BIO:My name is Ingrid Fischer and I am on the way to Uganda this week to take up my next assignment with the Canadian Co-operative Association (CCA). We help communities in far-flung corners of the globe break free of poverty using the credit unions and co-operative enterprises they create.

My take: As I pack my bags I leave behind four years of effort helping Sri Lankans piece their lives back together amidst the backdrop of disaster and war. In 2004, tsunami waves washed lifetimes of effort away in just 20 minutes.

Our mission was to mobilize Sri Lanka's credit-union members to replace their buildings and lost records, create jobs and micro-businesses, and build homes, water and sanitary systems. The work was dangerous in remote, rural areas where checkpoints, curfews, landmines and violence were a constant threat.

The tsunami no longer dominates the news headlines. The war is over and the world has moved on to other events in other places. But our work continues. Many of the 250,000 people now in the IDP (internally displaced persons) camps are also tsunami survivors. Our association, with funding from the Canadian Red Cross, credit unions and individual Canadians, continues to work with SANASA, the longstanding Sri Lankan credit union movement, to bring services to recovering communities and into refugee camps in war-torn northern areas of the country. To learn more about CCA and its work in Sri Lanka visit www.coopscanada.coop

Memories of people and events in Sri Lanka are with me as I prepare for my flight to Africa -- memories of long days working, and the even longer days getting to and back from work.

As our team drove north from Kalmunai and Batticaloa on the east coast of Sri Lanka on a bright sunny morning in November 2006, I could feel the tension in the car rising. My Tamil, Sinhalese and Muslim colleagues peered hesitantly through the windows. We passed through heavily armed camps, one after another -- TMVP, LTTE, EDP -- acronyms for militant Tamil groups, all characterized by an amazing collection of deadly looking weaponry, much of it wielded by men who looked too young to be trusted with BB guns. Wedged between the militant camps were equally armed and justifiably nervous government forces. The atmosphere in the car relaxed as we left the main road and pulled into a makeshift office to meet members of the Sri Lanka credit union movement who were helping us to help themselves build toilets, wells and houses after the 2004 tsunami.

Not far into the meeting, one of the village co-ordinators leaned forward and whispered, "Madame, there's been a bomb blast. A ministers' convoy has been attacked. The minister is OK, but some of his bodyguards have been hurt."

I'd been in Sri Lanka long enough to know that early reports of violence were often confused and that if you weren't right on the scene, you likely weren't in danger. So we carried on. Five minutes later, the chairman of the Peoples Bank called.

"You have to get out of there before there's a curfew and they close the roads," he said. "A chopper carrying an international diplomatic delegation, including the American, Italian and German ambassadors and the representative of the European Parliament, has been fired on, and the Italian and German ambassadors have been hurt."

Uh-oh ... definitely time to move -- but it was too late. The roads were already closed. So we did a site inspection of the work that had been completed in the area, and by the time we were finished, the roads were cleared.
On our way back, we fiddled with the radio. In the space of an hour, the incident was no longer breaking news. When we did finally catch a bulletin, it was clear that only one incident had occurred, and it was the attack on the diplomatic delegation. Our colleagues, glad to be back home in the relative calm of Kalmunai (a calm that would last only a few more weeks), waved a cheery goodbye as we contemplated the long trip back to Colombo.

We decided to take the recently reopened road around Lake Victoria. Massive earth slides following the spring monsoons had closed the road from June. We stared drop-jawed at the incredible destruction caused by boulders the size of houses ripping down the steep slopes.

Our narrow, two-lane road negotiated its way between a cliff wall on one side and a drop to oblivion on the other. Our wondering comments were interrupted by the appearance of a Road Development Authority flatbed truck crammed with workers yelling and making excited hand gestures, pleading us to turn around, post-haste. The driver did a quick U turn, and then to my surprise started reversing up the road to continue in the same direction. The RDA workers hopped off the truck and ran after us -- I thought to witness the spectacle of us plunging off the cliff as a new hole opened in the road. Surely that was the cause of all this excitement, a new earth slide.

To my amazement, we rounded a corner not be confronted with trembling earth but by a huge wild bull elephant sauntering toward us, his lumbering figure blocking both lanes of the narrow road. Very sure of his position in the universe, he was out for a twilight stroll and woe betide anyone who got in his way. For 10 minutes he shepherded a growing procession of vehicles down the road until he saw his path into the jungle and disappeared without a backward glance.

Tigers in the morning, elephants in the evening ... war is beastly.

-- Ingrid Fischer, Africa Regional Director, Canadian Co-operative Association