Home Again...

My Godson Dan, looking less than pleased with having his picture taken.

Have I mentioned lately how cold it is here? Well, it is. You can tell when you are in Rochester in the winter, because every bit of moisture in your skin is sucked out upon arrival. I made it home late Friday night when amazingly enough, all six flights went completely without incident. My nephew Jonathan made a gorgeous sign welcoming me home. He’s da bomb! It’s really great to be home. I went to see my friend Jennifer to pick up my pups. Harvey is down to his fighting weight after his extended stay at the Brighton fat camp. Next time, I’m sending them to Sri Lanka and asking Jen to look after me.
Sue and Dave Mayne had a lovely party on Saturday. I think the best part was the fact that Erik, Dan and Bridget didn’t know I was home yet when they walked in the door and saw me. Boy, were they surprised! I’m adjusting…it was a little spooky riding in the car on the right side of the road again. I also made my mom have lunch at the Greek restaurant and Zwiegles hot dogs for dinner. All my nieces and nephews were very concerned as to whether or not I would have time to make some Christmas cookies. I’ve got that covered! The gang came over today to help decorate and we had a blast.
I need to connect with the gang in Sri Lanka regarding some of the unfinished projects, but I know they are all wrapped up right now in throwing a generic holiday party at the Wellawatte orphanage. I wish I could be there with them, but I kicked in a few bucks so they could have a really fun time with the boys. Kenney called me on Sunday night at 4:00 in the morning. I’m not exactly sure what we talked about after I clarified the time difference. He rationalized that this is the time of day he always calls Simone…but she’s in Australia…not the U.S. I think it was something about his Australian spousal visa to join Simone, but I’m not sure. I hope he emails or calls back again soon to talk to me when I’m awake. Happy Holidays to everyone and please be thankful for all the wonderful things in your life, I know I am.

Signing off from Sri Lanka

My last day in country was great. I went to the pump place to torture them one last time, we finally have a working pump down in Tissa. Just think, it only took THE WHOLE TIME I WAS HERE! Picked up the last of my stuff at the fluff and fold; spread-sheeted some receipts for the greeting card project; consoled Roy because I was leaving (I gave him a really cool Swiss Army knife so he could fix his own trishaw instead of relying on me) I taught some of the new guys the fine art of balloon sculpture; had a lampraise for lunch, visited my friends at the orphanage one last time and just when you think it couldn’t get any better, the landlord finally replaced the porch light…after six months of it being burned out. I got some very nice cards from all my friends and I can tell you for sure, I’m really going to miss them all.

A Few of My Favorite Things...Part Deux

Just a few more fav things...

Our van driver sporting one of the balloon halos from our early days here in Colombo. Once I taught the volunteers to make animals and such from the long balloons, we participated in an aggressive campaign of “Drive-by Ballooning” We would stop next to small children, drivers and people crammed on buses; hand them a balloon sculpture and speed away. Thus making the world a better place one balloon at a time…

This was an offering left at the temple in Wellawatta. I thought it was pretty cool to see where coconut trees come from…

Atop every unfinished building, there is a scarecrow type of dummy strung up. Apparently, this keeps the evil spirits away from the structure while it is being built.

Alex very patiently waited and waited, but got a terrific shot of this lizard… it’s so amazing it looks surreal.

Alex also took this one…Got Crabs?
Hanging with the elephants.

A Few of My Favorite Things...

So I only have a few days left here and then it’s back to single digit wind chills…maybe now is the time to learn Celsius and it won’t seem so cold. Even though I promised myself I wouldn’t, a great deal of my souvenir shopping has waited until the last moment.
I have a number of topics, places and items that I’m going to add to the blog under the heading: A Few Of My Favorite Things… I can’t really get into an entire blog entry about each, but they deserve a mention at the very least.

Here is the Hoy-Hoy Trap A Roach. It’s sort of like a roach mansion instead of a roach motel. It has to be big, since these aren’t your garden variety roaches. The size of a silver dollar, they are (fortunately) completely pedestrian and not airborne.

Using paper products here always reminded me of my delightful and lovely former mother-in-law, everyone calls her Sue, but her real name is Flora. She’s a absolute sweetie and her namesake company has the entire market of napkins, paper towels, kleenex,cotton swabs and toilet paper here in Sri Lanka.

In this country, the swastika is merely a religious symbol. The first few times you see it, it’s a bit jarring. You quickly get used to seeing it all over the place.

This is the fish market in Pettah. Also known as “heaven” to the local cat population. If only this computer could do smell-o-blog… Can you spot the kitty?

This is the Buddha statue at the Molpe temple. When I first went there, I asked why the Buddha was being held hostage since its face was all covered up with a huge fabric hood. Apparently, mortals are not allowed to look upon the Buddha while repairs are being made to the statue….

This is one of my favorite pictures. Kyle and I were visiting a Hindu temple in Fort when I spotted this guy tanning a hide. No, I don’t know what it was in a previous life, but having its hide staked out on the grounds of a Hindu temple can’t be all bad for the karma thing.

Maxine took this picture of me and Roy parked near Galle Face Green. (It’s really a misnomer, it should be Galle Face Brown since it’s so well trafficked) Since I was absent the day they taught mime in theatre school, I’m on the phone with Lino to get her to tell Roy where we want to go next…

You don’t really want to get too close to the snake charmers in Sigirya.

Another favorite, Lisa took this picture of Dani and I at the mondo temple in Kandy. We were trying to think of ways to represent the scale of this huge statue in our photographs. When taking one looking up Buddha’s nose didn’t work, we decided we needed humans in the picture.

While we were in Kandy for the Perahera, we were all amused by these signs. I’m sure Chris and Dani aren’t the first tourists to pose with one of them.

Stay tuned for son of favorite things...

Thank God It's Pieday...

I promised Dani I’d make her a pumpkin pie…and I finally did it. I spent Thursday in Auntie Sunethras’ kitchen making pies under the watchful eyes of the maid/cook, Chandra. I had a ball with her, she kept sneaking up on me to see what the hell I was doing in HER kitchen. She probably weighs 75 pounds dripping wet and is the least threatening person you could ever meet. She insisted on washing up the bowls and dishes I was using. I just stood in front of the sink doing dishes and smiled at her and said things like, “Sure…wanna arm wrestle for it?” Then I taught her the ever popular “Rock, Paper, Scissors, Thermonuclear Device.” I may have neglected to fully explain how the Thermonuclear Device always wins…and she never figured it out so I kicked her butt.
The pies came out great and I brought them in to work on Friday…TGIP! Part of the fun was trying to figure out why all the Sinhalese speakers would giggle every single time “Pie” or “Pieday” was mentioned. Turns out “pie” is a slang term in Sinhalese which refers to a part of the male anatomy. Of course at this point, we pulled out all the stops and made every joke and pun we could think of. “Shut your pie hole…” “Pie envy…” “Pie in the sky..” just to name a few. Now just imagine all the adjectives you can use to describe pie and…well, you get the idea. It got especially funny later that night after several beers and a few pitchers of sangria. The pecan pie I made became “The pie with nuts…”

Auntie Sunethra enjoyed the mincemeat pie the most of the three...

Intern Alex Try, thinking about pie...

Lino and Maria

Lisa and Dani

(Dani is going to seriously kick my butt when she sees this pic)

Just Who Are You People Anyway?

Once again, as the hit counter edges toward 3,000; I have to ask…who are you people? Okay, I don’t ask for much but I really need your input. As I mentioned earlier in the blog, we are making cards to support our work in the Wellawatte Orphanage and the tsunami camps. As part of our art therapy program, we have the kids draw pictures and color in stars and trees that we then use on cards. Each card has original art work, not reproduced, and most are made of Elephant Dung paper. Some of the drawings are placed on heavy quality, glossy white board. There are accompanying envelopes and each has a sticker on the back to the effect that 100% of the profits will go to benefit the kids in the orphanage or camp. Each card will be in its own heat sealed glassine slip case sort of thing to keep them nice looking. They are blank inside and the colored ones have an insert for writing your own sentiment.
Here are some samples:

Here, the lovely Kiwi, Caroline, shows off two of the star cards colored by the kids at the boys home. The star is glued onto colored recycled paper, then adhered to a glossy white side fold card 13cm x 17cm. Metallic pen embellishments are done by us to dress them up a bit. Picture it with an accompanying envelope in a clear plastic heat sealed cover.

This card is made of elephant dung paper and measures 11cm x 16cm. It has an insert to write on; is stamped on the back "elephant dung paper" (I wanted to include, "when you care enough to send the very best..." but I got vetoed). Some have a gold star offset like this one and some have the metallic pen embellishments like the card above. Again, envision it with envelope and clear plastic covering.

This is my personal favorite, so you can't have it. These non-Christmas cards vary in size but almost all are going to be on 13cm X 17cm glossy white card stock as we move forward.

Some of these kids are really terrific artists...some aren't. Some are obsessed (there's one little guy with a flag fetish) many of them draw things they don't have like houses or family members. The real point is, good or bad; poignant or funny; these are all original works of art, not reproductions. Which brings me to the question... What would you pay for a card like this? We are planning to send some to relatives all over the world and I want ALL of you to chime in with what you think would be an appropriate price point given that it's for charity and all that. We're pretty sure we know what we have to charge in some countries to make a profit for the kids, but I'm really looking for input here. Please leave me a message in the comments section. I'm not trying to sell these to you, rather I would appreciate your insight. I'm also thinking of putting the fishies on a coffe cup at the Cafe Press site...any takers? http://www.cafepress.com/helpingvi Which brings me back to the original question...who are you people? And a secondary question, are you really done with your christmas shopping already? Go to the link above and help us out!

My New Prescription

Lino spotted me rubbing my head at the office a couple of weeks ago, followed by swallowing several Advil tablets. She immediately got on the phone and made an appointment for me with the eye doctor. Since that Tuesday was Poya, I was scheduled for Wednesday. Lino said, “You go to this hospital at noon and tell them you are number ten…bring a book or yo-yo or something.” Well, heck, I know that from my own health care system. I really thought I could just hold out until I got home, but the eyestrain headaches are miserable. My passport, which is looking decidedly worse for the wear, also contains my ratty and tattered World Health Organization form. This details all the vaccinations; pre-existing conditions; meds I’m taking; blood type; drug allergies and next of kin. There is also a space for optical information. I didn’t remember doing this, but apparently I had the prescription from my last exam entered on the form. At least they have a place to start when they call on number ten.
Travel Tip: Do write down your prescription for glasses. It would be bad to go on the trip of a lifetime and not be able to see any of it.
The appointment got cancelled. The doctor had to attend a funeral. They rescheduled for that Friday at 9:30 where I got kicked up the list to number eight. I got a call on Thursday, just as I was returning from the polls, canceling my Friday appointment because it was the day after the election…and as a rule, no one goes out. I’m confused now because Friday, November 18th has been the “day after the election” pretty much all year. I wish they had said something like, “Barring bloodshed and mayhem in the streets, your appointment is on Friday at 9:30.” There was no bloodshed but we did cock our heads a few times to try to discern whether we were hearing firecrackers or gunshots. The casual attitude of the locals is usually a good indicator that there’s nothing to worry about. The guy canceling the second appointment with me had only fledgling English skills, so I decided I’d see if Lino could reschedule me…in Sinhalese. The headaches lessened in their severity and it didn’t seem so urgent…until recently.
The eyestrain headaches came back with a vengeance and Lino made another appointment for me. Miraculously, this one actually happened. The meeting with the doctor was rather like stepping back several years. There is this huge case with lenses and you put on the ugly pair of frames while they drop different strengths in and make you read from the phone book. Once we worked out “better” “worse” and “no difference” to our mutual satisfaction, I had my new prescription. At the opticians, they presented me with every frou-frou pair of frames in the store. I finally had to show them all my current, plain Jane glasses so they would stop with the jewel encrusted tortoise shell stuff. My friend Sue and her daughters always help me pick out my frames. They reason that I only have to look through them and couldn’t normally care less what they look like but they have to look at them. It was my first solo expedition into frame buying.
It took four days to make the glasses…they called me to tell me my “spectacles” were ready and Roy and I went to pick them up. It’s always the same when I get new glasses, “Wow, look at that…What does that sign say...Did you see that?” You can’t sight-see while you’re driving a tuk-tuk so I just kept getting quizzical glances in the rear view mirror and an occasional head bobble. It really annoyed the hell out of Roy, so I bought him a Happy Meal before he took me back to the office.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

On the day of the election, we had two new volunteers join us. Tom (from the U.S.) and Caroline (from New Zealand) arrived together after working for a time in an orphanage in Nepal; then traveling in India for a few weeks. Caroline was limping around due to a really horrible road rash incurred during her first (and possibly last) experience with a motor bike. The front of her right lower leg and foot was just one massive, infected boo-boo. I’m not generally squeamish, but it was painful just to look at this injury. As with most volunteers, they are traveling on a shoestring and spent the first couple of nights of their stay upstairs from me, in a room here at 49 Lionel Edirisinghe Mawatha. Watching Caroline hobble down the spiral staircase from above was downright scary. This is not the cheapest place to live in Colombo, so I took pity on them and offered them the extra bedroom until they figured out what they wanted to do. They were thinking of going down south to do some home building and were exploring their options while Caroline’s leg healed. She’s doing very nicely now and hardly limps at all thanks to liberal doses of Neosporin and some oral antibiotics…(available over the counter at pharmacies all over the place). Yep, she’s feeling pretty good now… just in time for Tom to come down with dengue fever. D’oh! Okay, this really stinks. Tom feels like he was used hard and put away dirty and every night breaks out in a fever and sweat for at least three hours. We’ve closed up the apartment to keep the mosquitoes out at all cost and I made Tom swear on his life to kill any of them that bite him. He will be having blood tests every day to test his platelet level or something like that and if it falls below a certain point, they’re going to slap him in a hospital room for a nice long stay. There is no cure for dengue, but with a lot of rest and proper hydration he should be fine in three to four weeks. I shall be very cross if I get dengue fever from one of his cootie ridden mosquitoes!

You've heard of Typhoid Mary, Here's Dengue Tom and his pal, Road-rash Caroline.

Thanksgiving...of sorts

So here’s the payback for humorously alluding to the outbreak of avian influenza in an earlier post, there are no turkeys being imported. Lino and I even went to the mondo Keels Supermarket at the Crescat Plaza and asked for a turkey in Sinhalese …only to be disappointed. Thanksgiving is over and will now be replaced with a “fill your pie-hole with pie” night. I still owe Dani a pumpkin pie and have the makings for a mincemeat and pecan pie (thanks mom). Now we just have to figure out when the hell I’m going to find time to make a bunch of pies!
I did manage to knock a couple of things off my list of things to do this weekend. I got Kenney set up with business cards. He’s a translator, driver and tour guide and I highly recommend him should you decide to come to Sri Lanka for a holiday. I also wrote and had witnessed a letter to the Australian High Commission urging them in my own inimitable style, to give my friend Kenney a visa, you knuckleheads. It was actually a bit more polite than that… I also had some generic business cards made up for the volunteers to use when dealing with vendors. As with many Asian countries, the exchange of business cards here borders on the ritualistic. I’ve spent the last several months feigning patting myself down and muttering, “Sorry I seem to be out of cards at the moment…” This is always followed by hastily scribbling my name and cell number on an errant scrap of paper or cocktail napkin. As you might imagine, this part of the ritual does nothing to instill confidence in my new business partner. I also roped my friend Jules into helping me dress up the Café Press site since it’s deadly boring the way it is currently. Jules knows HTML and is generously donating her practical skills and artistic vision to this project. If you go there right now to purchase items either for yourself or as Christmas gifts, I will NOT consider it an endorsement for the site the way it appears now…it will soon be better…I promise. Go pick up a tote bag for Aunt Mavis; I defy any gift recipient to dislike a gift that helps out a charitable organization. Gift with confidence…be sure to check out the wall calendar, it has beautiful pictures… go on…
http://www.cafepress.com/helpingvi

The first thing I need to do this morning is get a do-it list together for my remaining few weeks here. Max left last week and unpleasantly discovered that a large gift she had intended to ship home, would not be accepted by the U.S.P.O. Apparently, Sri Lanka is on some list somewhere that indicates parcels from here will not be allowed into the U.S.
Just what am I supposed to do with all this stuff? Nephews and nieces will be glad to hear that the preliminary plan is to pack all the gifts first, throw a clean pair of underwear in a manila envelope and leave everything else behind.

The Kate Lynch Flora and Fauna Corner

In honor of getting an email from Kate, I decided to revisit the Flora and Fauna Corner. This is a picture of a king coconut tree. It was taken on location during a saree commercial shoot. (long story…) The local guys use a length of rope a couple of feet long with loops on each end for their feet, to shinny up to the top and cut off the ripe coconuts. These are sold all over the place. The vendors cut the top off at an angle with several whacks from a machete. They stick a straw in the top and voila... you have a ready to drink container with coconut milk inside. The milk is believed to have medicinal properties and can settle the stomach. This claim is yet to be proven with me, as I don’t like the taste and it had the opposite effect. Perhaps I’ll try one again now that it’s cooling off a bit and they aren’t sitting around in 90 degree plus heat.

Put de lime in de coconut...drink em bo' together...

But I Just Got My Nails Done...

Today was the presidential Election here in Sri Lanka. I am secretly hoping the guy that promised everyone a cow wins, but it’s not likely. I visited 20 polling places with several members of The Centre for Society and Religion; a local NGO. There were two women from the office that did most of the heavy lifting, my German friend, Kristina, is interning with this group and she got me involved and came with us as well. Kristina’s English is improving by leaps and bounds, but her Sinhalese is worse than mine. We got these cool PAFFREL armbands, hats and I.D.’s but were pretty much relegated to standing around and being stared at by the poll workers. As a rule, most of the big kahunas at the polling places were happy to see us and answer our standard questions…have you had any incidents; how’s the turnout; how many parties are represented by the workers at the polls…etc. One guy, about mid-day, started to get snarky with one of our fellow monitors. The gist of his comments was that he didn’t have to answer any of our questions and was told by the electorate commission not to cooperate with us. I admit, I was sort of wool-gathering at this point, but got a very unsubtle elbow in the side from one of my fellow observers. I had no idea at the time what this Machiavellian little power monger was saying, but I sure didn’t like his tone of voice. When he stopped to take a breath, I asked rather loudly, “Just what seems to be the problem here?” My colleagues smiled and started to tell me in halting English that this fellow didn’t wish to give us any information. I frowned, waved my hand in an imperious manner and walked off appearing to be dialing my cell phone. Apparently, he was much more helpful after that. You just never know when a background in theater is going to come in handy.

Rule number one: Always ask the highly trained professionals with the automatic weapons first if it's okay to enter the polling area.

(We were not allowed to take photos. This is from the Assosciated Press)

All in all, it was a lot like an election in America…but without Florida. The polls were only open from 7:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Apparently violence has marred so many of the elections here that the goal is to finish up and scamper home as soon as possible and definitely before dark. One other interesting difference is the permanent marker used to color the tip and nail of the left pinky finger. It keeps anyone that might be inclined, from voting more than once. They also have separate lines for men and women. I honestly don’t know why, women have had the vote here since 1931. They also indicate in the rather confusing instructions to the voters, that they can mark a first, second and third choice on their ballot. No one I spoke to seems to know why…I posited that perhaps it was like Miss America, “If, for any reason, our newly crowned Miss America is unable to fulfill her duties, the title will fall to the first runner up…” Maybe? These and other questions I hope to have answered by my continued close scrutiny of the local news.
The quote of the day is shared by me and Brigid. We were in the van on the way to our first polling place and she was reviewing the question checklist with me since it was all in Sinhalese. She got about halfway down the list and read the following: “Has anyone been killed during the polling? That…..that….that…uh…” At which point I interjected, “That would be bad.” “Um, yes.” Kristina started to crack up, but managed to stop herself and disguise it with a cough.
So far, it looks like it has gone without incident, but we have been instructed to lie low the next day as well since there may be unhappy citizens about when the results are announced.

Emma and Maxine in the Deep End...

We have a couple of new volunteers with some great ideas. Emma is Dani’s “Cool Cousin” from England. Since I never grew up around my cousins, I don’t have a “Cool Cousin,” Em says she’ll be my “Cool Cousin” as well. Maxine is from Idaho and an extremely well traveled recent retiree. These two are completely delightful people. As Max so wisely observed, “I guess it’s a fair assumption that only really nice people do this sort of thing.” You got that right and back at ya Max!
We are always trying to think of ways to make money for our projects. Greeting cards is a pre-existing idea that got shelved a while ago, but we’re taking it out of mothballs one more time. Em and Max picked up some elephant dung paper (yep, you read that right) and cut it up to see if we could get the kids at the camps, Molpe temple and the orphanage to make some note cards. After diligent P&L research, we’ll bundle them all off to our former volunteers to sell to friends and family. Then we’ll branch off into placemats, bookmarks, stickers, collages and calendars until the Montessori is funded for 100 years; all the orphans find families and no one lives in a refugee camp anymore. What can I tell you, I’m having a “glass half full” kind of day.

Maxine and Emma about to be surrounded by 45 kids and their kibbitzing mothers.

Em and Max did some shopping for paper and comprehensive rifling through the art supplies we already had on hand. When they came up with the paint, Lino and I just sort of looked at each other and smiled. You see, paint in the hands of over-stimulated children that don’t speak your language and outnumber you 15:1 can be a recipe for disaster. The only way it could've ended worse than it did, is if we had added sugar to the mix somehow. We all live and learn, and I knew that this was something they really did have to experience. I could have tried to convince them not to do it, but that would have conflicted with my current role of "Ms. Positive." I love the fact that they persevered and we have some beautiful paintings to use on our cards. Of course, some of them are stuck together because they didn’t dry properly and many of our young friends like to emulate the style of Paul Klee, but they really are terrific. We started out with a wonderful project designed and prepared by our former volunteer Deana Hmoud. She had the idea to cut out 5x5 inch pieces of paper and having each child draw something to be part of a taped together “quilt”. They loved it and I loved it mostly because it involved crayons only!

Thanks Deana, this was a very fun workshop!

Standby for originally created cards made out of elephant dung paper. Meanwhile, I have opened an online store where purchases can be made that will support our work here: http://www.cafepress.com/helpingvi
As will be immediately obvious, I am NOT a graphic designer. The commission on the items will be paid directly into our discretionary account for our ongoing projects. Wear the logo, and if anyone asks you about Volunteer International, give them my email address or the URL of the blog. Why not do all your Christmas shopping here? Stay home in your jammies and avoid the malls totally! Fair warning to my friends not in the US, the postage can be onerous, so you’d best order a lot of stuff to make it worthwhile.

Can you come back tomorrow?

As usual, anything you can do to help is deeply appreciated!

If Elected, I Will Not Serve...

We are about to have a presidential election here in Sri Lanka. There’s something like thirteen candidates, but most people can only name two. While perusing the morning paper the other day, I read about one candidate that if elected, promised to give every Sri Lankan family their own cow. Said cows are to be purchased with his personal fortune. Apparently, he is the founder and scion of a massive herbal medicine empire. (think Ross Perot) I don’t know… “A cow in every pot” just doesn’t sound right to me but it’s probably my own cultural bias at play. The article went on to explain about how cows make milk and how milk is an important part of the daily nutritional needs for children... Enough said. Any excess dairy products could be turned into cheese and curd for the family to sell... No doubt to each other. Good idea. I was wondering, if you suffer from lactose intolerance, maybe you could get a pig or something else instead.

Snatch the ballot from my hoof, Grasshopper...

I’m planning to work as a poll monitor on Election Day. It should be interesting. Apparently visible white/western faces help keep various seditious groups away from their usual intimidation at the polls. We’ll see. So far the run-up to the election has been relatively uneventful. It does depend upon which news source you access. Very often, I’ll be reading the paper and come across something that I believe to be patently untrue. I usually turn to Lino and ask, “Is this the pro UNP newspaper or the SLFP rag? Who are the Buddhist monks siding with again?” It’s very confusing but no less entertaining than any of our recent elections in the US. I have suggested to anyone that will listen that they should allow the state of Florida to vote simply to enhance the amusement value. I think it’s a great idea, since you can never have too many scapegoats. So far there aren’t any takers.

My own pups are IDDs!

That’s Internally Displaced Dogs. My most excellent friend, Jennifer Petschke, has been caring for my boys while I’m in Sri Lanka. She has recently been accused of trying to license them in a town, not their own. The town of Sweden has further threatened to sic (pun intended) the dog warden on them! Good luck finding them in Brighton. As it happens, I know the Sweden dog warden and she, Harvey and Beau are fast friends. Occasionally, Harv would manage to get off his dog run and head up to K&K for some hot wings and a malt liquor. (Man, can he run up a tab…”It’s okay, my person is good for it.”) This always results in Harv ending up drying out at the pound on White Road; hurling up chicken bones and trying to suck up to me as I bail him out. Beau is just…well…Beau. Originally procured as a “thinking brain dog” for Harv, he has proven to be almost as stupid.

When he was a little pup, he liked to sit on top of my head to watch the nightly news. I can’t remember why I ever thought this was a good idea. Regrettably, my head did not keep pace with his inevitable growth. Undeterred, he continued to try to sit on my head at every opportunity; always resulting in uncontrollable laughter from my brother Doug.

Beau, trying to reach the top of my head, “Hey, Down in front! I’m watching Law & Order here!”

Harv the wonder dog, as in: "I wonder what stupid thing I’ll do next!"

Harvey really is very patient with Beau and is an excellent big beagle brother. I’m sure Jennifer’s dogs; Hannah and Syd; are very anxious for them to come home so they can have their person all to themselves again. It’s the people in my life like Jennifer that helped me to know for certain that this was the right thing for me to do at the right time. If she had been unable to take in my boys, I don’t know who would have stepped up to care for them. If I hadn’t felt secure that they are safe and sound, I wouldn’t have been able to pick up and go as I did. Jen, you are a true friend and I owe you BIG TIME. Love to you all, have a rawhide on me.

Happy Birthday John-Boy!

Here is my nephew, John, in Uncle Rich and Aunt Kates' basement doing the color for a heated air hockey match. He's about to get bunny ears courtesy of his cousin Erik. If you see him, wish him a happy birthday. The irony of this little devil being born on All Saint's Day has not gone unnoticed. I'm saving some special birthday noogies for you, so stand by in December...you'll get them when you least expect it. I love you Jonathan, many happy returns of the day! Aunt Sue

Native English speakers have no right to complain...

So there I am at the orphanage, minding my own business; when I get asked by a fairly advanced student of English; why don’t the English words “come” and “home” sound alike if they look alike? Good question. My short answer is always, “Because I didn’t make the rules!” If it were up to me, we wouldn’t have things like: There, Their, They’re; or Two, Too, To; or Pear, Pair, Pare; or Write, Wright, Right… That’s just wrong!
When I’m listening to my friends Janaka, Roy or Christina struggle with their English pronunciation, I’m always reminded of the David Sedaris essay: Me talk pretty one day.
(Ooooooh, the grammar checker didn’t like that one bit!) He is a brilliant comedic writer and his books are laugh out loud funny.
Seriously, how the hell did I ever learn English? It’s a wacky language. At least in Sinhala, the letters correspond directly to sounds. Once you know your letters, you can speak it. (Bearing firmly in mind that unless you learn the meaning of the words, you could still have no idea what you’re saying) There’s this really strange thing happening to me, I’m starting to understand spoken Sinhalese. Lately, when Lino and Janaka are yukking it up in Sinhalese, I laugh in all the right places. I actually understand what they are talking about sometimes with absolutely no contextual reference. I mentioned this to Dani, and she reminded me of the conversations she has been having with her aunts’ maid, Chandra. When they speak, Chandra carries on in Sinhalese and Dani speaks in English, and they seem to understand each other perfectly. Odd that.
Due to years of French classes in pursuit of my B.A., I have a ton of latent French lurking just beneath the surface as well. (Merci, Mme. Siegel) When I’m flustered, my instructions to a tuk-tuk driver can be a bit…um…idiomatic. Instead of saying: “turn right here.” or “la droite de turn ici” or “dhah-ku-nah-tah har-ren-nah” sometimes it comes out as “ turn dhah-ku-nah-tah ici”. Since I barely comprehend it myself, this absolutely guarantees that no one else will understand a thing I say. What they do understand is that they need to get rid of the insanely laughing white woman asap.
I have a very unflattering picture of me, (I am not sharing) in obvious distress, caught red-handed trying to explain the vagaries and vicissitudes of the English language to a 16 year old. ( this thanks to a Japanese relief worker that took the picture and wasted a ton of bandwidth to send it to me...) I always start by complimenting them on the insightful nature of their original question, at which point I ask them to repeat it. This usually gives me time to ramble through my mental rolodex of grammar rules. More often than not, I can actually come up with a better answer than, “Blame the British…there’s one now…”
“Okay kids, always remember, ‘I before E except after C…uh, forget that with neighbor and weigh’; ‘the principal is your –pal-’; never end a sentence with a preposition and don’t split your infinitives, it’s rude.” Reviewing vocabulary words is always a convenient fall back position:
Comb…Tomb…D’oh!

Reality Check Department

I know I keep saying things are way cheaper over here, case in point:
Janaka and I went to buy 160 pairs of boys’ underwear. We traveled to Maharagama on the outskirts of Colombo. This is where there are seemingly endless stalls and storefronts of vendors selling fabric and clothing.

After a few false starts, and one gentleman who tried to convince me I really needed girls underwear, we located a stall that had boys’ briefs in 100% cotton in every color of the rainbow.
We ran into a slight communication problem when I explained that I wanted only white or light grey briefs because the boys need to wear them under the white pants of their school uniforms. Desperate to fill my order from the stock in his stall, the vendor kept holding up richly colored briefs and saying “nice” to me in an interrogative manner. If I acknowledged that they were indeed “nice” but not what I wanted, he started to pile them up with my order anyway. After a few attempts with my broken Sinhalese, I had to resort to making retching and gagging noises every time he tried to include any of the colors. Thanks to crossed arms; emphatic shaking of my head and one serious feint to leave the stall, he found the items I wanted. He had to check with other vendors and buy a bunch from them, but I ended up with 160 pairs of briefs in the sizes I needed, all light grey.
My mom raised four boys and while I know over the course of our childhood, she bought way more than 160 pairs of briefs, she never bought that many at one time. I got 16 large; 84 medium and 60 small. The entire order cost me the equivalent of $37.13 US. You could probably send a three pack of underwear from Wal-mart to Sri Lanka for less, but not by much. This is the long version of the reality check…things are MUCH less expensive to buy over here.

“Hi honey, I’m home! I gotta tell you about this crazy white broad that bought a crapload of boys underwear from me today!”

I did have a nice long chuckle on my way to the orphanage thinking about my sit-down with Chris Trento. He’s my tax guy and it will be amusing to explain some of the receipts I have. “That’s milk for the Montessori; that’s 10 bags of cement for the orphanage; that’s for toys in the piñatas; that’s for the truck we rented to take clothes to the Tissa orphanage; oh yeah, that’s the 160 pairs of boys underwear…” Many are in Sinhalese and all need to be converted from rupees to dollars. I’m sure he can hardly wait.

There's ALWAYS someone worse off than yourself...

We recently visited the Sri Sugathodaya Asarana Sarana Sewaya (hereafter referred to as the Wellawatte Orphanage, because I can actually pronounce that). It’s a very small strip of land behind a Buddhist temple located on the busiest main road in Colombo. I do not use the word “building” deliberately, because it isn’t. Bordered on one side by a heavily polluted canal; and the other by the butt ends of various shops and auto repair places; most of it is only about an eight to ten feet wide strip of concrete with a cobbled together makeshift roof.

Bunk beds to the left; auto repair shop eight feet away to the right.

This is home to 45 young boys aged three to sixteen, many of whom are orphans as a result of the recent civil war.

We were there shortly after one of the daily cloudbursts that occur this time of year, and the area where the boys sleep was completely soaked and muddied.

Quite a few of the toothbrushes are missing.

The current storage area for school backpacks and shoes.

There is a building project underway that will safely house and shelter these boys, but it is frequently stalled due to lack of funding. The new space is being built just behind the current area in use. It has a long main room and an outer hallway which will have cupboards for the boys as well as tables and chairs to use for study, coloring or games. There is also an enclosed toilet and bathing area and a “sick room” with separate toilet facilities. Below the main building will be the kitchen and cafeteria area. The structure is being built in such a fashion that a second floor can be easily added. This would eventually provide classroom space and a recreational area for the boys but is currently in the distant future due again to lack of funds.

The main bunk area

The space below that will be a kitchen/cafeteria

This is the new building as seen from the current sleeping area. The yellow painted doors to the right are the toilets now in use.
When we sat to talk with the teacher/bookkeeper for the orphanage, she assisted us in putting together a list of some of the more immediate needs for the continued funding of the building and the boys in general.
(100 rps = $1.00)
Cement 12,250 rps (25 bags)
Tiles for kitchen area/downstairs 920 tiles/ 50 rps per tile
1 steel cupboard 6,500 rps
1 gas cylinder 3,600 rps
2 burner gas stove approximately 4,000 rps.
5 Steel bunk bed frames (Niasco Ind. 011-2561367) price unknown
10 mattresses for bunks price unknown
10 pillows
2 clocks

On an average day, it costs 9,000 rps to feed all the boys, broken down as follows:
Breakfast 2,500 rps
Lunch 3,000 rps
Snack 1,000 rps
Dinner 2,500 rps

School Shoes (various sizes) @ 400 rps per pair
The teacher was able to show us a note book with all the boys feet traced out to determine the correct sizes needed.

Underwear- S-M-L price unknown

Ongoing expenses, maintenance

Wash powder
Toothbrushes
Disinfectant

These are the immediate needs and all items can be purchased here in Sri Lanka for considerably less than in the U.S. or elsewhere. Many of you have already made donations and for that I am very grateful. I know you MUST be suffering from disaster/donor fatigue. Katrina, Rita, Wilma and the earthquakes in Pakistan and India have numbed many of us into a complete stupor. I assure you, aid agencies and NGO's scarcely know where to allocate their resources. I am not asking anyone to donate to this endeavor; it’s only one of millions of causes that are all worthy and deserving of our time and money. Just find it in your heart to help someone, in your own country or elsewhere. Give of yourself; get involved with a literacy program; fundraise for the Kidney Foundation or on your next birthday, request that people make a donation in your name to the charity of your choice. The currency of your involvement and effort will pay huge dividends and has the power to change you forever. Believe me, I know.
I’m days away from getting the VI website on line, so stay tuned for the link. I’m also setting up an online store where items can be purchased that will support our work here. Today, I’m going to Pettah to buy as much boys underwear as I can find…as my brother Doug says, “I’ll take “Things I Never Thought I’d Do” for a thousand, Alex…” I don’t want any of these guys to “go commando” for the Sunday-almost-done-new building-opening ceremony.

Lost In Translation

Actually, it’s “lost without translation”. I’ve just had one of those days when I can’t really get anything accomplished because I don’t have a translator. I want to go to the Molpe Temple to distribute milk and stationary supplies…but I need a translator. I want to go to the Soyasapura/Salusara camp to conclude the mapping interviews…but I need a translator. I want to go to the Divisional Secretariat office to rifle through ration cards…but I need a translator. I want to go to Pettah to negotiate with Mr. Selvaratnum for some items I need for the camps…his English is not too bad, he’s a tool guy and we actually do pretty well miming to each other…but a translator would help. (If I mime a sewing machine, I might end up with a table saw…it could happen)
Days like this can be very frustrating. I ended up just entering stuff into my fledgling database and wondering if I’m spelling these complicated Sinhalese names correctly. I do have a couple of favorites: Jotuiratunalage Jayasiri Pushpukumara and Sirisena Sithmbi Arachchilage. No, I do not know how to pronounce them.
Yesterday was a Poya day and Dani’s Aunt Sunethra invited me over for dinner. She said the magic words: egg hoppers, seeni sambol and jac fruit curry so I dropped what I was doing and got over there. It’s bad form to arrive at a Sri Lankan home without bringing something for your hostess. The real problem is that everything is closed on Poya. My loyal tuk-tuk driver, Roy and I had a real bonding experience trying to find an open bakery so I could buy a cake. After cruising up and down Kirula and Thimbiragasaya roads, we found a place that was open and I ran in to buy something called a “ribbon cake”. I have no idea what makes it a ribbon cake, but one layer is green and another is pink. It tastes okay if you don’t look at it too closely. After telling Sunethra about my quest with Roy, she wrapped up a huge piece and gave it to him when he picked me up.
I had my mom send me all the stuff I need to make a pumpkin pie because Dani is a huge fan of all things pumpkin and has never had pumpkin pie. I have no idea how a person can like pumpkin in the absence of pie, but they do weird things to it here and it’s a lot more squash-like than what we think of as pumpkin. This got us to talking about American food. They decided I would cook them an authentic Thanksgiving meal. I agreed once I found out you can actually get a turkey here.

Minor Digression:
I cut out an article from the paper the other day:
Bird flu found in Turkey’s turkeys
I know avian flu is nothing to laugh about, but this cracked me up.

Here’s the menu so far, feel free to add your suggestions:
Turkey
Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Gravy
Cranberry sauce
Cornbread
Greenbean Casserole (I personally don’t care for this and would take suggestions)
Pumpkin Pie
Mincemeat Pie
Pecan Pie (Lino asked me what a pecan was, so I knew I had to make this)

I’ll be kicking Chandra (Aunt Sunethra’s maid/cook) out of her kitchen for the day and I have it on good authority that she is VERY territorial about that particular room. I think I can take her.

Minor Inconveniences

I was scheduled for an eye exam in September. Unfortunately, I’m 8,704 miles away from my local Lenscrafters. (Slightly closer if I went to the one in Henrietta) I really need my eyes checked. I brought along my bifocals, two pairs of reading glasses and my prescription sunglasses. My bifocals, the ones I usually wear all day, are irretrievably scratched up and only good for starting fires. The reading glasses I’ve been schlepping around with me, are each slightly older prescriptions and taking a beating as well. I’m practically living in my prescription sunglasses because it’s pretty bright here. It’s a constant source of amusement for my friends when I get up from reading without taking off my glasses. I always manage to navigate around the office for a few seconds until I ram into a wall or something. Actually, they are pretty good sports and do things like read to me from menus and reset the font on my phone so I can actually see who it is I’m calling before they answer.
I may see an eye doctor here, but he better speak English. I can see it all now,
“Which way is the ‘E’ pointing?”
“That’s an ‘E’?”
“Well no, it’s the Sinhalese symbol that represents our “eh” sound.”
“Of course…that’s clear as mud.”

I’ll see you in December, but I probably won’t recognize you.

My mom, Not in Sri Lanka

If you see this classy lady around town, make sure to wish her a happy birthday. Sure, she’s dressed up for a wedding in this picture, but she pretty much always looks like she just stepped out of a bandbox. Being brought up properly will do that to you. (Yes, she tried with us, but I think she still lies awake at night wondering how she managed to raise a bunch of damn Yankees.) After my rant about the heat a few days ago, my mother helpfully e-mailed me the formula for converting Celsius to Fahrenheit. See, she does have an evil streak. (Who taught that woman how to e-mail???) Mom checks the blog every morning and every evening so feel free to send her birthday wishes in the comment section of this post. No noogies please, but if you want to give her a squeeze from me she might let you. Mom, I sent you something fun for your birthday so I hope you scoot around to all the grandkids on October 8th and have a great day. I love you and miss you, happy birthday and many more happy returns of the day.

Kulture Korner

You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a bakery of some kind here in Sri Lanka. They are everywhere! At first, I was thinking, “Wow, these folks really groove on cakes, bread and pastries, look at all the shops.” Turns out, the average Sri Lankan kitchen doesn’t have an oven. It’s sorta hot here (see below) and the thought of heating up your kitchen to make some brownies or something is really objectionable. Almost everyone buys their baked goods from one of the many local bakeries. Perera & Sons (with outlets all over the city) is the official bakery sponsor of Volunteer International. They make the best chicken roti, even though the spiciness varies from day to day. Before we moved our office, they were right across the street from us. It was a traditional hazing moment for us to send a new volunteer over there with our confusing morning bakery order while clutching a fistful of rupees. Now that we are on Cotta Road, we’re near The Fab. They make the best cakes in Colombo and we often get lampries for breakfast. It took some doing, but I finally found out what’s in a lamprie: ghee rice; curries; sambols and forcemeat (veal) balls all wrapped up and steamed in a huge banana leaf. Originally called “lomprijist”, the name “lampries” is derived from the Dutch and is evidence of their lingering influence here in Sri Lanka. It’s delicious and makes for a great breakfast.

Going to Your "Happy Place" Will Cost You...

The view from the Mount Lavinia Hotel terrace.

Have I mentioned lately how hot it is here? It is. No…really hot. Someone told me today that it was 37 degrees. On the surface, that doesn’t sound so bad... if you’re using the Fahrenheit side of your lizard brain. I do know from the whiney tone of voice used that, yes, just as I suspected, it is indeed hot out today. It reminded me of when Cam and I first moved to Dallas…in the summer…talk about your boneheaded moves! We would drive around and occasionally we’d see one of those time and temperature things. Inevitably, one of us would scream, “It’s 105 degrees out here! Why aren’t these people dead?” We never did figure it out and he traded the dry heat of Texas for the humid heat of Florida. But I digress.
I’ve been here for four months now and from time to time, someone tries to tell me how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit. As with so many of life’s distasteful moments, I find sticking my fingers in my ears and humming real loud usually makes it all go away…until the next time. Look, I’ll learn kilometers, grams, liters and centimeters but I am drawing the line at temperature. I mean honestly, we’re seven degrees north of the freakin’ equator! It's hot! That's a given...I just don't want to know how hot it is. You can only really say two things about the weather here: “Gee, it doesn’t seem quite as hot as it was yesterday.” or “Gee, it’s way hotter than it was yesterday.” That’s about it.
So it’s Sunday and hot and all week I told everyone it was going to be a Mount Lavinia Sunday. That means we go to the Mount Lavinia Hotel and play tourist. The lunch buffet and pool costs 1500 rupees, about 15 USD, and we get to lounge around the pool all day or until we’re burnt to a crisp which ever comes first. Several volunteers ended up at the pool at the Hilton, but since I had told a bunch of others we’d be at the Mount Lavinia, I went there instead of the Hilton. As it happens, no one else showed up and I had a very pleasant day sitting by the pool, plugged into my mp3 player, writing postcards and reading my book. It was a fabulous day in the sun and jumping into the pool to cool off was the best part. As often happens this time of year, late in the day a massive thunderstorm blew in off the Indian Ocean. Rarely have I seen weather systems move as fast as the ones here. I spotted it on the horizon and immediately went to change into dry clothing. As I collected my stuff from the table and the pool boys were hurriedly tucking away the umbrellas, I noticed a family of tourists at the next table. They had just ordered their dinner and were expecting to enjoy it poolside. I told them it might be a good idea to move into the building for dinner since in about three minutes they would be drenched by the storm. Dad said, “But it’s so sunny out and those clouds are so far away.” I shrugged, muttered, “Fine, don’t listen to me, I’ve only been here four months…” and went into the lobby for a cup of tea to enjoy the ensuing mad scramble. Soaked tourists aside, it was one of the most dramatic storms I’ve ever seen, incredible wind and painful, horizontal rain. The rain cooled things down slightly, but it didn’t last.
I think poolside at the Mount Lavinia Hotel is my happy place and worth every rupee.

I think my blogger wa is back...

So today, blogger thinks it would be okay if I downloaded some pictures! It's a mystery as to why it refuses to work sometimes. Here are the pictures that were originally intended to go with the tool distribution story:

Two of my young friends from the camp help with those hard to reach places in the van.

Simone left her husband Kenney with the sign up list in the camp, then brought back the carpenters about five at a time to collect their tools.

Me with my helpers, Dushan, Eshan, Akila, Sameera and Sashi. While we handed out tools, they taught me the Sinhalese words for sun, moon, east, west, north, south, ocean and several body parts. They drew the line when I tried to count, I'm not sure I completely understood him, but Dushan seemed to be convinced I'd never get it. He was probably right.

Here is the drawing for the generic cart...it's actually easier to follow up close and personal.