes to the history of ‘Masks’. Masks used in various dramatic rituals in Sri Lanka can be classified as demonic, animal-spirit and human figures. The significance and designs of mythological masks are associated with iconography of the folk religions of the historical period.

The Mask dance is said to have been a carefully crafted ritual with a history reaching far back into Sri Lanka’s pre-Buddhist past. The Lankans love their visual art and the ‘Mask’ is one highly coloured and revered piece of artifact used in religious ceremonies as well as entertainment. The masks are mainly made from a durable wood called ‘Kaduru’.  The wood is light and allows carvings to be made very easily.

 The ‘mask’ rules in most ceremonial and devotional performances. The use of masks in  rituals and ceremonies is a very ancient human practice across the world, although masks can also be worn for protection, in hunting, in sports, in feasts or in wars or simply used as ornamentation. Some ceremonial or decorative masks were not designed to be worn. Although the religious use of masks has waned, masks are used sometimes in drama therapy or psychotherapy.

If you ever go to Sri Lanka do not miss the ‘devil mask’ dancing which is generally performed with the motive of healing. These are also accompanied by drummers, to enhance the accompanying crazy steps and movements of dancers wearing the geometrically brightly coloured masks.

It is an extraordinary cultural phenomenon .Mask dancing and drama are mostly  attempts at invoking the supernatural. But the most elaborate masks are for drama. It is more like an opera, having a central theme and a series of episodes enacted by dances wearing masks of different sizes, culminating in the dramatic presentation of a story. 

Try and find a local Mask maker and see how well it is chiseled, crafted and painted. Each one is a master piece!

By hiding your face the mask allows you to play a totally different role, it gives you the liberty to assume another personality. It is symbolic and magical, anonymous and mysterious.Well when I danced the mask dance in Sri Lanka, I felt liberated; the mask did not hide my persona but accentuated my feeling s of freedom. 

Try one next time. 

Think of it, the Mardi
gras, the African cultures, South Indians and Chinese dragon mask dances all simply celebrate cultural well being!