Cooking with the Army

When I wake it takes me a few moments to remember where I am. Pushing my mosquito net aside, I watch the sun rise over the lagoon from my bed. Everything is completely still; the only sign of life, a silhouetted fisherman in a wooden canoe that silently glides past. I take it all in, determined to cement this moment to memory.

It is not every day that I wake up in an army camp in a foreign country. I’m in Vakarai, a small town about 60 kilometres north of Batticaloa — formerly a Tamil Tiger (LTTE) stronghold — with the 233 Brigade. Breathtakingly beautiful and serene, it’s hard to imagine that it was here, only a few years ago, that one of the bloodiest battles between the Sri Lankan Army and the Tamil Tigers took place. Strangely, the army runs a cashew nut nursery and I have come to Vakarai Camp to visit the nursery and learn how to cook cashew curry.