Bill and Wendy's ickcillint adventures

Two weeks ago, we travelled to Kandy for the annual Perahera with three other Canadians in the car. Shawn Humphries is a VSO from Saskatchewan and his mother, Judy and his father, Rob had been up visiting us in Nuwara Eliya and so we shared luxury travel in a van equipped with a driver (this is how ex-pats travel about the country). Us poor volunteers, living on VSO salary, cannot afford such expensive costs, so in pure luxury we travelled to the town with the grandest parade in the country – the Perahera). The Perahera is a nine day parade. It clogs Kandy town with thousands of tourists for this nine days. In order to attend you need to secure accommodation months in advance and secure a seat for about $5,000 rs ($50). Seats consist of plastic deck chairs placed so close together you can feel the person behind breathing on your neck and the chair arms are virtually overlapped to ensure placement of additional chairs. It is a racket. Basically promoters try and sell as man...

The winds of Hill Country are something we have never experienced. High winds of about 40-50 miles an hour blow all day and night. Mats tucked against the space under our door get blown half way across the living room floor. Wind whistles outside in and around the windows, making uncanny animal like sounds. The wind chill factor drops the temperature 5 degrees. However, the wind is blowing change for Bill and me. Initially, our placement here in Nuwara Eliya was for six months only. I was "on loan" to this district until the visa situation changed and I was allowed into Jaffna. As the work progressed, I agreed to stay on until November to ensure that the work I began was completed and showed promise of sustainability. In August, we renewed our housing contract until the end of October. So, the plan was to move me to Jaffna as that area is finally opening up. Locals are able to drive to Jaffna now as the road blockade has been removed. That blockade has been in pla...