Scott wearing shorts. If his pale skin didn't give him away, the shorts would...definitely not local. But then he hasn't quite got on board with the local garb which would be a sarong.





A beached dolphin. We had to scare the crows away to get this shot. There are so many crows here, during the day you always here them caw-ing and there have been more than a few time we feel like we're in the old Hitchcock movie "The Birds". They're very creepy but they eat the garbage so I guess they're good for something.



I took this shot out the window of the van on our drive out to the east coast. There are some beautiful mountains here and some really interesting looking rock. I think the potential for tourism here would be unbelievable if there was peace.









Scott on our beach. This shot was taken at about 5:30 pm.
The sun goes down and 6 and by 6:15 it is full dark.

















A traditional fishing boat on "our" beach.

Hi!
There's a new post below this one and the one titled "Hartels and getting caught in the rain". Scott wrote it several days ago so it posted in date order.
Cheers!
A

Hartels and getting caught in the rain

…things that interrupt the flow…

Yesterday was an interesting day here in Kalmunai. There was a Hartel called by the council of Tamils. A hartel is a general strike. Think of South Africa during apartheid and the forms of protest available to the black population. During a hartel, shops don’t open, people don’t go to work, and the city is quiet. You might think that this is a pretty simple concept; a general strike means that everything is closed and people don’t go to work, and the point is made. However, things are much more complex than that. Someone once said about Irish history that if you have three people in the room, you’ll have three different sides to the story, if you have three Irish people in the room, you’ll have 9 different version of the same story. It is like that here.

If you take the country as a whole, the majority are Buddhist Sinhalese. The Northern Province and the eastern province are majority Tamil. What I didn’t know when I got here is that Tamil refers to someone of Tamil ethnic background who is Hindu. There are Tamil speaking Muslims here but they see themselves as Muslim first, Tamil second. So…when we speak of the Tamil community we are not including the Muslims. The Christians seem to view religion and ethnicity as separate things so they consider themselves Tamil as well. And the Christians are in the minority so you don’t see Christian communities here. In Kalmunai, there is a Muslim district to the north and one to the south and the Hindu district is in the middle. (Our office and our homes are in the Hindu district.)

The Tamils have been here for centuries, before Sri Lanka was colonized by the Portuguese, this country was split up into several different kingdoms, some Sinhalese, some Tamil. The colonial powers, first Portugal, then Holland, then England, used the divide and conquer method. So the British, being the last colonial power here managed to subdue and rule the whole island, including every kingdom and province. When they left and independence was reached in 1948, the country was united and managed as one whole, by the Sinhalese majority. Religious and ethnic conflict has been part of life since. The Buddhist see it as their duty to protect Buddhism and though religious freedom and the freedom to express your religion through many forms is protected by the constitution, the constitution also states that Buddhism must be protected. So in reality, religious oppression is more the norm. (And no one religion is at fault in my opinion, it seems that converting from any religion to any other creates major fallout).

Also, since independence, the union of the north and east provinces has been an issue. It was instituted by presidential decree 17 years ago, on the condition of a referendum in each province and that the LTTE would lay down arms. And In 17 years referendums have not been held… (nor have the LTTE laid down arms; probably each side is waiting for the other). The Tamils hold a huge majority in the Northern Province, in the east however, they are not the majority but about 40%. So the Tamils want the 2 provinces joined as it would strengthen their hand and the Muslims don’t want to two joined as it would weaken them in the east.

So we have the Sinhalese and Tamils fighting, the Tamils and Muslims fighting, the Muslims fighting each other and the Tamils fighting each other, because even within the same ethnic communities there are strong differences of opinion over how issues should be settled.

So on Wednesday, a hartel was called by the Council of Tamils; it was followed by most Tamils, except for the Karuna faction, a dangerous offshoot of the LTTE that is now opposing everything the LTTE does. Karuna faction was threatening people who were supporting the hartel and even forcibly opening some shops. The Muslim shops were all open because the Muslims generally don’t support Tamil hartels and vice versa.

So how does this interrupt our day (besides the obvious)? Well, half our staff lives here and half live in Batticaloa. Those who live in Batty can’t get to work in Kalmunai because the buses aren’t running and also, we need to stay neutral, so…if we ask our staff to come to work, it looks like we’re supporting the government side, or Karuna faction. If we ask them to stay home, if looks like we’re supporting the Tamil side. So…the staff come to work wherever they can and then they go home. Needless to say, it’s pretty interesting.

The other thing that interrupts the flow of course is the rain. It has rained every day or night now for a week. This slows down construction. It also makes the market very muddy. It also provides for some interesting entertainment. The neighbour kids literally shower in the rain, and they look like they’re having a great time. Last night we were walking home from a coworkers place and got caught in the rain. It started spitting big fat drops, and then it let loose. We were soaked in minutes. Our walk home is about 10 mins and by the time we got home we looked like we’d been standing in our shower fully clothed. (Actually the shower pressure is less than the rain so it looked kind of like we’d been standing in a Sri Lankan downpour for ten minutes)

What do we actually do?

We have had a bunch of emails and comments from people asking “ What exactly are you doing?” I know that when we left we were pretty light on details and were eager to learn about our jobs for the next year. We obviously have a lot to learn about our roles here. I (Scott) am the Project Manager for all of the LIvelihood projects here on the East Coast. Generally what that means is that we are looking for initiatives that provide an income for the local folks. Many of these projects were livelihood recovery initiatives. Many of these people lost any way of generating an after the Tsunami. Currently we have 60 poultry farms that were started and we are monitoring. We also started 15 different agricultural projects where we helped farmers build fences, put in water pumps to generate crops that they can sell.

Currently we are in the process of opening five different sewing training centers. For each of these centers we have selected 24 women who will participate in four months of sewing instruction. Each group of 24 will have 2 teachers who have had success in sewing and marketing their handmade goods. If the women faithfully attend the classes they will receive a sewing kit which includes a sewing machine that is commonly used out here.

I remember that my grandma used to have one of these stored in her basement. In the future I will tell you some of the individual stories that these ladies have. It is unreal to hear them talk about how their lives have been changed because they now have a life skill and can help support themselves.

In the village of Amirthakali the women who have been selected have basically all been abandoned by their husbands and have had no source of income for some time. Many of these women are trying to take care of multiple kids. One woman has 8 kids and her husband is disabled. Needless to say the plight of these women would be bleak without some sort of intervention.

It is not only the women who have a story to tell labout their plight. One of the pastors who has helped us in this particular village has a tough story to tell. You only need to visit with him for a very short while to realize that something is not quite right. During one of the government advances he was taken and thought to be a tamil tiger. As a result he was detained and tortured for a period of six years. As a result, when you talk to him you can tell he has never fully recovered.

It really has been heart wrenching to hear stories from the average Sri Lankan. Their stories are about the Tsuami and its total devestation but also about a country that is suffering the ravages of civil war. It really is an honour to be able stand in the midst and try to bring about some change.

In the next couple of weeks we will launch several cottage businesses with folks as well as some goat raising projects. I will keep you posted and give you more details as they are fleshed out. Hopefully that gives you a little more insight into what we do.

Scott and I in the Vancouver airport, about to go through customs for Hong Kong. 1:30 AM



Sitting in classroom in Karataivu, a community our Teen Leadership program operates in. This was my first day on the east coast.









A woman in the market sorting produce











Fishing boats on the Kalmunai beach.

Rats, Cockroaches, Ants, Maggots and Geckos

These are just a few of my favorite things. All of these creatures have occupied our house for some period of time since our arrival. Ahhh the romantic ideal of living so close to the beach.

Well during our last caper with the rat our hero was valiantly batting a rat about the room. However, there was yet another prowling about. Happy to say to all of those concerned folks, particularly our moms that we have slain the latest rat.

We employed multiple rat traps, rat glue, bait and water buckets and poison. For the last couple of days we have been coming home and smelling death in the kitchen. At first Alanna thought I been cooking again but no. Then we thought we spilled the rat glue and that was what was so awful. We scoured the kitchen and scrubbed but to no avail. However today we were able move our stove and there was little rotting rat face covered in delicious maggots. Presently we are on a bleach campaign and hope to have everything ship shape my midday.

The sea wall in Colombo.














An elephant in a National Park on the way to Kalmunai. Its behind an electric fence to keep if off the road.














A cute girl I see on the way to the office.









Scott preparing for a nap on the long flight...isn't he cute?

A day in the life...

The day here starts early. Earlier for our neighbours than for us but still early. Well ok, its mostly just early for me. When was the last time I was in the office by 7:30?
We walk to the office in under 10 mins. The roads are mostly narrow red dirt lanes lined with colourful houses. Most of the homes in this area have painted cement walls around the yards and we are usually greeted at the gates by people who want to see and usually practice some english. It would be strange in Canada if someone came out their door and yelled "Hi! Where are you going" or "Hi, Hi, Hi, Hi, how old are you?" Today, 6 kids crammed into a trishaw pulled up and stopped to yell hi and shake our hands. (trishaws are three wheeled open sided golf-cart looking things that people travel in, and actually haul anything in. I've seen them packed full of bananas and I've seen one with a queen sized mattress on top.)
So. the walk to work is always entertaining and hot. I can't believe how hot it is here in the morning, by the time I arrive at the office I'm sweating because its also pretty humid. Rainy season arrived the other night with a huge electrical storm and its rained every night since. Today it started raining during the day too, so the umbrella I've been carrying for shade has become a little more essential.
We start our office day with devotions at 7:30 (one person shares something they're learning in their spiritual life) and then split up into our departments. Scott and his livelihood gang head up the outdoor stairs to their office and I stay down stairs with the other 7 members of the Children's project team. We have a quick meeting to debrief the day before and set goals and plan for the day. After the meeting, we do english lessons. I'm trying to help out my team with their english skills which is difficult because English is such a stupid language and I don't know how to teach it but fun because my team is so keen to learn and they have great skills already. (they understand just about everything which is good because my Tamil is limited to pretty basic phrases right now..)
Then they head off to prepare lessons for the afternoon programs or do some home visits. I spend time managing the budget, preparing training workshops for the team, planning future projects with the team supervisor Mathi and learning how to teach english. These are all things I've tried to work on this week, I'm sure there will be much more in the future. The Children's Project is very cool, its a leadership training program for teens (right up my alley) and its great to see how committed our staff team is to these kids. We work in Tsunami affected areas only so lots of these kids have lost a lot recently. The other day we had low attendance at a program because some of the kids were walking 2 kms to get drinking water (and then back of course). I've been able to visit all the sites now and its pretty different from taking kids skiing in K-country! The programs run from 3-4:30 just about every afternoon so the team puts in some long hours sometimes.
Scott's team spends most of their time in the field, supervising projects and investigating new possibilities. Their projects are created and effective. They've been working on small scale poultry operations, agriculture projects (water pumps, wells, crops), fencing projects (to keep the 'free range' cows out of the fields), and small business loans. The other day we attended the opening ceremony of a women's vocational training centre. These women are mostly widows, daughters of widows, orphans or abandoned women. Women such as this have no status here and it is very difficult for them to earn a living. The vocational sewing centres will give them the skills needed to sew complex items like shalwars (the long tunics and loose pants that most women here wear) and hopefully they will be able to support themselves and their children.


Our day always includes lunch somewhere. If we are in Kalmunai (which I usually am, then its a big lunch cooked by a really sweet lady named Esther who also happens to be a widow. She makes us rice, meat in curry or some other spicy sauce, veggies (tomatoe and onion salad or lady fingers), manioc, fresh coconut, fresh mango or papaya and hot sweet tea. After a meal like that its hard not to just want a nap and you can probably guess that we don't eat a lot in the evenings. When Scott's out on the field they stop somewhere for 'short eats'.
At 4.30 (ish) we head home, change and go for a walk. The beach is a good place to walk depending on which was you go, one way is cleaner than the other and sometime we go through the neighbourhoods, again saying hello and how are you every few seconds along the way. We could never manage an interesting discussion while walking through town. Then we come back about 5 ish, try to get some exercise (Scott's favourite is yoga for dummies), have cold showers (which is ok because the bathroom is smokin hot by that time of day), spend some quiet time, eat a small dinner and then email, read or watch season 1 of Lost! Our fellow ex-pats have a pretty good stock of dvds here.
Anyway, that's what our normal day is like. I need to sign off and get to the market before a meeting at work, so I'll say Kale Vanakum (good morning) to you and be off.
A note on the rats...we haven't seen any evidence since Scott's epic battle so we're calling it for Team Thompson. Our only problem now is that some of the rat glue we laid out spilled onto the floor and has fermented or something, so, its pretty stinky in our kitchen.
Take good care of yourselves and keep in touch. You can email us at thompson.alanna@gmail.com or thompsonsds@gmail.com
Cheers!

Bedbugs and Rats

Well before I get into the meat of the blog I thought I should just open up and let all the good folks at Bishop Pinkham know that I finally am rid of the bedbugs. I somehow managed to be the only person who sailed on the Pacific Swift that was able to successfully import them back to Calgary and was able to get them through customs and half way around the world. For the few days after we sailed I was getting about five or six fresh little itchy bites every night. It has taken until this last week to finally be rid of the bedbugs. It seems that the little suckers can’t take the searing heat like their dark skinned host can.

To replace my little friends I have some other creatures of the night, RATS. My first encounter came in the middle of the night as I was heading to the washroom to be ill. As I flicked on the light I saw this rat scurry for cover. I basically told the rat he could freely go about his business as long as he let me go about mine.

A few nights later I was feeling a little feistier and back to my normal self and bravely entered the lair of the Lanka rat. As soon as I heard him I locked the door, shut off the lights and went hunting for a reliable rat smacker. After securing the women and children I set about the slaying of the beast. As I re-entered the bathroom the rat tried to scurry back along the shower curtain and back out the hole from whence he came. I was worried that my one shot at killing him was about to vanish so I lunged at the rodent and wildly tried to tomahawk chop him. During one of my well placed thrusts I managed to successfully bat him across the room and into the toilet!! Ahh yes I could not have actually done that if I tried.

I quickly shut the lid and went about planning the next stage of this assault. I tried flushing him a few times but the legs of this beast were not match for the torrents of a toilet flush. I decided to launch the shock and awe campaign and utilized the age old tactic of flush and bash. This campaign almost met with disastrous results. The torrent of water, the spastic bashing and the panicked jumping of the rat almost resulted in me launching the rat back out of the toilet and back to freedom. After several flushes and lots of wild bashing I brought this calamitous affair to a halt and shut the lid to allow the troops to regroup.

At last, I opened the yawning mouth of the toilet and looked square into the eye of the beast and swore an oath that either he or I would die and that only one of us would prevail. All the while thoughts of Captain Ahab and his pursuit of Moby Dick flashed through my mind.

I lunged at the rat with my plank about ten or so times, water splashing everywhere, little ratty shrieking, Alanna laughing and Ahab mocking. Finally, nearly exhausted with effort I was able to inflict a fatal blow and the Leviathan sank below and was successfully flushed and seen nevermore.
Except … that about five minutes later as we danced and cheered as the exultant victors we discovered fresh rat crap in the kitchen. UUGGHHHH!!

We have set multiple traps and one of the locals had me purchase rat glue. The idea is that you set out some bait and glue on a board. The rat gets caught in the glue and then in the morning you get to bash his brains in. Well I guess we will just see how the evening goes. Fun in Sri Lanka

Kalmunai -

We are now in our place in Kalmunai and really looking forward to unpacking. It's been a long time living out of our duffel bags and our car! Unpacking here is a little more complex than in Canada though. One of the realities of life is that there are tiny tiny ants that get into all your food if its not completely sealed...and we have a rat in our bathroom. We are really very lucky though, that stuff is a very minor deal and really the house is great. We're a block from the beach here though again, its never the way it sounds or the way you're probably imagining. The beach, though beautiful is covered in garbage and rotting fish so its a bit smelly. And also the ocean is a place of work not of recreation necessarily, and I'm not sure how much fear is left over from the Tsunami. It's awful to realize how much a part of life it is here, when we feel like it was a long time ago.
People are still living in temporary shelters and refugee camps and they are not dealing only with trauma, they are also living through a long standing war. So...things don't change very quickly as there is always some security risk to moving goods around and the government works pretty slowly. (As I suppose in other places)
This post is supposed to be about the children though, who are so great! I've met a lot of them now on our childrens programs and they are so excited about everything. They love to meet foreigners (and they've met a lot as there are many NGOs here). They come running up to me to practice their English which consists of Hello, how are you, and what's your name?. They know the appropriate responses too. And then, I find myself surrounded my a group of children with the most beautiful eyes watching me, waiting for me to say something. So, I decided to learn a little Tamil. I learned "chair" and "table" and then what I thought was "hot" and "cold". When you learn via hand jestures, things can get confusing, so I really didn't learn hot and cold I learned "sweaty" and cold! Nonetheless we had fun, I think I will spend a lot of time smiling and nodding for awhile. People are so pleased here when you attempt their language and they get to laugh at me trying.
We will post more about Kalmunai and our place soon. We've really been busy as there's no easy pace here at SP so I feel like I've learned a lot even though there's so so much more to learn and it's hard to post things in ways that make sense to you guys but we'll try. I guess this way you'll get a sense of how we are processing our experiences as they make their way to thr front of our minds and then onto this blog.

We love you and miss you all.

Colombo!

What a great country! So far we love it here in Sri Lanka, the people are the friendliest people anywhere. English is widely spoken in Colombo so we have had an easy time getting around. Everyone smiles at us and greets us in English. Even in the big city, everyone greets you when you pass on the street. It seems that many people want to practice. Yesterday we were in a park and two little girls came right up to me and said "What's your name" and then "how are you?" and then (pointing at Scott) "What's the boy name?"

We arrived here no problem on Friday night, all our luggage arrived as well and we got through customs no problem. They didn't even want to look in our bags or x-ray them, just looked at our passports and waved us through. Ken and Miriam met us at the airport. Ken is the country director here for SP. They are on their way back to Canada and we've been staying with them the last couple of days. They've shown us all around the city and are taking care of us really well. We've already been to some stunning places here, though I could never find my way back except for in a trishaw.

A trishaw is a three wheeled taxi, open on both sides that is driven with incredible skill. The traffic here is like boarder cross. Big trucks, bicycles, motorbikes, trishaws and pedestrians weave around each other and seem to be performing some incredible and unknown dance with very fluid rules. One of the rules seems to be (quite literally) the biggest, fastest guy has the right of way! I never know whether the pedestrian will stop and the trishaw will go flying past inches away, or whether the trishaw will slow down and let the pedestrian walk in front. Let me tell you though, if you tried any of the stunts that are regularly pulled here in Calgary, you'd be inciting some major road rage.

My Saturday was spent shopping for books for the Children's project in a great bookstore (English and Tamil). We bought probably 50 books that morning and paid about $50. I waws amazed at the variety of English books available, everything from Advanced Calculas to Coles notes for Henry IV. We spent the afternoon touring some of the great sites in the city. We went down to the Galle face hotel and Galle face green. The hotel is the most beautiful hotel I've ever seen, it's a remnant of the British colonial days and we stopped to have tea in the open air restaurant. check out www.gallefacehotel.com. We had tea on the verandah restaurant. We were looking out at the ocean, and palm trees. On the sea wall, built as a ladies promenade, we discovered what are locally known as romantic mushrooms. (nothing to do with eating questionable substances) Many local carry umbellas to keep the sun off and at Galle face green you'll see many couples sitting on benches or on the steps with the umbrellas pulled right down over them. you can only see 2 sets of legs snuggled up close protruding under the umbrella canopy. An interesting way to get privacy!

In the evening there was a farewell party for Ken and Miriam at the SP office. It was beautifully catered and we sat outside in the courtyard and ate delicious western and Sri Lankan food. We got to meet many of our new colleagues and had so much fun. Scott and I have already learned that certain east coast staff will tell us anything to see what we believe. (We are waiting to be issued bullet proof vests and dog tags, which we only get once we memorize the entire Tamil dictionary!)

Today we went to church at the Scot's Presbyterian Kirk, what a diverse congregation, the service was in English and there are people attending from every continent I'm sure. We then looked around a local grocery store and picked up necessities like pillows and sheets. We also went to a stunning art gallery and cafe to look in the shop. This place is so beautiful. I can't descibe it all and won't be able to put up photos for a couple of days, but I'll describe just one part. We walked through a stone courtyard past the ubiquitous security guards into a narrow entrance way. Facing us was a long, narrow pool of water edged by 6 stone columns. In the pool were three bunches of beautiful purple flowers perfectly round and evenly spaced, and big dark fish swimming around. Natural light streamed in from somewhere above. When you all come to visit us, we will take you there!

Well, I see I'm going to have to post by topic in the future, there's no way I can describe everything in one post or you'll stop reading after the 11th paragraph! For now, let's just say that we are very thrilled to be here, everyone we've met has been so warm and welcoming and Colombo is indescribable. I can't wait for the drive across the country on Tuesday!

Hong Kong,
Well, we're here in very smoggy Hong Kong. 13 hours in a plane, endless night...does anyone know where Thursday went?
We left Calgary at 10:30 local time, and 14 hours of flying with 9 hours in airports puts us at 1:00 pm Hong Kong time. My brain feels as smoggy as my view right now so I'm certainly not doing the math!
The Hong Kong airport is so huge! Scott and I walked for about 45 mins when we got off the plane, just to stretch our legs. From one end of the airport to the other and back! The whole airport is a human made island so flying in over the South China Sea made it seem like we were going to land right in the sea. My limited view out the tiny window was of only water, huge, huge ships, mountainous jungly islands dimly seen through the smog and then, when I thought we couldn't get any lower, the airstrip appeared below.
With 5 hours here, we really wanted to get into the city but changed our minds quickly when Scott fell fast asleep within 1 min of laying down on some airport chairs. We really have only slept about 4 hours in the last 24 and our bodies have no idea what time it should be.

Will post again when we get to Sri Lanka. Here's hoping the photocopied fax of our visa gets us into the country!

Cheers
Alanna

Vancouver airport, 2:20 am, about to board a 13+ hour flight with Scott, the squirmiest human alive. Can't wait to sleep.
A

Hey there Folks!

Wow, this summer really has been quite the whirlwind and we had a pile of adventures already. We were so fortunate this summer to spend a ton of time with family and friends and just have a chance to hang out before we take off. One of the biggest adventures of course was having a chance to summit Mount Columbia which is the highest peak in Alberta and sits at about 12,200 feet. As a few of the pictures demonstrate it really was incredible way to finish off our summer mountaineering season. We were able to climb with a really incredible group of people and were the first and probably the only party to successfully summit this year so it really was quite exciting.

From the mountain tops we went to the holy land and were able to cheer on Canada's team to victory. As you can see we are trying to start my niece off at a young age.

Anyways, we are so excited to be able to step out into real need and are thrilled to move from the talking stage to the action stage. We really have been fortunate with the great friends, students and co workers who have enriched our time in Calgary and we look forward to next stage of life and hope you will track with us as we learn and are challenged.

Scott