Bill and Wendy's ickcillint adventures

  A professional is sought for consultant doctor daughter born in 1974, 5'3", slim, pleasant, medium complexion, very simple in her lifestyle. Assets over 10 million, full details in the first letter Or how about this one: Pensioner parents seek for Govi Buddhist attractive only daughter 36 years, owning house. Seeking a suitable sober gentleman as marriage partner. Send details in first letter with copy of horoscope   Marriages are largely arranged here, and although some parents are not opposed to a "love match", and some input from the bride, most make the decision for their children. Religion, color of skin, dowry wealth and horoscope are important factors in match making. In fact, match making is an honoured occupation in many parts of Asia.   If any of our single male friends are interested in the above ads, please contact me and I will arrange the match ... for a small fee. Send horoscope details.  

  On Easter Saturday, Bill and I set off to explore. Entering a tea estate bordering a forest we discovered a nice trail leading deep into the forest. The trail was very discernable and where it became obscure or divided, we cleverly marked it with branches, sticks, rocks or plastic bags we found littered along the trail. We hiked for about an hour inside the forest and when the trail became too obscure, we turned back for home. Once home, and puttering about, Bill suddenly called out to me, "What the hell? Come and look at this." A long shiny black creature was moving end over end, across our floor. It looked a bit like a slug, but had a different snout. It was a long proboscis type of snout. It seemed to use it not only as an appendage, but also to sense things. It was weird! We wondered what it was and once concluding it looked 'leech like,' Bill picked it up in a Kleenex and threw it outside. About fifteen minutes later, Bill startled, "One of us is...

Not me, not mine. I am not into pain or denial. In fact, I haven't even been able to get through lent without grumbling about this and that, never mind actually inflicting pain on myself. No, I am referring to the self mortification of a young, handsome Sri Lankan man. I was witness to a Hindu ceremony of self mortification that left me shaking and nauseous. Yesterday, I received a phone call from the nurse that I work with. "Wendy, come quickly to our gate." So, I ran out the door of the clinic, across the crowded parking lot and through our gate. A band played lively music as I ran. A parade was occurring on the road along the hospital grounds. I ran back to my office in the clinic, grabbed my video camera and ran back to watch and film the parade. This parade was led by a truck with a mast that was listing at a 45 degree angle out the front. This truck was followed by people in costumes that looked like the seven dwarfs, a troupe of male dancers and a tro...

Years ago, Bill taught me to spit. I have exercise induced asthma and when I run, I produce phlegm. Before my spitting lessons, I only succeeded in dribbling spittle down my chin or dangling sputum off my running shorts. I could never quite clear my body with the spit. Since my lessons and with years of practice, if I need to spit while running, trees and plants are adorned with spittle instead of me. I also have some irritable bowel when I run. On many occasions I have dashed behind a large tree, low shrub or clump of sagebrush to take care of urgent business. These behaviours may be deemed unladylike but at least at home, in Canada, it is comfortably reassuring that these behaviours are largely unwitnessed events. Here on the other hand, a person can't pick their nose or scratch in one of those awkward places without looking up to find a pair of black eyes watching you. People are everywhere! Sri Lanka is only twice the size of Vancouver Island but has a population ...

Bill and I exercise pretty much every day. Usually, I run and he walks, but sometimes, especially when we are travelling, we just hike or walk together. Such was the case on our recent trip to Tangalle. Each morning, we cruised away from our hotel down this rutty, dusty, rocky road in order to get to the main road. On this path, we dodged insolent water buffalo, hissing and huge monitor lizards and rebellious cows. Just as an aside, the buffalo and cow branding on these animals requires a humane society to step in. The brands cut across the entire side of the animal and are four scripted letters about 1.5ft in width and 1.5 ft in length. The script itself is about an inch wide. Strips of flesh dangled from these poor animals. Anyway back to the story. A few homes sit along this path that we walk each day and each day, people greeted us from these small homes: people sitting outside their homes, standing in the doorway of their homes, or hanging out the windows of their homes...

It is New Years in Sri Lanka! On Monday, all the doctors I work with surprised me by wishing me, in Sinhala, a Happy New Years and accompanied the greeting with folded hands and a bow. Due to this New Years celebration, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were official government holidays, so naturally, I took this as leave as well. Bill and I hopped a bus and headed south. The bus descended from the tea plantations in the chilly Hill Country down through the rice paddies in southern interior toward the coast at Hambantota. From Hambantota, we followed the coast where the weather warmed appreciably, the bus crowded appreciably and the salty smell of the ocean became seductive. We ended our seven hour journey in Tangalle and the Lonely Planet directed us to Ganesh Gardens. It was sheer heaven; palms, beautiful beach, good food and cabañas. We also visited the towns of Matara and Marissa. We whale watched (saw Blue Whales) and we read. We suntanned and we swam. We met and pla...

  When we first arrived in Nuwara Eliya and took over our little house, it thrilled us to no end to see that the mattress in our master bedroom was brand new. In fact, it was still covered in plastic and the mattress edges encased in heavy chunks of cardboard. That first evening we slept in our new home, and before putting on our new bed sheets, Bill and I had a little discussion about whether we should cut the plastic. It was a strange land, with strange customs and we weren't sure what was appropriate. I only knew that I did not want to be sleeping on crinkly plastic and hearing it rustle every time we moved at night in the bed. So, we hedged our bets.   We slit the plastic covering with a knife on one full length of the mattress and both ends of the mattress. Then, stripping the plastic back off the mattress, we stuffed it in between the side board of the bed and the mattress itself. We have been sleeping comfortably on it ever since.   Since then, we have now noticed th...

  How isn't lining up in a single file and politely taking turns not a natural process for human beings? Lining up and turn taking is just not a cultural norm here in Sri Lanka. Bill and I have both been shoved aside at the pharmacy, grocery store, bus depot, post office, sales desk, computer shop, even while being served. We have even been shoved aside at the communion rail. I wonder if it is an Asian thing. I remember my daughter, Lisa, telling me about the lack of cueing in Korea and how she was pushed aside in the "every person for his or herself", "get there first", and " I can't see you standing in front of me", culture. Being in Korea over one year now, she reports she thinks nothing of hip checking little old ladies now in order to get service.   A classic event took place last week while checking into Sri Lankan airlines and preparing to fly from Colombo to Bangkok. In an orderly fashion, Europeans (and us Canadians) were all cuei...

Most of you know that my other name is Snow White.  I had the unfortunate luck to acquire the genetics of both my parents who despite being unrelated (except by marriage) greyed prematurely.  Actually, they missed the grey stage and when straight to white.  I, and my 7 other siblings, are products of their genetic structure.  We are all Snow Whites.  Yes, I have snow white hair.   I do my best to hide the evidence of my family genetics.  At home in Canada, I trucked off every two weeks to my hairdresser at Lu Lu Salon in the Bay to have my roots of my hair dyed to match the rest of my hair.  By the end of every two weeks, there was a quarter inch of re-growth.  The color of this re-growth (white) was in direct contrast to the rest of my hair (black).  Now that I am in Sri Lanka and do not have access to the salon at the Bay, I have had to search for a new hairdresser. I had prepared for this eventuality of not having access to my color ...