Bill and Wendy's ickcillint adventures

  I mentioned many blogs back in Wendy Wα⃝nders, something that may have bordered on brutal honesty or seemingly disrespect about Sri Lankan singing. I must resurrect that small note and give this phenomenon a rightful place in our observations of this country. North Americans are lulled to sleep by Nora Jones, reenergized by Shania Twain or spiritually enriched by Christian hymns. We have come to take anyone who sings in public (karaoke excluded), as a reasonably good singer. However, Sri Lankan people (anyone who feels like it) sing at the drop of the hat and much to the chagrin of those forced to listen. Our real experience with this dreadful din is of course, at mass. We are usually spiritually filled by the lovely hymns, vespers and alleluias resounding from the lips and lungs of praising people. Here, however, we are tempted to convert to atheism. It is painful to attend church. Bill squiggles around trying to escape from the screech. It is amazing that a hymn can sound t...

  As I mentioned in the earlier blog, we took a wee trip to Thailand. After work last Thursday, we rode a small air conditioned bus from Nuwara Eliya to Colombo (7 hours). We stayed overnight in Colombo at a little guest house and got up at 4 am the next morning. We cabbed 45 minutes to the airport and for a 5:30 am check in time with Sri Lankan Airways. The flight scheduled to Bangkok had a 7:25 am departure time.   The flight was delayed until 10:30 am. The flight was delayed until 11:30am. The flight was delayed until 12:30 pm. The flight was delayed until 3 pm. The flight was cancelled. With much rigmarole and confusion, the airline finally organized the passengers onto a bus and trucked us to a hotel in Nagombo, a suburb of Colombo, nearer to the airport.   Now, as you can imagine, with a delay such as this, you form bonds with fellow stranded passengers. We met one woman, Sarah, a Canadian living in Colombo with her husband and children. We hit it off and it was so nic...

I am beginning to wonder about my husband. He now wears a skirt. I have to own that I did purchase his skirt for him. I purchased it thinking that wearing one here in Sri Lanka was a bit of a novelty. Men in Sri Lanka wear skirts – sarongs, actually. So, for his birthday in February, another VSO volunteer, a lovely psychologist from London, went shopping with me for a sarong for Bill. The sarong is lovely; teal blue with batiking as a border print. What I did not count on was his sheer joy in wearing his skirt; comfortable, easy to tie and it looks good with his sandals. He likes it and certainly gets a lot of female attention wearing his skirt. I became uneasy but resigned myself to the fact that my man was now into skirts and that I had only myself to blame. However, last week, we took a tiny holiday to Thailand to meet up with some of our friends, fellow travelers and fellow scuba divers from the Kamloops Ocean Pacific Dive Club. On this trip in the busy beach shops of Phuket ...

  As you know, I am a Roman Catholic and the Season of Lent is once upon me and other Catholic people. Each year, I try to do something for lent. Usually, I give up drinking wine, but this year, I decided there was something much more important for me to do. I had to give up grumbling and give up my resentment to my husband.   First, I will tell you about the grumbling. Actually, you already know all about the grumbling. I've been grumbling since I got to Sri Lanka. I grumbled about the cold, I grumbled about the rain, I grumbled about the electricity going off every night, I grumbled about wet sheets and clothes that wouldn't dry. I grumbled about cold houses and cold hospitals. For lent, I choose to see all the positive and wonderful things in my current life here. I am reminded of the song:   Happy days are here again, The skies above are clear again, Let the sun shine in, Face it with a grin, Open up your hearts and Let the sun shine in.     Yes, there is much to be...

  In Nuwara Eliya, we live at 6,182 feet of elevation. Our little town features a hill with a radio tower perched upon it. This hill is the highest point in all of Sri Lanka. To climb the hill all the way to the radio tower, you need to secure permission from the police. We were unable to secure permission to climb to the top, so decided to climb as far as we could without permission. We did mention to the landlord's twelve year old girl that we endeavoured to climb the hill.   So, we trishawed into town, then set out along a road on the edge of the town and picked up a nice trail that followed a waterfall. However the trail became more obscure after a half hour of climbing, but we ventured on, managing to follow the trail through the ever thickening jungle. At points along the way, the jungle brush was higher than our head. We both had secured sturdy sticks by this time and with each step, whacked the bush along side the path. Sri Lanka has six types of poisonous snakes. ...

  We dropped the scooter last night (2 nd time, same spot). After a lovely meal and a couple of glasses of wine (me), we drove home, about 10 pm, on the scooter. Sober Bill was driving. In order to get to our home, you have to make a right off the highway onto a gravel lane and then make a swift left onto Vijithapura By-road. This left turn onto our dirt lane is very sharp, on a totally blind corner and faces into a gravelly hill. Therefore, in order to make the turn, you have to hope nobody is coming, you have to guess where to point the bike and you need to accelerate around the corner in order to make it up the steep hill. If we don't get enough speed, the weighty passenger (me) has to get off and walk as the bike stalls out.     So last night as usual and as necessary, we careened around the corner and instantly, we were on the ground. It all happened so fast, we are not sure what went wrong. More gravel than usual? A bit too much speed? Anyway, I extracted my leg f...

To comfort Bill and I during desperate times when we were "shivering in the dark" (Jim Dines) my friend, Jen Sheeley sent me a link to Ted Talks. Ted Talks is an internet program featuring lectures on a variety of intellectual, scientific and social action issues. We have been grateful for Ted Talks to fill our lonely evening hours. His link is: www.ted.com   Ted inspired my blog. If Ted can, so can Wendy. Fortunately for Ted, he was gifted to have several fitting verbs to match his name and affording him a catchy title to his program. He had a raft of choice: Ted Talks, Ted's Takes, Ted's Table, Ted's Tabs, Ted Ticks Ted's Tips, for example. The list of catchy verbs goes on and on for Ted.   Now, for me, as I explored a title, I realized I had fewer options than Ted. Consider if you will: Wendy Whines: I already did sufficient whining during the rainy season. How about Wendy Whinnies? This might be appropriate and in keeping with the Morgan Hor...