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Fragments of an autobiography - Part V-By Prof. P.G. Cooray
Desert nights
We went to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia in 1973, and were given a nice house on the Airport Road, with a big garden in front and behind, but which had been badly neglected by the previous occupants. They had even allowed the stewards to run a bar in their quarters behind the house, and for the first few days we had people coming up our drive with bottles in their hands looking for the bar - a misconception we soon corrected! My job was an important, but taxing one, as I had to work with Jim Fisher, who came from one of the mining companies in S. Africa, in setting up the new School of Mines, with its three departments of Geology, Mining and Mining Engineering.

My experience in Nigeria now stood me in good stead in drawing up the programmes for Geology. Here, too, I took the students on many field trips, including to the Copper Belt where we saw the largest open-cast mines in the world, and I travelled to many parts of Zambia, including to the north, where I saw ingneous-looking 'charnockites', similar to those I had seen in Nigeria. We also visited Victoria Falls, the local name of which is "Musi-o- tunya" meaning "the smoke that thunders." Among the staff I recruited were Ananda Gunatilaka from Sri Lanka, now retired and living in Gangodawila, after having served with distinction in Kuwait and Oman; Colin Ramsay, a brilliant geologist who welcomed me to Saudi Arabia when we moved there in 1978, and is now farming in Australia; and Andy Lane, still teaching in the UK. We occupied temporary building in the first three years, and then moved into a new School of Mines Buildings on the campus in 1977. When the new School was to be opened by President Kaunda, the authorities asked me to give up my Deanship so that they could appoint a Zambian to the post - which I did. The years in Zambia were fairly uneventful, and when my contract was over in 1978, I left Zambia and we went to London where we stayed with our daughter Shantini and her husband.

Saudi Arabia, 1978-1986
In 1976 I had met Dr. Ahmed Al Shanthi in Sydney at the International Geological Congress being held there, and when I gave up my post in Zambia I wrote to him about the possibility of a position in Jeddah. After many months I had a letter appointing me as Professor of Geology in King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, whose immediate job was to edit a series of volumes on geology being published by the university and printed by Pergamon Press in Oxford. After that was over I shifted to teaching, where again I laid stress on field work and took the students on many excursions to look at the interesting geology of the western part of the country. We made many friends among the geologists during those years, among whom were John Roobol, who has remained a close friend to this day, and Hand Schellekens, and Yoop Moltzer, who taught at Peradeniya University for a couple of years under the UNESCO scheme, and recently visited us at Mahakanda.

One memorable experience of those years was a field trip with Dr. Basahel and Norman Jackson into the Saudi Arabian desert to collect samples which Norman worked on. We travelled in two Land Rovers, camped in the desert at night, and I slept in a sleeping bag inside one of the vehicles, as it was too cold to sleep outside! We saw some fantastic geology and desert scenery, and every night we sat around the camp fire drinking tea and talking. I shall never forget that experience and I have a large number of colour slides to remind me of it if ever I forget. One day we killed a sheep, Basahel slaughtered it and hung it upside down so that all the blood could drain out, and we ate it for the next few days. On those occasions he made me sit on his left. and as is the Arab custom, fed me with the choicest bits of lamb. In 1980, having spent our holidays in Sri Lanka with friends or relatives, or in a Guest House on Flower Road, we decided it was time we bought a house of our own. We wanted to live in the hills, preferably close to Peradeniya University, which at that time had the only department of geology, and we wanted a bungalow with a front lawn and a pleasant view from it. Fortunately, we found just what we wanted at Mahakanda, situated on the back slopes of the Hantane Range, with a superb, uninterrupted view of the Mahaweli Valley and Mt. Peacock in the distance, from a front lawn bounded by a hedge of bouganvillea shrubs. Without hesitation we went down to the campus and closed the deal with Prof. Shelton Kodikkara over a handshake, and this has been our home ever since.

Mr. Fred de Silva and his wife Esme, a cousin of Joan's kept an eye on the house while we were away, and in 1983 we brought our two mothers from Colombo to live in our home, with someone to look after them. We also had a telephone installed, which was a necessity.

1985 was an eventful and busy year for us, as it involved much travelling. We came to Mahakanda for a short vacation, then to London in July for the birth of our grandson Jamie, back to London in September for his christening, and then to Sri Lanka in December when my mother died, at the age of 95. She was fit and sprightly, until the very end, and passed away very peacefully. Her remains were cremated in Mahaiyawa and, according to her wishes, we scattered her ashes on the waters of the Mahaweli Ganga. Life in Jeddah was very safe and very comfortable, as every place was air-conditioned and we enjoyed going to the 'souk' at nights to do our shopping. In 1983 my contract with the university ended, and I was then employed by a Canadian firm to work in the Directorate General of Mineral Resources (DGMR) as one of a team of expatriates. My designation was Senior Editor, whose job it was to edit the many reports on work done by the geologists, both local and foreign. I worked in that capacity until 1986, but in those three years had to enter hospital on three occasions, in 1984 for a myocardial infraction, i.e. a slight heart attack, when I gave up overnight an over 50-year smoking habit, and in 1985 when I was in the Intensive Care Unit for an internal bleeding problem. All my hospital expenses were covered by the company, but they said they were unable to continue employing me on those terms, so I gave up my job and we returned to Sri Lanka that year.
To be continued

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