Goodbye Nuwara Eliya

With only ten days notice to leave Nuwara Eliya, it sent Bill and me into a dizzy of activity. I focused on getting all ends of my work at the hospital, the community mental health clinic and the community social service agencies tied up. Then, we began our goodbyes and our good byes and our good byes. I said goodbye to the nurses I had trained in mental health (and some I didn't). I got presents. I said goodbye to the community social service workers that I have been training since July on case management. I got presents. I said goodbye to the acute psychiatric staff. I got presents. I said good bye to my precious colleagues in the community mental health clinic. I got presents. I said good bye to my Sinhala teacher, Sandamalli over a dinner at the Grand Hotel and I said goodbye to my nurse/colleague/translator and friend, Chamali and her husband. I said goodbye to the doctors and the psychiatric consultant.

Bill said his goodbyes. He said goodbye to Rahim over lunch at Rahim's house with Rahim's family. He said goodbye to Stephen, a man doing charitable work in the community and Bill sometimes helped him with this work. He said goodbye to Munaweera, our trusty trishaw driver and friend. We said goodbye to our kind and wonderful landlords, Sudumalli and his wife Delu and their children, Tharushi and Mallisha. We said goodbye to Sudumalli's sister in law and her children.

We were done with saying goodbye. It is hard work and emotional work. I got tearful at times, saying goodbye to people with whom it had been hard work developing a relationship due to differences of language and culture. These people we said goodbye to were good and decent people who befriended us when we were lonely and cold and sad. Bill too, got emotional saying goodbye.

Besides being emotionally hard work to say all these goodbyes, we were done with saying goodbye for another reason; we needed to get busy packing in order to get out of Dodge. However, this was not so easy. People we had already said goodbye to called and wanted to see us, "one more time". We finally had to set some very strong boundaries and just say NO. We took to "sneaking" into the gate on the last night, but to no avail… we got caught with more goodbyes.

As I desperately tried to get all the work done at the hospital; plan a graduation party, shop for the party, print certificates for over 35 graduates in four different programs, spell the names correctly, hand over the budgets I was responsible for, complete the closing report, provide hard and soft copies of my lectures, have documents translated into Sinhala, pay translators, etc, my good man, Bill Blair was busily packing up the house.

His industry at this task resulted in some concern. Three days before we were to leave, there was not a dish to be had in the house which made eating difficult. Two days before we left, we slept on blankets spread out on the bed as all bed sheets had been whisked into cardboard boxes. This made sleep hygiene difficult Boxes were stacked everywhere and dirt was abundant. He had been sweeping under the bed and bookshelves and sofas and the piles of flies and dust were left about to evidence his efforts. This made wife difficult.

Just the same, I was so grateful for all his preparation work, as come Wednesday morning (the day of moving), we took our last run/walk in the lush green tea estates. There we were, walking hand in hand, saying goodbye to our life and our home for the past 10 months. Then, heading back to our little white home for the last time, I scrubbed down the kitchen and mopped the floors while Bill began to load the van waiting to take us to Colombo and the next phase of our life here.

Goodbye cold and wet Nuwara Eliya. Goodbye, kind and good people. In both Sinhala and Tamil, there is an expression used to say goodbye. In these languages, people do not actually say goodbye, but rather it is an invitation. The expression in Sinhala is gihin ennan and in Tamil it is poittu vaareen and translated means, "Go and come again." We go and hope we can come again.