Back Home

I'm back home and I'm sort of just hanging in between the two worlds, waiting patiently like a good Sri Lankan for the Western individualism to sink back in. The last few days in Colombo were a great wind down. After Andrea left I went to my Colombo family's house and celebrated Vesak (the Buddha's Birthday/Enlightenment/Death). On Monday we offered alms to those who were practicing sill (meditating all day and fasting in the evening). To really explain it briefly (which doe not give it much credit) It was a lot like a soup kitchen. I just hung around and jumped in wherever I was needed- serving the food, collecting the dishes and filling waters. I received many "Bless you child's" so I feel like my karma is soaring pretty high these days :)
On Tuesday, I had the best massage of my life at an ayurvedic hospital and then in the aft I helped make a lantern which is hung in the yard of every house in the city. Hanging out in Colombo was a great way to slowly ease back into Western life and to prepare for my 30 hours of travel back home.

This could be my final post

So much has happened since I wrote last but I will just quickly summarize. Thurs was my very sad going away party... the girls gave me presents and speeches and everyone brought in a dish for lunch. I made them a slideshow and also gave them some other presents.
At night I went for my last dinner at Conrad and Pearl's :( In my final attempt to get even with these Sri Lankan's I gave some good gifts- I gave Pearl a Pearl necklace, Nilu small diamond earings, a wallet and belt for Pathi & shoes for Conrad (I know it sounds random but that was the girls suggestion).
Sometime last week when I was trying to decide to do with my last few days I saw Andrea (my Norwiegen friend who Aaron and I stayed with in Italy). I asked her what she was up to, thinking I might go see her, and she said she wanted to come to Colombo. Within minutes she booked her flight (love this girl) and we met this friday night. We had good tourist times- temples, cocktails, expensive seafood and shopping. It had to be done in order to get me prepped to get back into my consuming Canadian lifestyle, plus I felt ok about spending a little since I had saved so much over the past 4 months. So it was fun. But now she is gone and I am just chillin. I think I will lay low tomorrow and then on Tues I will join Nilhu's family (my Colombo family) to celebrate Vesak (Buddha's bday).
So that's where I'm at.
See you soon!!!!

MORE generosity

There is clearly no way to try to match a Sri Lankan's generosity. I can't express this enough.
I have been wondering what can I possibly get as a gift for Pathi and Nilu to thank them for the way they have welcomed me into their home. It seems like as time goes on they just go more and more out of their way to accomodate me. Pathi was trying so hard to get me a cheap tour of Bangkok (booked by the time I got to it) and to help me buy a suitcase- eating a very late dinner so that he can take me shopping at night, etc.
They had told me awhile ago that they new a good jeweller and I was interested because I know gems here are much cheaper so I had been thinking about buying something for Nilu. So when I got home last night I was helping Nilu on Facebook and out of no where they present my with a bag. I open it up and I am blown away ... while I had been trying to figure out how the heck I could get them back for their hospitality, kindness and friendship, they had gone out and bought ME a Ceylon Blue Sapphire ring! Craziness! Craziness!

My Favorite Kind of Travel

The reality of how little time I have left has finally set in. Yesterday when I was leaving the office and telling the girls all the things we had to do and we realized that we only have 4 days in the office left together… tears began welling in our eyes and I cracked.

I enjoyed the sightseeing in Europe, the beach-lounging in Mexico, the girl bonding in Australia, the spiritual quest in Costa Rica but this has been a different kind of travel. You are not whipping around, visiting each city for one day, in a comfortable tour bus, nor are you drinking with new found one-day friends in an unfamiliar hostel. You also don’t have to chase after something called “culture,” to show that you did indeed visit this place. In have been a culprit myself of collecting junk- key chains, photoframes, jewellery... of trying to get a picture of myself to capture this new environment for others to see...

This time around, I have become the culture. I will put no longer cringe at chillies in my food, I've started to speak at a new rate (after months of trying to be heard properly and competing with the British accent they are used to), and I will crave the cheek to cheek embrace with everyone I meet. This will be the proof.

I’ve discovered this new kind of travel now where you can settle in somewhere, build relationships with people, get to know another culture first hand, and work. Being busy with something meaningful is the key (and volunteering is so great because even if some of the daily tasks don’t seem meaningful your presence alone is probably making some impact).

Maybe I will again someday sip cocktails under the hot sun in a five star hotel, I will probably seek out natural wonders and shop in foreign cities, but what I have discovered here is something far better- it is like the next species in the evolution of the travel world. In the West we are either to busy to feel anything or we are desperately seeking… how do I live in the moment? Through this experience I have found the answer.

You don’t need to purposely do less or move more slowly through life to find contentment. You just need to find a place where you feel that you are achieving something and you need to be fully there. I guess what I'm saying is you don't have to seek out or reach for anything to be happy, you just need to take the chance and care for others, accept what they offer you and smile.

packing it up and packing it in

Well, I'm feeling so busy these days, trying to pack so much in the last couple of weeks here. It is not that I have a crazy amount of things to do but just that doing one small thing can be such a process here. It can be a bit frustrating but that is also the North American control factor so I just have to think that I can do my best to get all that I want achieved here and hopefully another volunteer will come and pick up where I have left off.
I wanted to write the WEP Proposal, for example, but I don't see how it is possible as I still have not got any of the info I need. There is also so much training that I could do with the girls, and they are eager, but they just don't have the time. And I won't even get started on Conrad's schedule. As long as I get the brochures done though (also difficult without all the right info though!).
PS Here is a good article that Fiona sent to me about the current political/economic situation: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/02/srilanka?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

Thotamuna Irangani

This morning I gave an Lesson on Presentations and Basic Do's and Don'ts of Photography. The girls are so good because they pay so much attention but I don't know if they always understand because they don't ask any questions... I made it very simple though and told them if they want to talk one on one about anything they can. One girl is going to Canada in August so she will actually be doing a presentation in Canada, which I will help her on before I go, so I was able to use her as an example for how she should address her audience, etc. I told her to expect a Canadian audience might not be quite as attentive, haha...
I am thinking back now to my group in our communications class- we did a presentation where we asked the two girls from Shangdong in our group to do a skit about the Canadian class environment. The next day we laughed so hard when we watched what they had come up with: "Students very bad" one girl said to the other, "put feet on desk, talk when teacher talking, eat food during class, call teacher by first name... they are like barbarians!" Now that I have seen their learning environments I can see for myself the unsubtle difference.
After the class we went to see a woman named Irangani who is a Tsunami affected woman that INDECOS and WUSC/Uniterra have found out about and would like to try to help.
This woman was actually rich before the Tsunami and lived alone comfortably, supported by her siblings and the inheritance from her parents. When the Tsunami hit her house was pretty much destroyed and she broke her arm in 3 places. While she was in the hospital, her house was looted and everything she owned was taken. She has no livelihood so no savings from which she can improve these appalling living conditions.
Harshani's idea is to at least build her a bedroom, so she is no longer sleeping on the porch, a bathroom and a front door that she can lock. If you are interested in contributing, let me know and I will send you Harshani's contact info!

Sick in Sri Lanka

After four days of being sick, my cough had not let up, so in a paranoid state that I have some crazy Sri Lankan disease I agreed to see the doctor.

So I am picturing going to a doctors office, waiting in line for half an hour, signing in, waiting another hour before I see him or her and then getting my prescription to take to a pharmacy where it will be documented on my file and the doctor's details confirmed.

But apparently I'm not in Sidney anymore. I walked 10 steps to the neighbour's house (Pathi`s niece is a doctor), had a prescription 5 minutes later and went to the pharmacy 2 minutes away to wait 2 more min while he gathered together the meds. So the total process was about 10 minutes from the time I wanted drugs till the time I had them. And how much it costs for 2 kinds of antibiotics, a throat rinse and a cough syrup.... 6 bucks.

Haha, so accessing pharmaceuticals is the one system that is efficient here... hmmm... oh, good for me!

PS I'm feeling better already!