House Hunting

We have found a house to live in for the next six months! We now officially live in Nuwara Eliya! We departed Colombo on January 23^rd and travelled 115 kms along the Kandy Road to Kandy. These 115 kms took us 3.5 hours! No breezy country sides and long stretches of land between places, but back to back villages and hamlets. These villages sport markets of tambilli, keselgeDi (that is how it is spelled) and other mixed and sundry fruits. The streets are lined with cars, bicycles, trishaws, pedestrians, cows, people and vendors. Women in saris and children in school uniforms walk hand in hand on the road. It is like driving through a fair ground on festival day. Needless to say, it was slow going.

We rested in Kandy overnight in the Lakeside Guest House and were awakened by thundering on the metal roof of the guest house. We erroneously assumed this noise was a thunder and lightning storm. Lying in bed, looking out the window, Bill saw a small black hand grip the bars on our window. Only then did we notice all the barred windows to keep out the monkeys. Monkeys flew by past our windows, capered along the railings and screeched along the rooftops, rattling the metal corrugated roofing.

 I am not a fan of monkeys. I had my fill of them in Thailand. They are revered in Buddhist temples and in those temple caves, they multiply, crap on the Buddha and smell up the caves housing the Buddha, leaving a most unholy aroma. They also snatch snacks from unsuspecting tourists.

Forgive the aside about monkeys.

Back to how we got to Nuwara Eliya and the barriers to housing. We left Kandy and travelled the 68 Kms to Nuwara Eliya (2.5 hours). This stretch of the trek was actually not a stretch but a tangled ribbon of road weaving itself up the mountainside into the absolutely stunningly lush green tea plantations of Nuwara Eliya. Then (pitti passé) the air conditioner belt went on the Land Rover. Pitti passé, we checked into our guest house. Pitti passe, we began our search for our house.

Language was the first barrier to securing our lodging. For all you English speakers, if you ever thought that looking for a house in Canada using the English language to communicate was difficult, try securing lodging in Sri Lanka and in the Sinhala language.

Allow me to describe. Our rent ceiling from VSO is $30,000 Rs (rupees) for a furnished place and $25,000 Rs for a non-furnished place. Now, Bill and I have become quite adept at hearing and saying the numbers from one to ten, but try communicating in thousands of rupiyal and communication rapidly slides downhill.

In the same theme of language barriers, we know the names of useless things like eloolu (vegetables) and palatura (fruits), but have failed to learn necessary terminology for renting like stove, fridge, furnishings, beds etc. So, fortunately, VSO took pity on us and loaned us the transport officer, Upali as our negotiator, suite finder and translator.

The amount of rupees given by VSO for housing was the second barrier to finding housing. Despite being shown palatial homes, the rate limits luxury housing and buys housing that seemed to range from subsistence housing to modest housing. We have a modest little home to move into tomorrow. It is bright and clean with a nice Sinhala family living in a separate house on the same property. The children speak English.

Speaking of clean, cleanliness was the third barrier to finding a suitable place. Anyone who has travelled to Mexico knows the Mexican people's love for soap. They swab everything, all the time. Not here. Now, Bill and I are not OCD about cleanliness, but grimy walls, thick dust, dark mud caked windows are not for us. Sri Lankan standards of cleanliness are different than ours, at least what we have seen so far. Many places we were shown needed more cleaning work than either the landlord or Bill and I were prepared to do. So, we were delighted to find a place so new and clean and fresh.

The fourth barrier to renting a home in Sri Lanka is actually finding rental properties to view. Sri Lankan people are leery of renting. They hold a belief that renters will eventually acquire squatter's rights. Therefore, there is very little to rent. They do like to rent to foreigners, however. Anyway, we got one of the best lessons on how Sri Lankans conduct business through our housing search.

Here's how it works. It started first thing yesterday morning. Our driver mentioned our dilemma for finding housing to the man at the hotel. He then calls his friend, who knows a friend who has a house. The man with the house tells the man at the hotel to show us the house. He hops in our vehicle. We stop and get a key from someone and we look at the place. A neighbour comes out and sees us walking around the house. He knows of a place. He hops in our car, makes a call or two on his cell phone and we meet up with the owner at the next place. He also knows a man we should see, so this man hops in, we drop off the other guys, drive to a house.

We show up unannounced, and are invited in with genuine hospitality. Our needs are fully discussed with this new man and he proceeds to call his friends. Yes, they have places to look at. We looked at a total of 10 places and never once had to look on Craig's list, the Buy and Sell or the classified ads.

By the way, we also heard, "I have a car rental place", "My sister does laundry", "My cousin can do some cooking", "If you need anything, just come by. I will cook for you." It was amazingly friendly and such a gracious way to conduct business.

That is enough for now. I have begun to work...but that is a story for tomorrow.