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.