Blow out at Point Pedro

Last Sunday, we decided to go back to Point Pedro beach. Point Pedro is a small heavily occupied town, situated on the most northern tip of Sri Lanka. Despite the longish drive (1.5 hours on a motorbike), we love the sumptuous white sand and shell seeker beach there. So, VSO pals, all straddling Honda Peppy Scooters clearly marked VSO, and in caravan, roared off from Jaffna down Point Pedro Rd.
On the way to the beach, we detoured off the main road to see St. Anthony's church buried in sand. Long ago, St. Anthony's was moved to a new site and the old site is nearly buried in a white dune of sand. An attached graveyard is now mostly buried as well, but new additions to the site (graves) were placed after the 2006 Tsunami. Near the church is a resettled village.

Anyway, after walking the site, we hopped back onto our trusty Peppies and back onto the dusty red road, to ride the last 10 minutes to the beach. POW! Our rear tire punctured, forcing the bike into a dangerous wobble. Fortunately, Capable Bill was able to slow down without spilling us from the bike and, getting off, we stood there, scratching our heads and wondering what to do. BCAA is not in Sri Lanka. The other girls were racing ahead of us not yet realizing we were "down". Eventually though, they circled back. As the day was too good to be spoiled, we decided to deal with the problem after the swim. So, we hopped onto the saddle sets of their bikes and continued to the beach. After a lovely dip, we cycled back to the dirty, tough town of Point Pedro to arrange for help for our disabled scooter. What a spectacle we made of ourselves.

We found an open Tyre shop and the mechanic, like a doctor going on a house call, immediately packed his tool kit, and jumped on the bike behind Bill now riding one of the other VSO scooters. They left in a cloud of dust to change the tire on our scooter. Us girls sat in a "hotel" drinking warm ginger beer (non-alcoholic) and Wadee (savoury donut things) and then because Bill was not back yet, sipped plain tea until he did return.

Bill arrived back, sans scooter. The mechanic, unable to dismember the rusting dirty tire from the bike, recommended hiring a small truck to fetch the scooter and bring it back into the shop where he had more specialized tools. So, truck got hired, scooter fetched, scooter back, scooter nearly fixed. Then, one of the VSO girls, Mary, asked the mechanic to force a bit more air in her rear tyre fearing it was too low for the long and bumpy drive home. Fine. The mechanic fills her tire and we are ready to roll....almost. Mary had locked her bike key in the boot of her bike.

Now, a crowd is gathering. Despite screw drivers, wires and nails, it is clear the lock is well locked. The mechanic, in his genius, flagged down every cyclist going by the shop riding a Honda Peppy (many, many of them), and grabbing their key, tried to open Mary's boot with someone else's scooter key. No luck. So, the mechanics at the little shop, painstakingly removed the entire chassis of the bike to get at the purse inside the boot where the key had been placed for safekeeping.
Then, after much Nandriing (thanking) and bowing, smiling, paying, tipping and waving, we were on our way back to Jaffna. We all felt like we had made new friends. At almost the exact same time as all this hullabaloo was going on, our other VSO pal, who didn't join us for the outing, put her Honda Peppy into a four foot deep storm drain. She was injured. The same weekend, another VSO volunteer dumped his bike. He was hospitalized. Just the same, we all love our bike riding. Oh, we did make a friend. This weekend, we met a man who recognized us from Point Pedro. He had seen us all milling around the bike shop. In a strange event of serendipity, he showed up at our house. He taught me the right way to chop a 30 lb. Jak Fruit. He showed me how to dry the seeds. He took Bill to his home at Point Pedro the next day for a visit. Our blow out blew in a friend.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saari

Image
Sri Lankan women wear saaris. They wear other things too. Sinhalese women either wear saaris or skirts and blouses. Tamil women wear saaris and unmarried Tamil women wear salwaar kemeez. A few women wear slacks. All professional women wear saaris. As I give formal presentations in my work, I decided to purchase myself a saari At the Saari store, I selected the fabric I loved. It was tan coloured silk blend with blue, green and apricot accents. I also purchased two stretchy tank tops that are worn with a Saari. Saari fabric is sold in such a length allowing for one end to be cut off and used as fabric for a saari blouse. The salesman measured me up for the blouse. A couple days later, when the blouse was ready, the salesman phoned and Bill picked it up for me. I tried it on. First, I put it on backwards. Then realizing my error, I tried it on front ways. The darts in the blouse sharpened my breasts into cone shaped points. I had noticed women about town with sharply poi
Read more

My work

Image
Handing over curriculum and books to Sri Jayawardenapura University Mental Health Training Organizational Development for Shanthiham I have had requests to write more about my work. I find it difficult due to the highly sensitive nature of the work and the usual limits of confidentiality. However, I will try to give some generalities. Many jobs or tasks arose based on my initial assessment of the organization and the needs of the community/district/province. My work was and is not assigned, but rather based on this assessment and determining where my skill set can be used to fill in some of the gaps. Job One : Train the nine member trauma team in group therapy, build their clinical skills, and develop their capacity to work with victims of torture, trauma and ex-combatants. Job Two : Train a six member community team in group therapy, build their clinical skills to work with families of the "disappeared", war widows, the displaced, and the mentally ill.
Read more

Knuckles Range

Image
Deep in the interior of Sri Lanka is a mountain range named Knuckles Range. This moniker, given by early British surveyors to the area, is so named as it closely resembles the clenched fist of a giant man. Knuckles Range is a UNESCO Heritage Site due to the flora and fauna found there; some species are endemic and not seen anywhere else in the world. April 12 and 13 th are the Tamil and Sinhala New Years and as the dates landed on a Thursday/Friday, a nice long weekend was created that allowed us to travel (a long and dirty bus ride) to the Kandy District in order to hike the Knuckles Range with a guide. Another VSO volunteer, Marjorie was with Bill and me. Day 1: Two hours driving into the Knuckles region in 4x4 Safari Jeep: 5 hours of hiking to base camp. Day 2: 8 hours of hiking to the caves; camp out. Porters carrying food, tents, sleeping bags. Day 3: 8 hours of hiking to home stay in the Knuckles Day 4: 4 hours of hiking to the rarely seen falls: only 3 other foreigne
Read more