Postcards from Sri Lanka: R.I.P. Peter

*disclaimer* 90% of my job is writing, and I love it. But it’s not just writing, it’s use-all-you-non-existent-research-thesis statement-full out-university paper- kind of writing. It’s not easy that’s for sure. Keeping this in mind, I couldn’t be bothered putting too much thought into the below. You’ve been warned. And don’t come nit picking to me if things don’t make sense ;)

It’s totally been awhile since I’ve blogged, and it’s not even as if there’s nothing blog worthy going on either. There’s plenty, but I wanted to wait until I had something a little bit more interesting other than work to write about ;)

First order of business. Peter’s dead. And I wasn’t the one who killed him. I swear. Although there were a few close calls mainly in the area of him being on the bathroom floor and me not noticing him. But Peter was murdered in cold blood. We have a little frog who likes to hang out in the bathroom during the evenings, and he’s creeepy I hate it when he’s in there, mainly because I’m frightened he’s going to jump on me. Anyways, I’ve noticed that since the frog has been around Peter has been absent, my only conclusion is that the frog ate Peter. I’m not even going to dignify him with a name.

Of Movies
I’ve never been to a theatre in Sri Lanka before, and I was dying to see a movie before I left. When Aiya was here a movie called ‘One Shot’ was being promoted for release. We didn’t know all that much about it, but the posters were hilarious. Hilarious enough for us to have taken pictures of it. (And due to the lack of a fast internet connection, these pictures will not be posted, but you’re all more than welcome to see ‘em when I get home.) It was all that hard convincing Nilanga to come along with me, she’s always game for going and causing an unnecessary ruckus, because really I had no expectations of this movie whatsoever. Yeah it blew. But my fellow movie watchers, they made the experience for me. People were throwing stuff at the screen; during really dramatic moments someone would yell something obscene and everyone would laugh; the fight scenes were the best though, along with the cheesy on screen sound effects some yobos decided to make their own ;) I know it sounds as if it would have been irritating to watch a movie with such a crowd, but it was so much fun. It helped that I didn’t care too much about what was going on screen. I mean come on, it was 3 hours long, I fell asleep in the last 45 minutes. But what do you honestly expect? It wasn’t a Hindi movie!

Of Music
I was saddened that I wasn’t able to buy X&Y before I left home. And nothing from our neck of the woods gets released here in legitimate form until waaaay after. So it was with a heavy heart that I went to my local pirated DVD store to find out if perhaps they might have ripped copies of X&Y, lo and behold they were expecting a shipment by the end of next week! So my name’s on a waiting list, and next Friday will be a very good day. I was going to be cheeky and ask them if they also had the new Gorillaz album, because as I said previously, Damon Albarn was my first brit-pop boyfriend, and come on, DJ Danger Mouse AND De La Soul both collaborated on it. It’s impossible for it to suck.

Of Life
One of the many great things about my job is that it lends me a sense of normalcy. I love what I do and don’t dread waking up in the mornings, even though I’m very poorly paid, my level of job satisfaction is 110%. I’ve had some pretty lucrative summer jobs comparatively speaking, where the money was amazing, but I disliked my work. Couple this feeling of work induced euphoria with being in a totally different country, and it’s a pretty sweet equation. On weekdays when I’m going to work, the tourist inside of me shrivels up and dies. Suddenly, and unknowingly I become part of life here in Colombo. To think about it is so strange.

On my way home from work the owners of the little stores I pop in at all know me and have something nice to say. The guys at the gothamba roti stand try to teach me how to count in Sinhala, while I teach them phrases in English, and if they’re in good spirits sometimes French too. The little girls at the ‘convenience store’ (aka a large dimly lit wooden box crammed with all sorts of things) where I buy long distance phone cards always want to examine the broach or pin I’m wearing. Let’s not even start with my friends at the DVD stores, they know me rather well and we always have a little chat on a myriad of different topics. I’ve even made some charming friends at the fabric store as well, but that’s really thanks to ammi and the wardrobe makeover she’s receiving from me. But all of this changes on the weekends, when I once again become a tourist

The traffic which I find so irritating on my way to work, and on my way home suddenly becomes charming on the weekends. On Saturday and Sunday, it becomes the fascinating hustle and bustle of a metropolitan city in the developing world. Even the smells and the dirt which make me want to hurl Monday to Friday become bearable because after all they’re a ‘new cultural experience.’ It’s funny how inadvertently easy it is to totally make everything politically correct. Things that I would normally turn my nose up at in Toronto suddenly become acceptable in Sri Lanka because it’s not ‘nice’ to impose my cultural expectations on a culture so far removed from the one I’m used to. Talk about receiving a solid liberal arts education huh?

Of Travels
I’m heading down south for the weekend! Hopefully there’ll be much to share when I get back to Colombo.

Postcards from Sri Lanka: I can't find my Polydent!

Even though it’s only 9:07 PM on a Friday night, I’ve got my PJs on and am in bed. Two weeks of fun have officially come to an end today. Aiya left for Toronto at 8:20 PM. So what does this mean? Life alone with my 84 year old grandparents. This means waking up at 7:00 AM every single morning to my slightly deaf grandfather blaring the radio. Breakfast at 8:00 AM sharp with or without me. Lunch at 12:00 PM, and dinner at 8:00 PM every day. Life runs on the clock, it’s amazing what habitual creatures they are. They’ve been like this as long as anyone can remember, and most likely they’ll continue on in the same vein until they die.

Fortunately for me I have been able to find a way to break up the tedium that will eventually be a 21 year old becoming a pseudo senior citizen. Wednesday I start my job at an NGO which is dedicated to ending corruption and promoting good governance. I’ll be working on a project that’s investigating whether or not funds collected for the tsunami are being used in a proper manner. I’m stoked. The only not so exciting part about all of this is I’ll be travelling from Ratmalana where my grandparents live (think Ajax) to Borella (think downtown). This apparently means, that due to the insane amount of traffic in Colombo I’ll have to leave at the 7:45 at the very latest in order to make it on time for work which starts at 9:00. When I went to drop Aiya off at the airport today, it took me two hours to get there, and two hours to get home! All because of rush hour traffic. Eek.

Well although Aiya’s gone and I’m bound to lose a lot of mobility and independence I will have a bit more time on my hands for important things. Like watching all the pirated Hindi movies that I’ve acquired over the last couple of days. And of course replying to your e-mails and blogging a bit more (which means more than once a week ;))