Not going to Jaffna
We have been unlinked from Jaffna, in the north of Sri Lanka. CUSO-VSO has advised us that the possibility of getting into Jaffna is presently too difficult and they are trying a new route of entry for us. CUSO is now trying to place us into the Central Province, specifically, into a city named Kandy. Kandy is in the central mountain region and is a thriving and beautiful city. We have a new departure date of October 19th for arrival in Sri Lanka for October 26th (we still plan to visit Lisa in Korea, enroute). My job as a clinical social worker will not vary a great deal.
Political tensions are developing between the Canadian government and the Sri Lankan government due to the arrival off our coast at Esquimalt of the MV Sun Sea, a boat full of 500 Tamil refugees seeking asylum in Canada. In light of these tensions, I am most dubious about our chances of ever getting into Sri Lanka. On Monday, August 16th, with that despair driving me, I called our Ottawa advisor, Nana, and asked three pertinent questions. The questions are numbered, the replies are bulleted below.
1. In his opinion, was the current political situation likely to result in further delays or possible denial of a visa to Sri Lanka:
1. In his opinion, was the current political situation likely to result in further delays or possible denial of a visa to Sri Lanka:
He has not heard anything and advised us that generally, if there is a significant development of either a threat to visa or to the security of the volunteers, an alert is issued by CUSO-VSO staff in the host country. He plans on a teleconference on Monday with both the Sri Lanka and the UK CUSO offices to assess the present situation.
He feels that Sri Lanka remains a viable option for us, but agrees, he will begin placement in another country, should our visas not be approved in one month's time.
He feels it might be possible to place us in a new country by November, but more likely in February 2011.
At this point, I reminded him that at the end of August, we are on our third move to secure housing and will now, with the further delays, need to make at least one more move, as the cabin we are going to on September 1st has no heat source and we cannot last out the winter there (all our woollies are packed). This month to month hope of leaving soon does not permit us to secure more permanent lodging for the meantime.
CUSO-VSO in Ottawa, Sri Lanka and the head office in the UK all feel badly about the situation, are calling our situation "highly unusual" and are apologizing for the situation that is beyond their control. I also told him that further delays may necessarily, for our sanity, result in us unlinking from the whole CUSO-VSO process. Bill was aghast at my words.
I got off the phone and wept. When Bill is up, I am down. When Bill is down, I am up. Thank goodness we have each other or we'd have pulled the pin long ago. So, hope this provided a bit of an update for you.
In the meantime, I decided I'd get a leg up on language training in Tamil. See for yourself the challenge ahead of us:
In the meantime, I decided I'd get a leg up on language training in Tamil. See for yourself the challenge ahead of us:
Click on the link below and scroll down within that website. See the example of tamil writing, read the transliteration and you have got to listen to the recording of the transliteration. It is wild!
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/tamil.htm
Guess what? We are going to starve! How are we expected to learn this? We found Spanish language training difficult in Mexico but at least its alphabet was recognizable and its root words had meaning for us. What are we getting ourselves into? In 2008, we spent two weeks in Mazatlan, Mexico. We signed up with a language school, Spanish Abroad, to study Spanish for two weeks and take part in a home stay to enhance and augment our language school training.
Hosting our home stay was a wonderful couple, Esther and Jose Anquel. However, within a few days of our stay, Bill and I began avoiding them like the bubonic plague. Esther and Jose Anquel were dedicated hosts wanting to live up to their home stay host commitment and engage us in Spanish language communication. Nobody told us that our hosts only spoke rapid fire Spanish and that their expectations of our speed of learning Spanish far exceeded our Spanish language acquisition. We were just learning to sing the alphabet.
At first, Bill and I responded by staring dumbly into their kind faces and shrugging or repeating, "No comprende" in a repetitious fashion. So, rather than communicate or more accurately, not communicate, we slipped into a survival mode called Avoid and Sneak. This was played by sneaking out of our rooms before they got up, creeping into our rooms during their siesta time and avoiding ever coming home for dinner. This behaviour, I am sure, was mystifying to our hosts; after all, we had paid to eat at their home as part of the home stay package. Yes, we are ashamed of ourselves but it is a source of constant hilarity between the two of us.
So, given our history of openness to a foreign language and the speed of learning a foreign language, how do you suppose we will fare with the curly cue alphabet?
௦ ௧ ௨ ௩ ௪ ௫ ௬ ௭ ௮ ௯ ௰ ௱ ௲
௳ ௴ ௵ ௶ ௷ ௸ ௹ ௺
taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_language
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