Merry Christmas!

Scott is home safe and sound and we are surrounded by gifts and family. It's so great to have him home and we appreciate all your thoughts and prayers for safety.

We wish you all the very merriest of Christmases and hope your time is filled with peace and joy and some calm moments to reflect on all that is good in the world.

Things I am looking to

I am only a few hours from leaving and am in the final mad dash, hoping my luggage isn't too heavy, hoping I won't break my back carrying it , wondering if Alanna will remember what day she is picking me up. (She's cute but has trouble with time zones and travel) Praying I don't lose anything and worried that 40 hours in transit will be a fate worse than hell.

We will post a few more from the other side of the pond and in January keep you posted as to what we are doing, coffee houses etc. .

So now that I am almost home I have beeing thinking about things that I will miss once I am gone.

The people

Surfing

Buying DVD’s for $2

Strangers welcoming me in to their house to eat

The amazing tea

The ability to have such an incredible impact on people

The view from our rooftop

How just living is an adventure

Driving on the left side of the road

Being able to drive like a maniac and it is tame compared to the nationals

The five minute drive to the beach

Working with an eclectic mix of internationals

Hearing multiple languages being spoken at any meeting

Seeing elephants and monkeys

Buying better than Starbuck’s quality coffee for 1$

The gorgeous countryside

Wearing sandals to work everyday

Going for high tea

All the awesome kinds of fruit

Monsoon rains

Fresh limejuice

Being a celebrity everywhere I go and feeling like a rock star - Move over Bono

How all the Tamil girls think I am cute and funny and not just funny looking

Seeing women in sarees and men in sarongs

Riding my motorbike

How there is no road rage

Being called sir by everyone

Having every single person welcome you with a huge smile

Drinking pop from glass bottles

Getting eggs from the market in a newspaper cone filled with sawdust

Getting fresh veggies at the market

Eating freshly picked cashews

Seeing cows, goats and chickens on the road as I walk to work

Being so plugged into world events

The ice cream here that is made from real cream

Having geckos run all over the place

Eating fresh mangoes from our tree

Make it a great day

HOLY !#$*@!

Okay perhaps not holy but amazing. I once was told that I was a poop magnet. At the time it really it did seem that unfortunate events seems to follow me about with great propensity. However, here it really is unequivocally true. I have this unbelievable ability to find the only patch of manure and step right into it.

Yesterday I got out of the car and entered the office. After a little while I noticed this terrible stench of crap. I began to look about to see if anyone looked as if they had soiled themselves but alas no. I continued on during the morning, traveled by car and noticed this terrible smell still lingered. Now there was only a couple of us in the car so I eyeballed them all and they all looked guilty and suspicious to me. . Then I proceeded into the store where the stench persisted. This is when I became quite suspicious and my spidey senses tingled. There was only one common denominator and that was me. So sure enough I looked at my sandals and they were both fully engulfed in cow crud. EEEEEEWWWWWW.

Lesson to be learned? Look at yourself first and don’t judge others? Or just watch where you walk. Unfortunately this is not a one time event but something I do at least once a week. One would think I would learn.

Then later in the day as if the first episode wasn’t enough I attracted even more volumes of manure. We were attending an opening ceremony for one of our beneficiaries. I was sitting under a palm tree minding my own business when a stupid crow dumped a load on my shoulder!!! I think it had been constipated for an entire week and only then was able to relieve itself. ”Thanks a bunch pal, that really adds to the auspiciousness of the occasion!”

Needless to say that all of my encounters of the manure kind are a continual source of merriment for my staff and hopefully to you as well.

Hope your day isn’t as crappy

Its been a crazy fun week here on the East Coast. We've been trying to finish projects in the middle of rainy season, had farewell parties and Christmas parties. It is a bit disonant to be singing songs about riding on a one horse sleigh when its 30 above but fun none the less. So I have dug out a story out of the archives. I have a few rip roaring amazing stories I heard this week but they will have to wait until later.

Kajavathavi Ernbanoorthy

Displaced Person Relief (Infant kits)

Kajavathavi Ernbanoorthy is a 19 year old pregnant girl that fled with her husband and four children to the refugee camp in March. Being pregnant she and her family did not want to make the aurduous journey. However, their entire village fled because it was being shelled and looted so they worried for their safety and joined the 160,000 people fleeing their homes. Since living in the camp she has given birth to a healthy young girl and is very grateful to receive the infant kit that will help them while they are displaced. Apart from two bars of soap this camp had not received any NGO assistance and are desperate for more help. They talked of their first week in the camp and everyone having diarrhea because of bad water and how the entire camp sits in absolute darkness every evening because there are no lamps or fuel. The situation is bleak but a little help and hope from our staff has been delivered to this camp. Since this story first took place many of these displaced people have finally been able to return. Currently there are only 30 thousand displaced people living in our town and 200,000 Island wide.

The possibilities and future for this woman and her family have been greatly improved because of the SP-SL Livelihood Project.

Make it a great day

Things I look forward to

There are only a few days left and I have been thinking lots about the things I have missed and am looking forward to.

Seeing my wife

Family

A nephew I have never met

Reintroducing myself to my niece and other nephew

Our church

Deep conversations with friends

Roast beef

Alberta Beef and more beef

Not eating curry three times a day

BBQ

Cold weather (Ask me again in January, currently it is 55 degrees hotter here)

Roughrider football – Hopefully someone has the whole season taped somewhere

Outdoor adventure

Real milk, not the box milk that has a shelf life of a 1000 years

People driving at night with their lights on

Not electrocuting myself 10 times a day

Not having to bleach all of your vegetables

Not having to decide if its thunder or bombs going off

Not worrying everyday if your staff will be adducted or worse

Hot showers

Not being sweat soaked by 7:00 AM each morning

Working with Jr. High kids again

North American sense of personal body space

A smaller variety and quantity of BO

Not being woken up at 4 AM by temple/church/mosque yodeling and chanting

Make it a great day

Suppiah Solomy
Arayampathy
Sewing Vocational Training

Solomy is a 26 year old Christian mother of two. Solomy’s difficulties started years before the tsunami stuck her village. Typical of many Tamils she are her family were victims of the 1983 ethnic violence. In 1983 her family was forced from the Hill Country and moved to the coastal town of Arayampathy. Since that time they have lived in a small corrugated tin hut that was provided by another NGO. The trauma and stress of the ethnic violence and subsequent relocation and poverty bore heavy upon Solomy’s father who subsequently died in 1986. This adversity forced Solomy’s mother to work making paper bags from recycled cement bags. This laobur intensive work earned their family about 50 Rps per day. To supplement the family income Solomy started cooking food for local school children and was able to earn another 50 Rps a day. (Translates to about 50 Cents a day). The severityof the family poverty had Solomy thinking about removing her son from school so she could work to help the family. It was at this critcal juncture that Solomy was selected to join a SP funded vocational training center. Solomy has learned a sought after skill that has tripled her income, allowed her to support her family and allowed her children to stay in school SP-SL has trained over 200 hundred women like Solomy along the East Coast of Sri Lanka since Oct 2006. The possibilities and future for this young woman and all of the other students have been greatly improved because of the SP-SL Livelihood Project

These centers planned elaborate farewell ceremonies as a way of thanking SP. These centers demonstrated profound gratitude for our involvement in their lives. The gratitude was demonstrated by the overflowing comments and stories that the young girls told to us. These centers put on feasts, testimonies of thanks, dances games and much more. Really, these sewing centers became small communities and many of these centers have developed into long term women's development societies with rotating loan schemes and other such ventures.


Make it a Great day

Sick Dog

As a couple of you might know I grew up in the holy land of Saskatchewan and we picked up some odd expressions of awe. One of those expressions was “Sick Dog”. Well here in Lanka there are innumerable sick dogs and some time ago Alanna wrote a blog about all of the sick dogs that crawl about here. They all have some sort of gross mange that makes all of their hair turn grey, their skin gets all pink and generally they just look repulsive and like they are about to die.

This is the best photo I could get. Just take a careful look at all of the gross greyness. There are dogs that are 100% covered but either I didn’t have my camera or when I went back they were dead and that seemed a little macabre..

Now I used to think exactly the same way as Alanna and viewed these dogs with derision and contempt. That however changed in Sept when SP’s animal vet came to visit Sri Lanka. It was during that visit that the vet saw my excyma skin issues and he informed me that those dogs had the exact same disease I had!! Dr. Morrow was thrilled and asked me hundreds of questions. He said he had never seen a human with the disease and thought it was only found among dogs and of course dogs couldn’t tell what it was like so he was ecstatic. . Of course when the staff here heard that I basically had some dog disease they almost laughed themselves to death.

Needless to say that now when I see one of those dogs suffering I have a lot more sympathy and understanding than a couple of months ago. As an update for all of you I went to a new dermatologist the other day and he has given me some new drugs that have almost cleaned my skin right up. My skin looks better than it has for 6 months and for that I truly am grateful. Here’s hoping that I can kill of the dog disease.

WARNING: I have included a photo of my skin disease from when it was neither terrible nor great but feel free to not scroll any farther to avoid seeing it.

Make it a great day

Headlines

The rainy season is starting but really gets heavy during December so the conflict takes a breather because it just too wet. For this reprieve we are all thankful. It is widely believed that a full scale war will erupt again come January. However, in the interim there is an increase in guerilla type tactics. Now that I am leaving the county at the end of the month and am returning to Canada (read: Details my mom couldn’t know) I thought I would share a few of the news headlines over the last 12 days.

Bomb disposal unit defuses suicide kit found on bus- Colombo Nov 22

Claymore attack in Batticaloa kills two police officers – Nov 24

Colombo MP’s house was attacked with two Petrol bombs - Nov 22

17 LTTE cadres killed today while 7 attack boats attacked police post - Nov 23

Government bombs radio station and kills four civilians – Nov 25

Four civilians killed by LTTE in nearby village - Nov 26

Four artillery rounds strike a school and inure six – Nov 26

Handicapped suicide bomber attempts to kill minister and injures two Colombo - Nov 27

Bomb blast kills 16 and injures 27 more in Colombo – Nov 27

Claymore mine kills 11 children – Nov 27

Government closes all schools and suspends train services to preserve security - Nov 29

Colombo residents panic over rumours that the city water has been poisoned - Nov 29

Two men shot dead today in Batticaloa Nov 29

Large bomb was disposed of in busy Colombo market – Nov 30

1,500 Tamil people arrested and detained in Colombo – Dec 1

Large battle kills 45 and injuries another 24 – Dec 2

Bomb disposed of at the house of MP in Colombo – Dec 3

In total 5,000 people killed since 2006 – Dec 3

Saskatchewan Roughriders win the 95^th Grey Cup Nov 25

Slightly different headlines than back home eh? It really helps me keep things in perspective. It also makes think about our national staff who are at the greatest risk and have lived through this kind of conflict for 25 years. Looking forward to being back in the land of the true north strong and free.

Make it a great day