Description
Little Rahmi from Bammanna sounds as innocent as he looks. Having lived with his Mother, Father, two sisters and brother; he said that he joined GLH because his mother was going abroad.
Rahmi speaks to me softly in some very basic Sinhalese and fluent Tamil. On going to school, he says that his favorite subject is Tamil and he loves to play cricket.
Clearly someone who valued friendship, he rattled off the names of his friends – Husni nana, Nilam nana, Atheek, Rafi, Osama, Ismathullah – both from GLH and elsewhere.
‘It is good here’, he repeats the now common refrain. “Is it really?”, I probe. He giggles a bit on my probing, but answers ‘Yes’, sincerely. I took the opportunity to snap his picture, probably the most candid of the lot. Rahmi likes to study and would one day like to become a Doctor.
[The mother later told me that his records indicate Rahmi’s father has passed away, and that he may have been referring to another member of his family as Father.]
