A Green Home Preparing for the worst in Jaffna as the economy collapses

1- A 24 year-old, who fell off a building 2 years after marriage (Top, Konesapuri).  Others in Thiriyai and Solai

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe declared on June 22 (Wednesday) that the country’s economy has “completely collapsed” as reported in the The Guardian. My wife Dushyanthi Hoole, a Professor of Chemistry, has been working on ‘green chemistry,’ designing large scale experiments for implementation at home to suit her distance education students at the Open University. Her passion continued as a Professor of Chemistry and later Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at Michigan State University. She was fortunate to work on President Barrack Obama’s project using the plentiful corn stalks of Michigan, turning them into ethanol to be mixed with regular petrol and the leftover used as animal feed or put in plastic bags where mushrooms grow in abundance. Collaborators in Coimbatore created jobs for the poor. Mexico mixes 80% ethanol with petrol. It is easy to repeat in Sri Lanka.

Ours was a regular home with a big carbon footprint; air-conditioners, a diesel van and a petrol scooter. An electric bread-maker turned out bread with different styles and flavours, and cakes too.  When my children were here, our electricity bills were too huge to be mentioned without embarrassment. Our food was excellent, but our
lifestyle irresponsible. 

Our warnings of impending doom came from my student, Amalendran Jesudasan, CEB’s Chief Engineer (Distribution and Maintenance, Northern Province). He informed us that they cannot function at present tariff rates and yet the Government will not allow raising tariffs. Despite belt-tightening talks with the IMF, we want everything free – “I want more” as Oliver Twist sang in Oliver. The doom is upon us as the PM announced. 
Ours now became a green home. It had to. We have stopped using our two motored vehicles except when I need to take Dushyanthi with me. I am back on my bicycle, a valued BSA bought at Rs. 435 (and now not available except as a Chinese Lumala at 10 times the price). My parents got it for me when I entered university in 1970. Bicycling has its hazards as well. I fell near the Nallur Kandasamy Kovil where the road is 6 inches above the ground. The wheel slipped. I smashed my shoulder and then my face. 

I refuse to stand in line for diesel or petrol. So as a once-for-all moral compromise I bought diesel from a friend who has a tractor. He as a farmer has the right to pump first. Poor man has 100 acres of land that he cannot plant for lack of fertilizer. So he lives off his diesel at Rs. 1000 a litre which he buys at Rs. 400. Our friendship meant my getting it at Rs. 600. My van is now reserved only for emergencies.

My jumping the fuel queue was a one-time error. I feel justified by the Government catering mainly to the rich. Exceptions for tourists and doctors lead to cheating. Medical personnel buy petrol for friends. A person married to a European sends his wife for petrol. From abroad we can withdraw dollars on our debit card. On a credit card we can buy tickets in dollars for jaunts abroad despite the claimed absence of dollars even for life-saving insulin. (To save For-Ex, I have switched to a new wonder drug called Invokana that reduces heart attacks and kidney failure, the main causes of death among  diabetics. I use my brother-in-law Indran’s doctor’s samples. For the first time, it is now available here as empagliflozin from Bangladesh).

Without gas, Dushyanthi has been managing to cook with her rice cooker. Her oven project got accelerated when her brother Padman came visiting and she had to give him better food than from our rice cooker. Ever the Green Chemist, she went for a home-oven in our yard – a grill on the right, oven on the left and a cooker in the middle that draws hot air from both sides to bake cakes, fry brinjals or heat curries. 

Her design includes a floor with broken glass between itself and the woodfire. Special mica-containing ‘fire bricks’ on top of the glass retain heat. She is now making activated charcoal from partially burnt coconut shells to replace firewood. Being a first attempt, it took more labour-time (6 days for 2 men and supervisor under Dushyanthi). It cost Rs. 60,000. 
There is real fear that CEB may have to shut down the way we want more of everything free. Should that happen, we cannot pump water to our overhead tank. While I can stand at the well and bathe, womenfolk cannot with their upper-class sensibilities intact. 

My jumping the fuel queue was a one-time error. I feel justified by the Government catering mainly to the rich. Exceptions for tourists and doctors lead to cheating. Medical personnel buy petrol for friends. A person married to a European sends his wife for petrol

I suspect the Government will continue to cater to the rich and ignore us rural folk – such as by releasing gas only for Colombo – favouring only its vote-bank. Democracy has failed.
 Investigating solar power, Chief Engineer Jesudasan designed the system to suit our home and helped get a cheaper deal with longer warranties from Micro PC systems for Rs. 2.8 million – a lot more than if I had acted just 4 months earlier, but cheaper by today’s prices. Dushyanthi can run her baking machine and 2 of our 4 ACs and lights. The perennial energy-saver, she however was determined to cook everything with this oven, despite all the gadgetry and solar power we have. So I am trying for an electric grill for the oven.
Conscious of our less fortunate neighbours’ needs, we asked trusted friends to commit $200 a month for a year to help them cope, particularly from the Trinco area where there is more destitution and from where people go to Mannar to be smuggled across to India, get caught, and are sent home to try again. People who responded positively include two of our children who gave $5000 each as a one-time donation, Professors Kiruba Sivasubramaniam and Murugesu Sivapalan, Dr. S. Jayakumaran and S. Srimahilkanthan, and brothers-in-law Indran and Wiji Asirwatham. 

Dushyanthi and I have kept donors few, so that there is absolute trust, and our plans are flexible. Friends Michael Jeyabalan (Thiriyai), Pilendran Kumar (Konesapuri) and Mohan Nagarajah (Trinco) have helped identify the truly destitute. Jesuit Father V. Yogeswaran’s Centre for Promotion and Protection of Human Rights helped identify women who are sole breadwinners to set up businesses for them with Rs. 70,000 each (sewing, chicks, tools for invalid husband). The residents of Solai were the most deserving. They lived off the jungles, especially bees’ honey. They were the constituents of Rajavarothayam Sampanthan whose political base is among such destitute persons. 
We specially ensure that both Hindus and Christians are helped. Saravanas Stores in Jaffna helped us make packages of Rs. 5000 and Rs. 7000 holding prices down even after they had risen – especially sugar and Anchor Milk. So too Sunflower oil which has stopped coming from its main sources, Israel and Ukraine. The Rs. 7000 pack comprised 10 kg rice (Rs. 2015), 5 kg flour (Rs.1200), 2 kg sugar (Rs. 450), 2 kg flour (Rs. 450), 250 g tea (Rs. 250), Life Buoy Soap (Rs.180), 2 pkts soy meat (Rs. 140), 2 kg dhal (Rs. 500), 1 pkt Sithalebbe balm (Rs. 102) 1 kg gram (Rs. 540), 1 litre coconut oil (Rs. 960), 1 kg potatoes (Rs. 190), 1 kg onions (Rs. 190) and 250 garlic (Rs. 125) for a total of Rs. 6977. 

As diesel ran out for my van, we switched some of the work to Jaffna and Thunukkai (where Shanthi Sriskantharajah, MP, looks after many affected by the war). Charities by different nuns in Mankulam (Sister Emeline) and Kilinochchi (Sister Luce Joseph) were also helped (Rs. 50,000 each). Reporter N. Lohathayalan identified people in Jaffna who were interdicted on their way to India; thereby keeping to the spirit of the project in easing people trying to flee Sri Lanka.

We have distributed for April and May and bought stuff for June (Muthu Samba at Rs. 220 that a generous trader cannot admit to having). I provide transport using my van, but now there is nothing for me to travel to Trinco in. A hired van will cost significantly. I need to confer with my donors who were promised distribution in Trinco for people with children. I have strayed from that. It is to have that understanding that I am not asking for donations as a public call. I will confine myself to the money I have from close friends that I can personally handle as promised. 
Therefore, we do not want new donors. Rather, we wish to stir people’s’ consciences into helping others as commanded to do as they would if they were in the same plight.

In the meantime, all should go for a green home. It is fun. It is the future.