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Published: February 5th 2006
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A Sri Lankan
Our hostess (in pink and purple) and her friends. The meal was delicious We'll be in Sri Lanka 2 weeks tomorrow and I can't believe how settled in we feel or how much we like it. D and I are both surprised that I would love this bustling and, well, very dirty and polluted city. Yet there's a vibrancy to it and the people are so warm and friendly and have such dignity. We couldn't have been greeted more warmly by our NGO or the host of our guest house. We've been working hard (see below for some detail) and last weekend went on our first holiday to the coast. The trip was 64 kilometers and took 2 hours on a two lane road filled with buses and trucks, cars and three wheelers darting around one another and tooting their horns to let the vehicles around know that they are passing. We had a lovely time on the beautiful SL beach and in the warm Indian Ocean.
This morning, D went off to the Colombo train station to get tickets for our trip this weekend. Our plan is to have a driver take us to an ancient town in the interior of SL (Kandy) by way of the Elephant Orphanage (The baby elephants,
Our patio in Bentota
We had just arrived at our lovely hotel and we were quite happy with the place. especially, are supposed to be really adorable. The elephants wander around and are protected from the visitors by their protective care-takers.) which we'll visit for a while, and then we will take the train home on Tuesday. There is a very small first class observation deck on the train (I think with 4 or 6 seats) that is very comfortable and allows a great vantage point for seeing the country-side. If we can get tickets for these seats coming back that would be great.
We also heard from Dan McKill, our friend from Nova Scotia, who is in India. He's confirmed that he will be meeting us in Cochin. So now I'm going to call Sri Lankan Airlines to get our tickets. We're really excited about that trip (March 9-14). I'm going to take lots of pictures.
Yesterday, when D was at the internet cafe, he looked up the Union Theater web-site and found the announcement of Eric's play that opened today in London. Eric, Lise and Mark will all be there for a few days during the three week run. We're so sorry that we are too far away to just pop in to London. We can't
The train between the beach & hotel
This little "tunnerville trolley" sort of train came by ever few hours from morning until evening. It was quite charming. wait to find out how it goes. If you'd like to see the web-site, it is
Much of the work we will be doing here involves the development of a Strategic Plan. It will serve as the basis for the funding proposals our NGO will be writing and will give direction to the priorities set for the projects the NGO will engage in. So the first thing we've done is design a series of meetings with the Executive director and the Board of Tursties to discuss the various components of the SP.
The first Strategic Planning meeting was held on Monday night and went really well. The Board seemed to get a lot out of it and we made a good start on the plan document. We've scheduled in advance three additional SP meetings, which one of the Trustees said would be impossible to do given how busy the members of the Board are. So that is a very good sign of their commitment to the process. I'm finding that we are doing a lot of work on team building and group process as well as strategic positioning. We're getting good feedback. Rosanna said that she is trying to figure out a way to get us back. We'll have to think about that . There's such a big world out there for us to explore and we're not getting any younger.
It's getting late and I still have to figure out how to get the pictures from our Bentota trip onto this travelblog.
More after our trip to Kandy. Love, judy and david
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