Culture

We had a great weekend exploring the country. Scott and I along with Abe and Edith and Carter (fellow SP staff) spent the weekend at Sigiriya and Dambulla. Both are really incredible cultural sites. Sigiriya is an archeological site which dates from the 4^th century BC. It’s a 200 m chunk of rock that sticks up out of the surrounding hills. Apparently it’s the magma plug of an ancient volcano which has all eroded away. That’s not hard to imagine is it?

Well around this rock is an ancient city and on top and half way up you find the remains of a palace structure. Accepted scholarly thought tells us that it’s an ancient king’s palace though there’s some debate about whether or not it was always a Buddhist monastery and never a palace. Our guide told us it was a Buddhist monastery, then a palace, then a monastery again. (I think he must have some Canadian roots somewhere)

In any case, we started out walking down this straight path that went across the inner moat and through first the water gardens, then the boulder gardens, then the terrace gardens. The water gardens apparently were symmetrical though only one side of the garden has been excavated. It was really neat to see the contrast between the two sides. And the amazing technology that caused small fountains to bubble up just through a gravity feed was just so amazing! (Stuck for words I guess). The boulder gardens were very cool; there is something about big rocks poking out of the landscape that I love. It reminded me a bit of the elephant rocks above Chester Lake in K-country. The terrace gardens were my favorite I think because there were all these cool, moss covered stairs and little alcoves.

On the way up we saw the famous Sigiriya frescos which are possibly representations of the kings 500 concubines or possibly celestial nymphs. One thing I found really interesting was there were representations of different races among the painted women. Another interesting thing is that though it appears that the women are topless, they are apparently wearing transparent blouses. (You have to look really hard to see the blouses; some of us had to look harder than others…) They are really beautiful paintings and the colours have lasted so well. I was very impressed. I was also impressed with the vision of the first person who saw Sigiriya rock and thought “I bet I can put a castle up there.” Actually it was probably more like “I bet my 5000 slaves can put a castle up there” but it still took some vision, the rock is very foreboding. Our guide told us that in order to paint the frescoes, the workers erected bamboo scaffolding! I can’t imagine a bamboo scaffold being very sturdy but that’s what they used. In some places they were able to build walls along ledges to protect them, and in a lot of other places, they chiseled steps into the rock. (One wall, called the mirror wall because of its polished sheen is still standing and in fact looks better than some of the walls here in Kalmunai!)

The chiseled steps were no less amazing than the mirror wall. The king of course never climbed these steps because he was always carried to the top. Scott made a comment half way up that he was sure glad he hadn’t had to climb up the rock carrying a king but of course I carried him most of the way up so I know how those poor slaves felt. I was glad however that it wasn’t an especially hot day.

One of the most interesting things about the day was trying to fight off the gift sellers. There are men who hang around the rock looking to sell tourists things. Really beautiful things actually, wood carvings and tiny gift boxes, but it’s very difficult to say no! They zeroed in on me immediately, (obviously not being able to sense my iron will) and tried their best. I had said to Scott at the beginning of the day that I was only willing to buy one thing which was a very cool hand carved magic box that looks like a book. (It’s magic because you can hide things in it and it fits together like a puzzle). Anyways, I knew I wanted one of these, so I bartered with a guy for a while and got him down to half his asking price (which I was told by our driver was still too much!). Anyways, once I had bought that one thing, the other sellers thought I was weak so they attacked! Some of them even ran ahead (and probably used secret passage ways) to ambush me. They preyed upon every possible weakness, one guy even told me that my husband had said he really wanted this particular carving, but I held firm. (This was not difficult because of my iron will.) I then had to make it past all the booths at the end of the trip (right before the parking lot of course). But I had discovered a trick. Keep your head down and don’t make eye contact, and definitely don’t show interest in anything! No browsing here. It’s too bad actually because the wood carving is really incredible and I would have enjoyed looking at it in detail.

After our visit to Sigiriya, we drove over to Dambulla to see the famous temple caves. There are four (or five) caves up high in the side of the hill that are filled with statues of the Buddha and of Buddhist monks. We climbed up many steps to get there, entertained all the way by the monkeys who were everywhere. We were also entertained by the beggars sitting on the steps who know a couple of English words “Hello” and “Money”. I learned a lesson here, and that is to always have small bills handy at these sites. I felt really bad not being able to help, especially since most of the beggars were disabled in some way. And it’s not like you can give one of them a larger sum and ask them to share with all the rest. Anyways, lesson learned.

The caves were really amazing; it was hard to imagine that we were actually in caves because the outside has been so built up. Dambulla is famous for the huge reclining Buddhas in the caves. I guess the monks who built the statues wanted to build large ones but the caves were too short to have a large Buddha standing up, so they made them reclining. I think these are the only reclining Buddhas in the world.

After Dambulla we spent some time sitting around the pool relaxing before going on our elephant safari! There are not as many elephants around during rainy season, the guides told us we wouldn’t see 300 elephants, but I though, who need to see 300 elephants? Surely a few dozen would be enough! Well we ended up seeing about 15 elephants during the safari and I’m happy to say that my years of spotting wildlife off the bus served me well here, as I spotted the first two elephants. They were very far off the road and we could only make out some large brown movement but still…!

We didn’t see any for the first hour of the safari, but it was great to be out in the wilderness away from roads and people. We drove through these incredible grasslands on rutted jeep tracks in our open top jeep looking for elephants and enjoying all the space. We finally found some elephants that were close to us near the end of the safari and we saw a couple of family groups with little baby elephants. Very cool.

We also enjoyed the hotel’s Ayurvedic spa; I’ve included a photo of Scott after his herbal head cap treatment. (I think we mostly enjoyed the spa because the prices are so great…less than a quarter of what it would cost back home…I guess that’s my Scottish blood coming out? But it’s much easier to relax during a massage when you’re not thinking about how much it costs the whole time!)

So we had a great weekend, though we were pretty tired when we came home. This weekend is a long weekend for our national staff because of the full moon holiday. We have to go to Colombo for Scott to check out some livelihood projects that are going on over on the west coast. I think the next few weeks will go very quickly. And before we know it we’ll be in Spain! We’re going there for a week to meet up with our friends Sean and Karen Miller who are living in Aberdeen, Scotland for a year. We’re really looking forward to that, as I think we’ll be a little homesick at Christmas time. Especially Scott, he gets so nostalgic about the candlelight services, snow, carol signing, buying gifts, etc, etc, etc…you know how sentimental he is! (Ok, maybe that’s more me, but we will both miss being with family and friends and in the snow!)

A little update on the and situation, I think we’re winning. The key apparently is keeping a spotless kitchen. This is not difficult for me at all as I have always kept a spotless kitchen. But seriously, we have to be so vigilant, not a speck of sugar on the counter tops and we have to take out the garbage every day…but this is a small price to pay for not sacrificing our favourite foods. By the way, if you get ants in your granola, just put it in a plastic bag in the fridge, they will all crawl to the top of the bag and die. All nicely in one spot so they are easy to fish out. Then you can enjoy your (mostly) ant-free granola! We got a lot of good advice on the last blog entry, thank you to all who contributed. I really don’t know why I didn’t think to just put them back outside! That is such a simple solution, thanks Tegan! Oh and apparently they can’t get into (or out of for that matter…) a properly sealed, whole-free Ziploc bag!

Cheers!

Alanna

Things ants can get into...

Everything in my kitchen! End of blog.

I could leave it there but you deserve to know the courageous battle we're fighting over here. You thought the rats were bad enough, but that one has been called in favour of the Thompsons. The battle of the ants however, continues. And it continues to be won by the ants. Mind you they have 8 budzillion players on their team and we have only us two. Strong, brave, intelligent but still only two. And the ants are vigilant and incessant, we have to go to work during the day and while we are gone, they strike. They seem to strike with complete randomness and I think it's one of their tactics to confuse us (it's working!) There will be a sealed container of cookies on the shelf for 2 weeks, and then all of a sudden one day, there will be thousands of ants swarming to it, like it just arrived or something! Sometimes when I'm testing out a new container to see if it will keep them out, I will have success for a few days, and then, just as I'm starting to relax...they strike! Nothing can keep them out!

They seem to especially like sweet things and meat. They do a great job on any dead bug carcass that happens to be laying around. I tested it the other day and left a huge dead spider on the floor. This spider was the size of a nickel. Well, within the day and that night they had reduced it to 8 lonely legs (not much meat on a spider leg apparently). How they find things I have no idea but find them they do. It's really quite neat to watch them going constantly back and forth from wherever it is they come from to the prize of the day. They move in an ant trail, both directions at once and they don't seem to suffer any kind of ant-trail rage. It's fascinating, in a kind of defeating "How can I ever win this battle against so many ants" kind of way.

So here is a list of things they have succeeded in getting into.

Any and all "airtight" containers except properly sealed Tupperware

Glass bottles of honey with metal screw-top lids

My homemade granola! (which they ignored for 3 days to lull me into complacency)


A sealed jar of peanut butter (not even opened for the first time)

A package of ichiban, also unopened


Un-beleivable! They are really, really small, but don't let that fool you, they are undoubtedly our toughest enemy to date.

Flight!

No, not like running away, as in fleeing..like fleeing the country or fleeing the law. (As you might imagine based on the last blog entry!)
Rather, a flight from Colombo to Ampara on a very small plane. Because we ended up in Colombo this weekend (which turned into a more like a week) we were able to time our return to the east coast with the arrival of Don Acker from SP USA. Don is here to help out the permanent housing project and can only be here for a couple of days. So instead of having him spend two out of four days driving back and forth from the east coast, he and Carter our country director decided to fly. Now, there are no flights from Colombo to Ampara unless you charter one. And if you charter a flight, you have to guarantee 4 out of the 8 possible seats. And since you have to pay for these seats whether or not you use them, you might as well use them. So, because we were hanging around in Colombo, and there are two of us and two extra seats…well you can do the math. And the math works out to equal a one and a half hour flight instead of a 9.5 hour drive!

Needless to say we were very excited. (Scott says “I’m so pumped right now!”) The drive out to Colombo last week was beautiful but so long, and this flight was really incredible. We flew low over the land and once again I am stunned by the beauty of this country! It’s so green, and really very wild. It was cool to see from above how much wilderness there is. Most of the population is along the west and south coast, with a thin strip of populated areas on the east coast. I think the north is very populated as well. Throughout the middle of the country there are small settlements scattered here and there and miles and miles of empty wild country…and mountains.

As we flew towards the mountains there were thin patchy clouds below us and I was glued to the window, watching the mountains emerge out of this sea of clouds. It was a very misty, ethereal scene and I realized about half way through that my neck was sore from staring out the window beside me. (I got to sit in the cockpit or I got to “fly right seat” in flying lingo). I took so many photos, many of which ended up being of the reflection of my hand in the window, but as you can see, some of them turned out.

The flight itself was uneventful but the preparations were another story. First of all, there was an island wide power outage the night before so we packed up in the dark, then got up at 4 to make it to the airport by 6:00. When we got there, we had a very helpful porter who grabbed our stuff and then tried to get us in line to check in. He didn’t speak very much English (and we don’t speak any Sinhalese) so he didn’t understand that we were there for a domestic flight. I don’t think anyone other than the military and NGOs fly domestically here, so his confusion is understandable. Then, we figured out where to go, and went to check in. The girl at the counter, wearing a beautiful red saree (her uniform) handed us boarding passes and then asked us to follow her, we went back to where we had just been where she asked us to wait. So we did, but the people at Etihad airlines didn’t like that we were blocking their line, so we moved. Then the attendant weighed our luggage and sent it somewhere…then we followed her back to the airstrip (walking right through the customs lines which definitely confused all the customs people.) She led us outside and told us we could get on this bus that was parked there. A full-fledged airport bus for the four of us. The bus took us to the plane where we met the pilot and boarded the plane. Then we realized that our luggage hadn’t quite made it, which really confused the pilot. So…a separate luggage trolley showed up with our luggage delivery and we were ready to go. So all in all, we were helped by two airline attendants, one pilot, two luggage delivery boys, a bus driver, two security guards, and 3 other random airport people. What service!

We probably won’t be doing that again while we’re here so we sure appreciated the chance to fly across this stunning country.

Homeless, jobless, illegal aliens and deportees

This really has been a year like no other for us. All of the above have occurred during the last few months. I am not sure all of those are good things to list on your resume. Illegal aliens and deportees you might ask? Well the whole story is rather labyrinthian so I will give you the general gist.

Upon entry here in Sri Lanka a customs agent stamped our passport as a tourist visa and not an entry visa. We of course did not notice and continued on in our oblivious and happy manner. This last week the SP office contacted us in a bit of a panic because the tourist visa had expired and technically we were living illegally in Sri Lanka. Yes we really are a dark nefarious couple with mischievous agendas. Not really but… So we took the 10 hour drive to Colombo to meet with custom officials to beg forgiveness and explain the whole myriad of circumstances that surrounded our visa issues. For the first day we were politely told that we were graciously being given clemency for our oversights but it was understood that we would need to leave the country in the next two weeks.

This sent all of our local and amazing staff scrambling to find alternatives and solutions. All the offices in Canada, US and Sri Lanka were involved. It really was a bit of a rollercoaster as our status in the country changed by the minute. One minute we were leaving in two months the next minute we were leaving in 24 hours and yet the next we were staying for 12 months. All of those were firm possibilities within hours of each other.

In scheming solutions there were discussions about sending us to India or Pakistan for a few weeks to work while we resubmitted our paperwork. There was even talk that eventually we would be deported to the embassy in Ottawa to have our passports stamped and then be immediately flown back. UGHHHH We all know that keeping that Alanna trapped on a plane for 48 hours would be ugly. You all know hyper she is. I of course could handle it but she would struggle.

Then on a bit of a whim Ramani (local staff) said she would just try a last ditch attempt. Ramani was able to arrange a conversation with the Director of Ministry of Internal Administration. This gentleman liked Ramani, SP and the work we are doing and the Director personally called the Immigration Controller to get the approval. As a result we have been granted a residence visa. We were told that this was quite the exception and that several other NGO’s had been rejected for this same thing this very week. WOW!! It really is incredible. One might even suggest it was supernatural. Well, at least we see it that way.

All this to say we are pleased to be off the persona non grata list, able to get back to work and are able to avoid gulags and deportation to far flung cold places.

Scott

What is Normal?

One of the great things about living overseas in a country such as this is that almost everything is an adventure. What is normal here can seem quite peculiar to those of you back in Canada. A couple of things quickly come to mind. Yesterday we only had to walk about three blocks but during the heaviest rain I have encountered. It was raining so hard that my umbrella was actually imploding under the weight of the water. We waded in the streets in water up to our knees. I then noticed that there were several churning pockets of water that were bubbling up from the street. It was then we realized that all of the sewers were backing up and we were walking through rain water liberally sprinkled with raw sewage. MMMMMMM. Don’t that make you feel clean all over.

Another example would be our attempt on Sunday to get to church. Now normally that would be a fairly routine task but not so on this occasion. What normally would take about 5 minutes to drive took closer to 50 minutes. On our way we noticed an inordinate number of soldiers, guards and generally menacing looking people with guns patrolling the streets. Our keen observatory skills also had us notice that a multitude of streets were blocked off with buses, military vehicles, police and menacing old ladies ready to throw ripened papayas. Okay maybe not the last one but you get the idea.

So all of our normal routes were unavailable so we used every side street, nook, cranny, and yak trail for the entire district. Upon arriving at church we were congratulated on our perseverance. Why all the seemingly tough security? First off there was to be a funeral for an important Tamil MP that was killed. This is in addition to the ethnic tension here that is mounting between the Tamils and the Sinhalese people. A group of refugees was shelled by government forces on Friday. During that attack they killed 23 people ( 10 of which were infants) and injured another 150. Needless to say this has stirred things up a bit. You may have heard about this on the international news. Alan Rock as a UN special envoy is in town. This week has been marred by Hartels (see blog 10/26 entry ), protest rallies (one in support of Saddam Hussein by the Muslim community) and occasional explosions. We are safe but our national staff continually senses the tension and is most directly impacted.

All of this to say that life is interesting and most everything is an adventure. What is normal here can seem quite peculiar to those of you back in Canada.

Google Earth

Hello everyone, for those of you who don't know Google Earth, it is a very cool program. For example, you can all see where we live in Kalmunai, Sri Lanka. If you don't have access to Google Earth, you can download it, and if your computer can't support it, get a new one. Or maybe use a friends or just use your work computer for personal projects! (Kidding don't do that, you might get fired)

So here it is, type in Kalmunai, Sri Lanka in the "fly to" box and then look for these coordinates.
7 24'57.77" N 81 50'02.76" E our house
7 25'01.98" N 81 49'47.14 " E the market
7 24'50.26" N 81 49'47.92 E our office

have fun!
Alanna

New Scenery,

Yesterday we drove across the island to get to Colombo. We took the Kandy road which is the north route so we got to see all new territory. I am even more stunned by the beauty of this island than I was before. We got to go through the mountains! While not high and rocky, the mountains here are so beautiful. I really didn't realize how much I missed mountains until we were driving through them and I was rubbernecking left and right.

We left the coastal plains which we are very familiar with, right now the rice paddys are flooded and some have been planted. Heading towards the mountains, we travelled through very lush grasslands and rolling hills studded with big round boulders. I think most of the rock here is of volcanic origin though I really have no idea...that's just a guess.

At one point we looked straight out the van window at an impressive, steep, forested mountain. About an hour later, Ganesh, one of the Children's project field officers who was travelling with us, told us that we were about to start driving up the mountain we had seen earlier! The road is amazing, it has 18 switchbacks and they are tight. For those of you who know, they as tight as the ones on the Takakkaw falls road, though not quite that steep. I was thinking all the while of my Mom and her aversion to steep mountain roads with sharp drop offs and no guardrails. Mom, this is one to avoid! Especially since the road is narrow enough to be a one lane road but has two way traffic on it, and Sri Lankans seem to have a system of driving where its ok to pull out and pass on blind corners...as long as you honk!


This is a photo of one of the switchbacks,
though its a little hard to tell. It's the best one I got though and I tried on every corner that was out my side (this was my very last chance).

All these photos were taken out the window of the van while driving down the very bumpy highway, but I think they turned out ok. It really kept me entertained for quite awhile as the digital camera doesn't respond quite as quickly as I do...I have a lot of pictures of trees and grass and blurry vehicles.

We drove through Kandy, which is a really stunning city in the hill country, I can't wait to get back there and explore and we saw an elephant in the middle of the city and lots of monkeys. It's pretty weird to see monkeys in the middle of a city, not associated with a zoo.

At one point of our drive I was looking out the right window at terraced paddy fields far below, and passing a road side fruit stand selling pineapples and big crazy green fruit I don't recongnize, and all of a sudden I thought...this is so weird, I can't believe I'm actually here. The strangely catchy, though incessant Hindi-pop the driver was playing made an appropriate soundtrack and I felt like I was passing through a scene in a movie.

When in Rome…

…do as the romans. When in Sri Lanka, do as the Sri Lankans.

Why do I always pick the hottest day to go to the market? The market here is very busy and crowded. Some of it is open air, some is in a building. I leave the house with my shopping basket and walk, no not walk exactly, I saunter to the market. We don’t really walk anywhere here, or certainly not the way we walked at home. It is so much hotter that you really can’t walk quickly, thus the sauntering, or moseying or strolling.

So by the time I saunter to the market place, I am starting to feel pretty warm and a little sweaty. I do my shopping, mostly for fruit and vegetables though today I bought eggs, un-refrigerated of course. The egg seller gave them to me in a plastic bag and then dumped a bunch of grain into the bag to cushion them. Not a single broken egg when I got home and my friends here assure me that they never get sick from the eggs.

By the time I finish my shopping, my basket is heavy and I am sweating. Now I don’t mind sweat…I like to work my body outside, in the summer, but that’s exercise, this is grocery shopping! I bring along a bandana to wipe my face but I can’t really keep up.

By the time I start my walk home, I am really sweating and this is all while walking as slowly as possible.

Now contrast this to my shopping experience in Canada. At home, I walk fast. Why? Sometimes to keep warm, sometimes I’m in a hurry, but regardless of the reason I walk fast. It’s our worldview…we must accomplish things, and if you’re not walking fast, you must have nothing to do. And I would be so much more uptight. If someone were walking down that neat, clean, air-conditioned/heated, and very organized aisle ahead of me as slowly as I walk here, I would be tempted to ram them with my grocery cart. “Come on! I don’t have all day, I’m on a mission here!” Not so in Kalmunai, every seller wants to say hi (and wants me to come spend at their stall), so I greet everyone, and mosey along, buying oranges here, apples there, tiny red onions over on the other side and the small sweet bananas that I love at the end of the row. Then I head inside to my favourite stall to see if they have cucumbers or peppers or fresh mint. The only time I hurry is to avoid being run over by a trishaw. To those of you who’ve heard me complain about how I don’t like Superstore because its too disorganized and crowded… I’m guessing that won’t be quite so much of a problem for me anymore.

Today I had a couple of “helpers”, men who saw me and knew it meant a tip. They translated for me at stalls, helped me pick out the best produce and got their tip. I think one of them told me he lost his wife in the Tsunami, but I wasn’t really sure. The only word I understood for sure was Tsunami, which seems like a universal word. People often tell us their stories (which we don’t understand because they’re in Tamil) and once every so often, someone will yell something like; “Hi, NGO Tsunami?” to us as we pass by. Hmmmm how do they know?

Anyway, once I finish my shopping in the store a few blocks from the market which sells milk, crackers, cereal (for some reason the only cereal available here is cornflakes) and other necessities like chocolate, I start the sauntering back home. All the while fighting my natural instincts to hurry home now that my shopping is done. (Walk fast, this bag is heavy…oh slow down, its so hot, I’m melting…)

Anyway, by the time I get home, I’m ready to melt into a little puddle, and my skin tastes salt, and I have to have a shower, but that’s my shopping day.

Power outages

Today the power was out at our office between 11 and 3:30. It's amazing what happens with no power and how dependent we've become on our computers. For the first hour or two, everyone stayed busy...but after lunch it seemed like there was no way to do work in the office without power. People gravitated to the common area and we sat around chatting in the semi-darkness. There is a picture book of the Canadian Rockies in our office that was brought by the other Canadians, Abe and Edith so I pulled that out and showed people where we live. We talked about dangerous animals like grizzly bears and snakes and discovered that whatever animal you live with and understand, that's the one you're comfortable with. So Sri Lankans assume that bears are very dangerous and might kill you at any minute, and I think the same about snakes. They couldn't believe I'd only ever seen one snake in my life (in the wild that is...). And they offered to find some other snakes for me to see but I declined.
Then, we made balloon animals. So it was a pretty interesting afternoon.

I also went out to one of the communities we run our children's program in to teach English. It's really amazing how difficult it can be to teach this ridiculous language. And even for someone who's learned 2nd and 3rd languages, its awfully hard. The kids are really excited though and they have the best smiles. They're quite shy so they don't like to practice much but the normal response to a question from me is giggling. So to my family, these kids in Sri Lanka know all your names because we learned about family today. Do you have a brother? What is your sister's name? They really caught on and asked about every family member they could think of, Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, Grandfather Grandmother, husband. I was thinking I might do describing people next although we won't have much variety in physical describing words because all of these kids have brown hair and brown eyes! It's probably not even a topic to learn here and anyways I always thought it was a little strange in German class to be sitting across a desk from someone saying "I have brown hair, I have brown eyes".
So we'll see maybe we'll do animals or colours. We did learn a few food words today, although I can't remember any of the Tamil words I learned.
So, when the power goes out, work grinds to a halt. The power goes out quite a bit in the evenings here so we work on the computer by battery or pull out our headlamps and read.

This photo is in 7th colony where I was teaching english today. The school is being repaired so the classes meet under the trees. Hopefully the school will be done soon as rainy season might make class time more difficult. Apparently it raines so much that some of the roads flood. Notice the bright white uniforms. The kids all wear them and I have no idea how they keep them so white.