Blogs from Colombo, Western Province, Sri Lanka, Asia - page 7

I have been able to share my room from time to time with several uninvited guests here in tropical Sri Lanka, and some of these fellows haven’t made it through the entirety of their intended stay thanks to various weapons at my disposal. A regular visitor in many rooms here has the scurrying gait of a large beetle and the battle-hardened, aggressive appearance of a cockroach - a weird hybrid of both these creatures. On the one occasion that the ‘mother’ of all big bugger beetle-cockroaches found him/herself in my room, it came second in a hard-fought battle with my industrial-strength vermine-killing spray, acquired in the household poisons section of the local Keells supermarket. In this and subsequent incidents the carcass of the evil-looking insect always seems to end up on its back, and eventually attracts ... read more

But enough of this let me tell you about my little project. Well I have started to paint this room in the little people’s house, it is only about 7 foot square but when I took it on I didn’t realise just how big a job it would be!!!!!!!!!!!! I bought paint and brushes and 3 tubs of filler (the walls are in a terrible state) and I am going to get curtains and pillows for the children. I have also bought 3 beautiful appliquéd cushion covers which I am going to make into wall hangings to brighten the room. But enough of that let me update you with my progress so far. Day 1: Tuesday 16th January 2007 First day on the job and what a state the room was in, the walls had great ... read more

Thursday 18th January Well here we are again another week almost over, where is the time going to? So much to tell you this time so I’m going to split it into different entries to make it easier reading. Let me think, where to start. I’ve already told some of you what my room is like but for those of you who have yet to savour the delights here goes. I share my room with Tina (Lisa has now returned to the UK and the comforts of home) and lots of multi-legged beasties including an array of lizards, cockroaches, HUGE spiders, slugs and anything else that happens to wonder in. The lizards are ok they don’t make any noise and what cockroaches we don’t kill with our MEGA ROACH KILLER SPRAY they eat and kindly leave ... read more

Thursday 11/01/07 Arrived safely on Sunday, even though I did have to run for my connecting flight at Doha!!! It’s difficult to describe what it’s like here without making it sound awful and I certainly don’t want to give the wrong impression. The Sri Lankan people are really friendly and most speak English which has made it a lot easier, especially when I wanted to buy a sim card for my phone, even my phrase book didn’t cover that scenario. But there is a lot of political unrest here and safety has to play a big part in your mindset when you’re out and about. The drivers the company I came with use also arrange weekend trips, so a few of us are off to explore what is known as Sri Lanka’s ‘Cultural Triangle’ this weekend, ... read more

Having joined my good pal Harsha here in Colombo and assisted in the delivery of a junior cricket coaching camp over four mornings in the Christmas holidays, I was rewarded with gifts not only from the gracious Harsha himself to say ‘thanks’ for coaching, but also from the unlikely-named Alan de Silva, one of the young boys who took part in the camp and who had a great time smacking a few cricket balls in the sunshine. It was rather humbling to be the recipient of a gift from one of the children on the camp, due to the relative lack of funds of the families who send along their off-spring in the holidays, and I was incredibly grateful for both presents (a snazzy watch from Harsh - he knew I was in need of one ... read more

One of those 'Sri Lanka' stories... Wandering around in a buddhist monastery, in the middle of the woods somewhere between Ambalangoda and Kandy... an old monk calls me to come over to him. His teeth had already found their way out of his mouth, his face was full of wrinkles and his orange clothes could have needed some washing... He asks me to send him a razor knive from Germany as soon as I am back ("German quality is the best"). I try to explain that I don't go back to Germany, I will head towards India. He doesn't understand (doesn't want to) and keeps on chewing on whatever it is (later on I found out that it's a kind of root that old people in Sri Lanka love to chew, for whatever reason). Suddenly, he ... read more

... what happened so far? To make a pretty long story short... it would be quite a large novel to write down everything that happened since I am here, therefore, just a short summary and some 'best of' stories later on... Travel itinery: I arrived in Colombo the 23nd of December and stayed for a week in Ambalangoda (little town at the beach), together with my parents and their group of ex collegues of the German railways, all around 60, the "average Germans (think of nice white skin colour, red face and a nice beer belly:-) ... It was quite fun to spend some time with them, hear their comments about what SHOULD be done here to improve the (environmental, political, social) situation... yes, they really got over that state of criticism (we Germans are good ... read more