Bill and Wendy's ickcillint adventures

Each evening, as the dusk gathers, the thousands of bats which hang during the day from trees in St. John's Old Park, respond to their ancient calling and begin to stir. Their sonar sounds can be heard from a distance as they take wing in search of mosquitoes, flies and fruit. If you are in the right place, and look up, you at first mistakenly believe it is a flock of geese flying south in preparation for winter. But these giant creatures are bats, not birds. These bats are huge! They are the size of a raven and at first glance, you just think it is a crow, but then, you see the shape of the wing – scalloped. You see the brown of the breast. You smell the smell. Bats! They are amazing to watch as they dangle in the trees. Yes, we had rabies shots.

Bill and I both finished the book by Gordon Weiss, called the Cage. We couldn't put it down. It is the history of the war between the Sri Lankan army (Sinhala) and the LTTE (Tamil). It is a very well written, and we both think a very objective documentation of the history of the struggle between these two ethnic groups. It is a very disturbing account of racism, discrimination and struggles for power. Here in Jaffna, the war has only been over two years and it was here that the fighting really happened. Evidence of war is everywhere. Bombed and shelled homes, about every 10 th home has been shelled heavily. It only recently occurred to me that with that shelling, people have most likely been killed. It is very sobering. I have begun to learn more about the war. People in the south of Sri Lanka don't talk about the war, because it really didn't affect them. Here, the war was in the Tamil people's back yard. People tell you their stories. At work, I will b

We are now settling into our new home in Jaffna. We know where stuff is, we have found stuff we couldn’t find and we feel a bit more organized, now that we have some furniture, a garbage can, a couple of tables and desks. We have a lovely big yard, albeit weeds and sand and now Bill has a place to putter about with his laundry lines. I popped the tire on my new pedal bike and he fixed my bike. He replaced the fender on his new bike. He can sit outdoors at the patio table and contemplate. It is monsoon season here and it really rains. I mean it rained in Nuwara Eliya too, monsoon rains, but there, it rained all day – cold rain. Here, the skies open, I mean open and water is dumped from the clouds like God pouring from a giant bucket. It isn’t really like individual rain drops, but more like a wave of rain. It lasts about 10 minutes and then, suddenly, the rain stops. The streets run with water, puddles are so large, they flood alleys. People ride bicycles with an opened um

  We have friends here; in fact, we hosted a dinner party last night. I cheffed up some lankawa cuisine from recipes in a couple of cook books I have acquired. These friends are VSO, or from our yoga/Tamil class. Four mornings a week (6:30 am), six of us ex-pats cycle over to Gerd's house (guy who works for UN) for Yoga classes. Bill and I love it, although our Yogi has us performing some unusual yoga postures: green worm, dog and the crocodile, for example. He also practices queer breathing exercises: panting like a dog, sucking through our teeth and "drinking" our saliva, the "nectar of our bodies."   Our yogi doubles as our Tamil master. I think he is a better yoga instructor than Tamil teacher, but in fairness, he focuses on useful conversation, so we are sticking it out. We, being 3 other people, and not including Bill. He jammed again on the language training. However, he is working (shh), I mean meeting people for coffee, starting next week. He was approa

We are in Jaffna. We might as well be in a different country than Sri Lanka. There are few similarities to our other life in Nuwara Eliya and even Colombo for that matter. It is unsettling to be confronted with so much unfamiliarity, when not expected. When a person travels to a different country, particularly one far from home, it is expected that things will not be the same. However, when a person travels within a country, especially such a tiny country, the striking changes are not expected. At least not by me, anyway. Oh sure, I knew we were heading into a war torn area of the country. I knew the people were Tamil. I knew that this area had been largely closed off to the rest of the world for about 30 years, but I knew these things intellectually, rather than emotionally. I worked hard to learn Sinhala and to read the Sinhala alphabet and expected this to help navigate me in this new town. However, there are no Sinhala signs. All signage is in Tamil. Despite being a tri-lingual c

Our Yaalpaanum (Tamil for Jaffna) house will be ready for occupancy on Tuesday, November 15. Originally a bombed house (well I guess not originally) currently being renovated into two flats. Once the landlord has finished the staircase leading to the upstairs flat and put in the kitchen upstairs, Bill and I will move into the lower quarters. Another VSO, Marcia, a child psychologist from the UK, will reside in the upstairs flat. We are very excited. A real house with a real yard, a real well, a real squat toilet and a real hearth for cooking in the kitchen. It is going to be lovely. Our furniture, cycle bikes and motor scooter will arrive on Monday night and we can move in on Tuesday morning. In the meantime, VSO installed us in a guest house not far from my new work place, Shantiham. With boxes and clothes, ironing boards, computers, baskets and washing lines strewn about our room, Bill and I feel right at home. We have created organized chaos within our hotel room. The maid won

Many of you have asked for more detail about my work here is Sri Lanka. So here, in point form to prevent boring you, is some detail of my work in Nuwara Eliya: I ran developed and ran two sections of Interpersonal Skills Training to nurses and support staff. Nurses and support staff had absolutely no skill or comfort level in engaging patients. They "hid out" in the staff room and interacted with patients only when absolutely necessary. The nurse I trained to deliver this curriculum is now running the course herself in Sinhala and at the specific request of the hospital director and the nursing matron. I made a presentation to the provincial health ministry and received funding from the regional district to run a course for community social service workers. I graduated 13 community social services workers from a Community Case management course that specialized in mental health. These social service workers are working in social work, but have had no formal soci

We are now somewhat comfortable living in Asian Court Apartments on Milagiriya Avenue in Bambalapitiya, Colombo 4. The apartment, scrubbed by us after long days of language training, is liveable, at least temporarily. It's only saving grace is a little view of the ocean. The place is riddled with cock roaches, but this is true of everywhere in the tropics. Last night, we walked home from the shops and cockroaches scuttled everywhere. The ground was crawling with them. Bill is our cock roach killer. I can't do it. I mean I could happily kill them, but I can't stand being close to them. They fly and often fly directly towards our heads. When we spy one in the house, Bill sneaks upon it with the very large can of aerosol Mortein spray, gleefully giving them a good shot of the white poison. Within seconds, they roll over onto their back, legs up in the air and expire. Each time, Bill exclaims, "Bastards!" as he picks the dead roach up, his fingers thick

You may not know this, but when Bill was a child, his nickname was Itty Bitty Blair. Despite his age (or due to his age), this moniker again applies to him. We are now in Colombo. We will be here about one more week before heading up to Jaffna. Colombo is hot, hot, hot, despite the daily rains of monsoon season. However, my husband still finds it cold. Itty Bitty Blair now is packing a blankie with him. I wake up sweating under a thin sheet while he is up, turning the ceiling fan off and pulling a blanket up over him. No wonder he was suffering in the cold and damp of Nuwara Eliya. I empathize with him, because I spend the first fifty years of my life freezing all the time. Just the same, Blankie Bill has received two strict ordinances from me, "Touch that ceiling fan on pain of death" and "Don't even think of letting that blanket touch me."