Pleasantville…NOT!

Today, we spent much of our day at the Office of the Divisional Secretariat for Moratuwa. Now that the army has pulled out of their role as supervisors in the refugee camps, the civil authority has taken over. You know what that means. More paperwork! We were informed that we needed an official letter with the signature and stamp of the Divisional Secretariat in order to gain access to the camps. This involved us providing them with a detailed schedule of our expected camp visits; a complete list of our volunteers and a meticulous accounting of our anticipated activities.
True to form, it’s some of the greatest fiction ever written. Newer volunteers were aghast at the audacity of putting down the names of current and past volunteers: Ben Dover; Cody Pendant; Duane Pipes; Emma Wroids; Faye Slift; Helen Back; Justin Case…you get the picture. Why you may ask? Simple, I take perverse pleasure in knowing that somewhere in Sri Lanka, tucked into a file that will never again see the light of day, is a list of funny names that no one here will ever “get”. What can I say? The TV here is crap.
We got our Official Letter. One other requirement was sussing out the Older Lady In The Office That Knows Everything. You know who I’m talking about. There is always one woman in every office, everywhere in the world that is the only one that does any real work and knows where everything is. We went in; we found her; we got the letter and we got out without leaving anyone behind.
We ventured on to the camp at Koralawella Mawatha where we did some more interviewing and Dave was hell-bent to play cricket with the kids. It’s an odd game that appears to go on forever and is punctuated by exuberant displays of delight as a result of weirdly unrelated incidents. I don’t get it. I actually think I understand rugby better…but that might have been the beer.

Amusing Rugby Anecdote #1:
While watching my first rugby match, Colombo vs. Kandy (allegedly a very heated rivalry) the players warmed up in their undershirts. When the Kandy team trotted out onto the field for the game they had their jerseys on and after seeing the backs of about four of them I commented, “Wow! Check it out! They’ve all got the same last name!” How was I to know that “Singer” was their sponser? Now, whenever I have a clueless moment, my fellow volunteers say to me, “Yes, and I’m sure Mrs. Singer is very proud.” I hate them sometimes.

Amusing Rugby Anecdote #2:
The real problem with this anecdote is that no one except my friend Dani and I find it funny. We were watching another match one day with Chris and Kyle (I forgot who was playing, but suffice it to say, Dani and I were both bored out of our minds) One team had those jerseys with the wide black and yellow horizontal stripes, and I murmured sarcastically under my breath, “I love it when they dress like little bees.” See, not funny. But it makes Dani giggle every time I say it.

Oh yeah, Pleasantville… sometimes being here is like stepping back into the fifties. Be honest with yourself, when was the last time you saw ANYONE use carbon paper? It’s a way of life around here. It’s like we moved on to the sixties and sent all our office furniture and accoutrements to Sri Lanka. There are of course modern offices with copiers and computers and printers and such, it’s just that it’ll be another couple of decades before it trickles down to municipal offices and the like.