Visitors and care packages!

During this last week we had the awesome chance for one of SP Canada's reps to come and visit us in the field. Now normally having one of your bosses come and visit wouldn't be such a thrill. However Bruce Piercy is from our home church and it was so great to have a chance to visit with people you have some history with. We kept Bruce up late talking about home, Sri Lanka, Refugees, the whole nine yards. Great to have a little mental stimulus and a visitor from home.

What made the visit even better was that Bruce brought some gifts from friends at home. Bruce brought allergy meds for Mr. Sneezalot (me), a homemade card, photos and a bunch of really good books. Yes that is kind of nerdy but good reading material is hard to come by here.


We are starting to feel a little spoiled with all of the great packages we have recieved. We just recieved a package of books, spices, and gum from my folks. Man it is so awesome to get mail here. We also recieved some Christmas packages from Alanna's sister and from Alannna's parents. It really has been a hit getting the packages from home. So needless to say, a HUGE thank you to all of you have thought about us sents us some goodies from home. Thanks again.


So if you don't want to feel left out and feel compelled to send a package you can send it to
Colombo, Sri Lanka
107 Barnes Place
Colombo 7

Make it a great day

Shoe Distribution

The other day we had an awesome day!! There were lots of really unique things but I would like to focus on our shoe distribution. Well I guess in the name of honesty we should say flip flop distribution. The vast majority of locals wear flip flops as their everyday footwear. Kind of like back home about this time of year.

A few entries ago we told you about all of the refugees or IDP’s. Well yesterday we had a chance to return to the warehouse that is currently housing 170 or so families and help them in a tangible manner. All of these people fled their homes to avoid the fighting. (Another 12,000 are expected today) As these people fled lots of the very basics were lost so to provide some concrete form of help we were able to purchase almost 2000 sets of flip flops for these families. Basically the equivalent of a 75 cents for a good pair of sandals.

Alanna’s former employer the Company of Adventurers organized a fund raiser to provide sandals for the IDP’s. All of the staff in the company contributed in some manner and so now almost 2000 people have footwear!! So needless to say a HUGE thanks to that company and all of their staff. Thank you for your generosity and thank you for taking a simple step to making a big difference.

It really was a lot of fun to be able to be a part of the distribution. . As soon as the Samaritan's Purse lorry pulled up all the kids and families crushed in around us. The team called out the names, checked out the I.D. cards and handed the gifts out. It was so fun to see these little kids putting their sandals on, comparing sizes and racing about. As the team handed the sandals out the white guy was the spectacle. Basically I chased a pile of kids around, swinging them around by their arms and legs, took their photos and generally tried to let them have some fun. Needless to say I was tired by the end but there certainly were a lot of laughs yesterday afternoon.

It really was a thrill to be able to be involved in something like this. Thanks to all of you who make our involvement here a possibility. If you contribute to SP or Rockpointe you are a part of what is taking place here.

For those who are more skeptical, What about the 12,000 new refugees expected to arrive today? I really don’t know and we are going to see what we can do. Will sandals fix the problems? No. Does it help? Absolutely! Can all of us do more? Sure and we look forward to all the upcoming projects that will attempt to help the downtrodden.

Make it a great day.

Peculiarly Sri Lankan Customs

Many of you have emailed questions and asked us about what life here is like and so I thought I would oblige you with a brief list of some of the cultural customs.

• I am always offered a chair and a drink, even if it means an elderly woman has to sit in the sand and people have to run for several blocks to buy the drink.
• People don’t throw out their garbage they burn it in the streets
• Men hold your hand while they talk to you about important matters
• Men will stroke the back of your head or back as a sign of affection. (My red neck background still has a little trouble with this)
• Both genders will place their cheeks to yours and make a sniffing sound. This is repeated on each check. Kind of placing a blessing on you.
• Old women unashamedly belch loud enough to be heard several houses away
• It is considered rude to blow your nose. It is better to snort back your snot through your nose.
• It is rude for men or women to cross their legs in public
• We eat with our hands and not with utensils
• We drive on the left side of the road
• Men wear sarongs (tube like skirts and No I don't wear one)
  

• 
• Women wear Sarees, Shalwars, Burkas
• The people here have an incredible capacity for hard work in the heat
• Alanna is often referred to as Madam and I am called sir and on occasion master (very similar to what my students used to call me)
• Also, Alanna is sometimes called Mrs. Alanna Scott because of the way they give married women the man's first name rather than last name.
  
• Every church, temple, dagoba, koivu have loud speakers that blast chants and music, many days starting at four in the morning!
• Everybody is religious
• Dogs, goats, chickens, and cows roam wildly through the streets
• The cows brands take up the entire side of a cow and look like written paragraphs and not brands.
• Herds of cows will rampage fresh garbage piles
• People don’t get mad in traffic
• Quite frequently I am told that people like the colour of my skin
• Cricket is played on every street corner and alleyway
• Total strangers will invite you to their house
• People will transport hundreds of pounds of goods on the back of a peddle bike
• There is no toilet paper in the outhouse only a bucket of water
• The toilets are the fun little squatty things in the ground
• Elephants roam about
• It costs about two dollars to eat a meal
• There are always soldiers with guns around
• There are more peddle bikes and motorbikes than cars
• The most common building materials are brick and corrugated tin
• People say yes by bobbing their head from side to side (like they are saying no) this can be quite confusing.
• Small children stare at my whiteness in horror, young kids run, wave and yell a few English phrases, and the elderly smile and bob their heads
• Door frames are built for people that are only 5 feet tall (I bang my head almost daily) If you doubt that the picture is actually me or some giant stand in just look at the skinny white legs. They are undeniably mine. Now I might remind you of the earlier statement that many people comment on how much they LIKE the colour of my skin. My legs and their colour are to be adored and admired, not mocked. I already know what the comments page will be filled with.
  Make it a great day

Refugees

The other day Alanna and I had the opportunity to visit several different nearby refugee camps. All of these camps are made up of people who are referred to as IDP’s (Internally Displaced People). All of these people have been forced to leave their homes because their homes have been destroyed by bombs or are generally unsafe because of the conflict here. At last count there are 75,000 IDP’s in the district of Batticaloa alone with another 3,000 estimated to arrive today and more families arriving each each.

So Alanna and I had the opportunity to visit 5 of these sites where these people are in temporary shelters. At all of these sites the white people were quite the spectacle. It really did not take long for a whole cluster of about 50 or more kids to mob us. We of course obliged, used a little Tamil, played a little and took a bunch of pictures to show them. It really was quite the scene to watch each other getting absolutely mobbed by these kids.

At a couple of the sites I would leave Alanna alone with the masses in an attempt to actually see the sites and attempt to take it all in. What I saw was tough to understand and even harder to convey to you. The first site we walked into was a cavernous warehouse. Inside the warehouse there were approximately 200 families. As you looked you would see a family with all of their possessions ( a bag , some clothes and a couple of pots, most of this was donated) all sitting on a grass mat. Near each of these grass mats someone in the family would have a little fire going to cook up some rice or food substitute. As a result the whole building was thick with acrid smoke.

Most of the groups I saw gave a huge smile and were happy to see us and were encouraged that we were distracting their kids from their plight for even a few minutes. Many of the little clusters pointed out mending bones, open sores, and tried to communicate.their story. At a bit of a loss I mostly listened, tried to demonstrate empathy, entertain their kids and offered to take their picture. This proved to be a highlight and elicited hundreds of smiles as they all rallied around to their pictures on the camera.

Still others in the warehouse were too overwhelmed to do much more than lay on the floor in a near catatonic state. Their faces expressed a tremendous sense of loss, grief and despair.

The other sites we visited were more established and made of corrugated tin. The situations, although bleak did have a little more organization and moderate amounts of hope.
Samaritan’s Purse has been running one of these camps for some time and our staff is always welcomed with great fanfare. The UN has been impressed with our involvement and has asked SP to increase its involvement. We have already been able to distribute some starter packs for young infants. These include some biscuits, diapers, milk product, baby clothes and other such items. Each pack would keep the infant going for a month and would only cost about $20. SP has already distributed about 1,000 packs but it is estimated that another 10,000 infants have not been helped yet.

In the coming weeks we also hope to distribute several thousand pairs of shoes to IDP kids who don’t have any footwear. We would like to thank all of the staff from Alanna’s former employer The Company of Adventurers who donated the money for this initiative. You really are making a difference and are helping those that are incredibly needy and are oppressed. We will post pictures on the actual distribution day.

We will keep all of you posted on the developments within the country and about your opportunity to be involved in any new initiatives. I know this blog is a little heavy but this is what we are seeing and experiencing these days.

Things that are green

Well we have moved into our new house and are quite happy to be here. We moved away from the beach house for a variety of reasons. The first is that we are closer to the office and generally it provides a greater sense of security and fewer disturbances from some of the drunken element that congregate near the beach.

Our house is decorated in very typically Sri Lankan colour, crazy lime/ sage green. It does not have just some green accents it IS green through and through. It is so green that I thought we should make a list of all the parts of the house that are green.

· The outside of the house

· The gates

· The outside wall

· The railings

· The ceiling – This is a particularly nice checker pattern of alternating green tiles

· The floor

· The inside walls

· The sinks

· The toilet

· The Light covers

· The mirror frames

· The stairs

· The stools

· The iron

· The kitchen counter

· The storage cabinets

· The garbage bins

· The desk

· The curtains

· The towels

· The sheets

· The hangers

· The coat hooks

· The shoe rack

· Shower rod

· Soap dish

Well I guess you get the idea, basically every possible surface is some version of green. Fortunately they are all different kinds of green so you get a real Kaleidiscope of green. Uhhh so relaxing. Hopefully you get a sense from the pictures. Enjoy

Spain…

Well this has been a long time coming, sorry about that. We’ve been busy and I’ve been feeling the post-Christmas blues a little. I always feel a bit sad after Christmas is over (possibly because I anticipate it for so long) and this year was no better and maybe a little worse. And of course, as my friend Teresa would say, January is such a long month!

We moved to a new house yesterday so packing and unpacking always takes time and thought. This house is very green, I’ll put up some photos eventually, and it makes me laugh.

However, I’ve been procrastinating for long enough so will tell you all a little about Spain.

We left here on the morning of the 14^th, early to drive to Colombo. Travel always gets me, it’s very weird to leave the east coast of Sri Lanka on a Thursday morning and arrive in Southern Spain on a Friday afternoon. Very different worlds. The flight was long, longer than I though it would be. Or I guess it felt longer than I thought it would feel. We flew Colombo to Paris (11 hours) and then Paris to Malaga (only 2 hours). Paris was freezing! It’s been a long time since I’ve been that cold, though I had the air conditioners set to 15 degrees all week before we left to try to acclimatize. (I’d be sitting there freezing in my office but determined to persevere. I’m going to say that it worked too because Scott was cold many times when I was not…) Anyways, it nothing could have quite prepared me for Paris that Friday morning. I’m very glad that the whole week wasn’t that cold because I have no warm clothes with me at all.

So, here are a bunch of things I loved about our Christmas in Spain. They are in no particular order and in fact I’m sure will turn out to be quite mixed up, but I just can’t bring myself to recount a whole chronological trip itinerary.

- narrow cobblestone streets

- Plaza with sidewalk cafes

- Orange trees. We picked oranges off them a couple of times, but mostly they looked much better than they tasted

- The company of good friends and lots and lots of laughter

- Being in a country where I don’t stand out quite so much

- A Flamenco store

- The terrace restaurant in Ronda.

- Morocco and being the only “tourist” for the vast majority of our trip to Tangiers

- Almost missing the ferry on the way home from Morocco. I have to say that having to get little cards stamped on the ferry is a weird system, especially since you have to stamp both your exit and entry cards upon entry…it’s a customs thing and I suppose if I had done it correctly it wouldn’t have been quite so weird, but anyways, almost missing the ferry was fun. We had to go back to the customs office to get the appropriate stamp (which for some reason Sean and Karen got…) so we hopped on a bus and the driver was very helpful. We weren’t sure we’d make it back to the ferry on time so we ran from the bus up the ramp to the customs building. Once inside (we obviously looked like people who had forgotten to get the right stamp) this guy saw and yelled “Stamp” while making a stamping motion with one hand on the other. I yelled “OUI” since French is the second language of Morocco and he madly gestured to where we were supposed to go. So we ran to the line up…waited there somewhat impatiently, got our stamp and continued the race. It actually felt like we were on the Amazing race or something because everyone was cheering us on and helping us out and there was a definite sense of urgency. The customs/ferry guys were giving us directions, we’d run up to them and say “Ici pour Tarifa?” and they’d point the right direction and off we’d run. We burst out the doors and took the stairs down two at a time. Little kids on the side of the road were yelling and gesturing and cheering us on and the bus driver was waiting for us to give us a ride back. We sprinted to the bus, jumped through the open doors and he floored it back to the Ferry terminal. Sean and Karen were waiting there for us and I couldn’t help but notice the look of disappointment on their faces when they realized we’d actually made it and they’d have to give us back our camera and backpack. It really was that dramatic! Well, except for maybe the bus driver flooring it, he did pull out quickly but it’s pretty tough to floor it in a bus.

- Hmmm, what else did I love? Well the resort was pretty great. Oh! I loved the shower! Hot water and more pressure than a glorified eye-dropper!

- The hotel pool was wonderful. I even enjoyed the freezing cold outdoor one for a few lengths. Or more accurately I enjoyed the feeling of blood returning to my limbs afterwards.

- The Secret Santa exchange was terrific. I thought it wouldn’t be quite such a “secret” Santa since we planned who would give to whom, but then my parents surprised us by sending gifts for us to Scotland for Sean and Karen to bring to us, so it was more secret than ever.

- Endless episodes of 24.

- Good conversation with good friends.

- Hanging out with other people who would be away from their families at Christmas… (selfish of me I know.)

- Our exceptional navigation and Sean’s stunt driving around narrow cobblestone streets and parking garages

- The dinner on our last night with Millers, especially the host/owner who looked just like someone we know back home.

- Watching the monkey with the tumerous butt climb on top of Scott’s shoulders in Gibraltar.

- Las Tablas

- The fact that all of us had forgotten that Gibraltar was not actually part of Spain.

- Sangria

- Watching Scott act as our interpreter all week

- Getting lost in innumerable small towns

- The excellent Spanish road signs and highway signs

- The photogenic Millers.

- All the places I found that I could go back to.

- Many other things I’m sure but that’s enough for now except for something I enjoyed more than anything else and that was being able to be with friends at Christmas when I couldn’t be with family.