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April 20th - May 5th (and on....)
Some things stay the same no matter how far you travel. Joe had a cushy job which finished at 1:30 every day so he got to swim in the afternoon with the children. I sat in a hot little office until 4:30 every day and the only thing I get to swim in is the sweat running down my back!
I had been in the office for 3 weeks and been absorbed into the fabric of the place. I had my own chair and table complete with an old emirates airline blanket for a tablecloth. We amicably share the 2 computers between 6 of us and yesterday finally got our dialup internet connection. Perhaps the sharing will be not quite so amicable from now on?
I was included in the office tea ritual, where Bandah, the housekeeper, brought us china cups with sweet, milky tea at exactly 11am and 3pm. No biscuits, no one snacks here. I can’t believe how much I looked forward to it. 11 and 3 were the highlights of the work day. The place was suddenly lively with chat (much of it mine as I bombarded everyone
with questions). The days weren't’t exactly taxing. The work rate was fairly gentle when the Bishop isn’t around (which is most of the time) but there were so few distractions that the days pass slowly and the 5 minutes before 11 and 3 were interminable. Fighting with the ancient printer wasone of my other daily distractions. It had a highly idiosyncratic way of lining up the paper and setting page breaks which failed to fathom.
We had a troupe of monkeys who often came out of the forest to scavenge food from the Bishop’s garden. They were a large family group of about 20 with several babies. The little ones were almost small enough to fit through the bars on the office windows and caused great amusement when they tried. I think it was only our laughter that put them off their quest to break in. Elliot’s favourite story is of the one who climbed onto a newly arrived motorbike, and tried to get the helmet on its head!
The people are lovely and I am got to know them in a way I couldn’t if we were just tourists passing through. Samuel, the accountant, has worked in
plantation offices most of his life and now travels down from the plantations during the week to work in the Bishop’s office. Artis is fairly new to the office and is responsible for project funding (and currently has me as a partner). Theodore is the Bishop’s secretary and Nadisha is the office junior who falls asleep at her desk and causes scandal by being seen on her college days dallying in the park with a boy.
I spent my days looking for funders for development projects and writing up proposals for a range of projects from funding of a bible study programme to road and school building in rural plantations. Without access to the internet the research was limited but as they have no fixed project methodology here or structures for document presentation or even filing there was plenty for me to do.
Samuel very kindly offered to take us to Hatton, the main tea plantation district in the hills, to stay with his son and daughter in law. We were to leave early on Friday morning and were all very excited about the prospect of having to take jumpers. Sri Lanka is in the middle of heat wave (between 32 and 38C) and even the locals are finding it hot just now. Hatton by contrast is about 23C during the day and actually gets cooler in the evening.
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Sue, Chris & Fraser
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All caught up!
Today I spent Fraser's entire nap catching up on your blogs...and I have had the best time! In fact, he woke up before I'd finished and I just left him. That's the difference - I abandon my child in his crib while you are giving your boys the adventure of their lives! Not sure if I'm the susan referred to in the "susanish" comment, but it did make me laugh. And the accommodation looks almost as good as the Glasgow flat Joe!! Keep the blogs coming. We really admire your adventurous spirit and hope you are truly having the time of your lives. LOL, the Beatties x