Sweet like a crow

I came across this poem by Michael Ondaatje (Sri Lankan born, Canadian) in his hilarious semi-autobiographical book "Running in the Family". What a dysfunctional, but fun, family, well at least to an outsider. I read it after a sleepless night caused by the 36 hour session of atonal chanting and lecturing forced through distorted speakers at the temple next door to my apartment so it struck a particular chord with me (pun intended).

http://youtu.be/xnZoltEHsVM

SWEET LIKE A CROW

                                    For Hetti Corea, 8 years old

‘The Sinhalese are beyond a doubt one of the least musical

people in the world. It would be quite impossible to have

less sense of pitch, line or rhythm’  PAUL BOWELS

Your voice sounds like a scorpion being pushed

through a glass tube

like someone has just trod on a peacock

like wind howling in a coconut

like a rusty bible, like someone pulling barbed wire

across a stone courtyard, like a pig drowning,

a vattacka being fried

a bone shaking hands

a frog singing at Carnegie Hall.

Like a crow swimming in milk,

like a nose being hit by a mango

like the crowd at the Royal-Thomian match,

a womb full of twins, a pariah dog

with a magpie in its mouth

like the midnight jet from Casablanca

like Air Pakistan curry,

a typewriter on fire, like a hundred

pappadans being crunched, like someone

trying to light matches in a dark room,

the clicking sound of a reef when you put your head into the sea,

a dolphin reciting epic poetry to a sleepy audience,

the sound of a fan when someone throws brinjals at it,

like pineapples being sliced in the Pettah market

like betel juice hitting a butterfly in mid-air

like a whole village running naked onto the street

and tearing their sarongs, like an angry family

pushing a jeep out of the mud, like dirt on the needle,

like 8 sharks being carried on the back of a bicycle

like 3 old ladies locked in the lavatory

like the sound I hear when having an afternoon sleep

and someone walked through my room in ankle bracelets.

 
Click on the photo to go to a photo essay on a pilgrimage to a jungle shrine in Yala National Park. A beautiful piece on ancient rituals and traditions.

Stepping back in time

I needed to get out of town for the weekend. Galle, pronounced to rhyme with ball, seemed like a good option. A town on the south coast of Sri Lanka, happily easily accessible from Colombo via the Southern Expressway, the first in the country, that cuts the 120km distance down to a manageable hour or so, once you've negotiated the Colombo traffic.
And Galle proved to be a delight. Jutting out into the sea, the historic part is an ancient fortified town filled with crumbling buildings showing evidence of Portuguese, Dutch and English occupation and a mixture of Muslim, Christian and Buddhist cultures and traditions. Huge wooden doors open onto cool interiors providing welcome retreat from the bright, steaming sun. Glimpses of inner courtyards through open carved panels and timber columns gave hints of lush green gardens and ponds of tranquility.
It is said that Marco Polo stopped here, and Sinbad the sailor, yo ho. Records dating back to the 1400s tell of cinnamon trading to the west, so it really is a place steeped in history and there's no doubt there would be some ghosts about.
It's not yet a perfectly restored tourist mecca, many buildings are still decaying gently back into the rocky ground, some have been restored to discrete luxurious oases. Small businesses are popping up and daily life still continues for the many long term residents. Rebuilding is continuing from the tsunami too.
Climate: Tropical hot and steamy.
Loved: Colourful hoards of Sri Lankan tourists out for a weekend jaunt.
Unexpected: the occasional Art Deco villa.
Photos: Galle

Time to cut spending

I am conscious of the fact that I am a guest in this country, so I shall merely post the link to this article in yesterday's Sunday Times and reserve comment for another time.

Also love this letter in the paper for its impassioned language. as a point of reference, SL has to import all it's oil and fuel and a large proportion of electricity generation is dependent on it too. We have frequent blackouts due to demand and supply issues.

SOS call from the people

By Maurice Lord, Colombo 13

The people of this country are in real distress. They do not know where they are heading. The cost of living has spiralled completely out of control. The prices of basic food items have gone sky-high. Many people may be managing with only one meal a day. Some may not be able to afford even that. The soaring petrol, diesel and kerosene oil prices trigger a chain reaction that is felt in other crucial areas. When diesel goes up in price, so does the cost of transport, and consequently the cost of everything that has to be transported, including vegetables. A kilo of just about any vegetable has gone up to between Rs. 75 and Rs. 100. Tomatoes are more than Rs. 150 a kilo, and green chillies cost up to Rs. 30 per 100 grams. There is hardly anything that has not been affected by the increased oil costs, and there is talk that oil prices will go up even further. The Indian Oil Company (IOC) says it has raised its prices because the Government has raised its fuel prices. This is something that has to be looked into. The entire operation of the Indian Oil Company should be scrutinised – not by politicians but by competent financial experts – and a plan drawn up in the country’s best interests. The time has also come to consider a possible total ban on the import of all vehicles into the country. For a small country like ours, the number of vehicles we have appears to be far in excess of our needs. Our roads cannot take any more traffic. It is a virtual crawl on all roads during normal working hours. It is a disgrace that, in spite of the oil crisis, the Government should decide to import eight Benz cars, at a cost of over Rs. 2 billion. How can a country with such meagre resources indulge in extravagances of this nature? While a minority travels in luxury, the rest must suffer.

One more bookmark for later reference - Chinese investments in SL.

Arts and crafts

Stopped by the National Handcrafts Fair on Saturday. Some beautiful works and some that were certainly not to my western taste in aesthetics! Some extraordinary masks. 

 I was also pretty impressed with the kids' drawing exhibition.

Fine place for a picnic

 Two of my colleagues went down to Colombo port on the weekend to see the open day for the new deep water container port. The golf day we went to was put on by the financers of the port.
So the site is still a construction zone, it's not finished yet, and the dredgers are still working in the harbour (yes there are people in the water right next to the dredger!). But that apparently didn't stop literally thousands of people swarming all over the site, and having picnics . The line of traffic driving out along the new breakwater was about 3km long each way. Once you were in, as Dave was, you were in! OHS laws are clearly non existent in this country. But it looks like a jolly day was had by all.

Sinhalish?

I have some word watching friends who will be delighted by the slight typographical error in this sign at the aquarium. Musical fish!!

More than just curry

Have been pleased to find that there is more than just Sri Lankan food on offer here. Obviously it's more than reasonable to expect that there would be plenty of that and talking to some of my local colleagues they prefer to have curry for breakfast, lunch and dinner and you couldn't pay them to eat anything else.

But being a well-travelled Aussie, I'm used to variety in my culinary options. Am currently typing this feeling very satisfied with the lunch delivery organised by my Scottish colleague from Hazari's, an Arab fast food restaurant that makes pretty tasty pizzas and wraps that are totally different from anything you've ever had before. I'm very pleased to add the word mannakish (a stuffed flatbread kind of thing) to my vocabulary. Mildly spiced, not drowned in cheese, they are GOOD! Thank goodness for travelling chefs who choose to set up in far flung corners of the world.

The recent past

As a newcomer to Sri Lanka stuck in an office in the burbs it's easy to forget the horrors of the recent past here. And it's not really a topic you want to bring up with new people you are trying to make friends with! But I've a lot to learn. I wonder what the Sinhala equivalent of 'gaijin' is?!

Albright report slams Lanka

July 24, 2013 from Colombo Gazette
A report compiled by a committee chaired by former US Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright has criticised the international reaction to Sri Lanka during the final stages of the conflict despite embracing the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) concept.
R2P focuses on preventing and halting genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.
Released by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Institute of Peace, and Brookings Institution, the report said that tens of thousands of Tamil civilians died at the end of the Sri Lankan civil war with little international outcry or effective UN response.
Former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former presidential special envoy to Sudan Richard Williamson co-chaired the working group which compiled the report.
On Sri Lanka, the report says for over twenty-five years, the conflict in Sri Lanka pitted the army against the separatist insurgency of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). However, levels of violence escalated rapidly as the government pursued a strategy of military victory and advanced into LTTE-held territory between January and May 2009.
During this period, the civilian population suffered significant casualties and were unable to escape the conflict zone due to LTTE threats and the Sri Lankan military’s prohibitions on movement.
The United Nations estimates that up to forty thousand civilians were killed and hundreds of thousands were displaced during the final phase of the conflict, which ended with the defeat of the LTTE and the deaths of its senior leaders.
“Despite the high number of civilian casualties, the international community did little beyond issuing statements of concern. The UN Security Council, High Commission on Human Rights, and General Assembly held no formal sessions on Sri Lanka during this period. In Sri Lanka, both the government and the rebels can be faulted for failing to protect civilians. However, the international community also neglected its responsibility to take timely action when it was apparent that violations of humanitarian law were taking place,” the report said.
It goes on to say that the case of Sri Lanka exemplifies a challenge for implementing R2P when sovereign governments confront an internal threat from a group that is designated as a terrorist organization.
“Since the end of the conflict, the government has steadfastly denied that the mass killing of civilians and war crimes took place. While launching its own inquiry into the military’s actions, the government has obstructed international efforts to investigate potential war crimes and crimes against humanity. Critics question the independence and balance of the government commission’s report and argue that accountability requires a more credible investigation. If a recurrence of conflict in Sri Lanka is to be prevented, the international community should help the government respond to the needs of all communities in the country, while undertaking a national reconciliation process that addresses wounds inflicted during nearly three decades of conflict,” the report said. (Colombo Gazette)
http://colombogazette.com/2013/07/24/albright-report-slams-lanka/

My local Chinese has the delightful air of the mildly dodgy

This is the review from Yamu, a local website with well written recommendations on places to eat and drink etc. I had seen a local joint "Chopsticks" on my tuk tuk journeys to and from yoga class and couldn't be bothered cooking last night so thought I'd check it out.

"If you happen to be in Nawala, or reside in the lowly 'burbs of Nugegoda or Dehiwala, Chopsticks is a fine place for a meal and drink. While the drinks aren't super cheap (big Lion - Rs. 250), the place has the delightful air of the mildly dodgy. And the food is great."

And it was fine. Nothing fancy but more than sufficient for a local joint. Framed black and white photos of Danny and Sandy (from Grease), Liz Taylor, Elvis and a random assortment of other western movie stars dotted the walls in random locations and the decor was Sante Fe-esque. the distorted stereo boomed out Meatloaf and other 80s and early 90s classics. It's that odd kind of time-warp setting that you find in lots of developing countries that is somehow charming for its earnest mix of thrown together influences with no sense of irony intended.

All the young men heading upstairs to the pub definitely didn't know what to make of me sitting there reading a book on my iphone drinking a beer. Oh well. It's the most local food joint to my flat I've found so far (not counting MacDo) and I don't want to overdo it on the curry to the point where I can't eat it anymore. 

Hooray for the mildly dodgy.

"Once a woman cut off the neck of a she goat and suffered in hell because of that action, She had her own head cut off as many times as she had hair on her body. This is the fate of all who commit sin."

Take what you want from today's Buddhist lesson from Gangaramaya temple. Happy weekend all.

 

Building on happiness

The weekend before last I stayed at the beautiful Villa Bentota, just outside the seaside town of Bentota about 2 hours drive (65km) south of Colombo. Designed by Geoffrey Bawa, Sri Lanka's most renowned and revered architect, it really was a space that made you feel beautiful and elegant. And yet it wasn't overly imposing or grand, just very refined and thoughtful.

This article I found in the paper sums it up well:

"It’s not huge, big architecture with a capital ‘A’ but it’s about how people experience it. The architecture doesn’t dominate. The use of the space dominates and how people feel in that. It’s around people, and how they live…there’s a subtlety that’s just beautiful."

Spaces that make you happy. We don't often consciously think about it, but you know when you are in a place that just makes you feel more alive and that you belong in that space. Trouble is, like business class, once you've tried it you don't want to go back to everyday economy non-design!

Personals of a different nature

So the search for a life partner is done very differently here in SL - it seems parents put the advertisement in the paper spelling out the desirable traits and asking for horoscopes, even for adult children who have professional degrees. And the status of siblings seems also to be of import. Tells you quite a lot about the culture here. I wonder if this is changing at all as more and more young SL's are educated abroad?  

Bentota - the photos

Epicurean delight

I convinced one of my colleagues, Peter, to join me in an epicurean degustation at Tao, a fusion restaurant in the oh so elegant Cinnamon Grand Hotel complex down by the ocean. We careened up in a fume spewing tuk tuk, which thankfully dropped us away from the elegant main entrance, so it wasn't quite so evident that we were ring-ins from the humdrum outer suburbs.

The set menu had half a dozen entrees, a trio of mini soups, about 8 mains and 6 desserts. Morsels and mouthfuls, it all added up to a sublime feast. Unlike other degustations I have had the pleasure of enjoying, this one had less heavily constructed food and relied more on simple fresh ingredients simply prepared and paired with complimentary or surprising accompaniments.

Seated by a gleaming deep sapphire pool, breeze in the palm trees, delightful Argentinian wine, it was the epitome of elegant life in the tropics.



And the most delightful bit? With tip and taxes it was AUD25 each. We may just have to go back again next week!

local weather forecast

At least it's consistent! And I know I don't need to pack a jumper.

The treatment of women

A recent blog post from New Internationalist was timely as I settle into a new culture.
http://newint.org/blog/2013/06/14/women-violence-india/
Sri Lanka is not India however there are similarities to be found.

In a country which had the privilege of having both the first female prime minister and president in the world, there are marked gaps between rhetoric and reality. The guidebooks all say that because of the influence of Buddhism here, that SL is a safe place for solo women travellers, however I haven't found it to be particularly so. Already I have had incredibly rude things shouted at me by schoolboys, been mocked by boys on the beach outside my hotel in a very explicit way, and been generally harassed by touts and drivers in a popular tourist area to a far greater extent than I have ever been subject to anywhere in the world. My colleagues have told me a few stories about women they know personally having been physically threatened whilst here too. Of course the majority of places and people are kind and welcoming but it's certainly a different atmosphere than anywhere else I've been before.

I've done a bit of research and there seems to be more of a consensus in local media that single women are socially unacceptable and generally seen as "easy prey" or "fair game". (Sunday Observer 25/02/07). A UNHCR report (Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, 2004) also reports that "spinsters, a term used in reference to single women, are also discriminated against and are not socially accepted in Sri Lankan society (Daily Mail, 8/08/03). One source notes that single women have in the past been referred to as an anti-social group (ibid.).

Wider than the issue of how comfortable I may feel here though is the fact that one in every five households are female-headed, due to the civil war but also the 2006 tsunami. Female-headed households are "deemed to be inauspicious and are not culturally accepted (ibid.), are seen as unlucky and are "generally not invited to community ceremonies such as weddings and festivals (Daily News, 25/03/03).  Female-headed households are always under the threat of rapists, womanizers and often become easy targets of criminals" (ibid.).  

I had a tuk-tuk driver in Negombo the other weekend who asked me if I was married and when I said that I was not, he replied "you cannot be happy if you are not a wife and have children". He was a nice friendly guy, but that was his world view and it was incomprehensible to him that I might be happy as I am.

I don't know where I am hoping this train of thought will lead, I guess it is an observation of my current experience, and we shall see what I learn and observe during my time in this country which may not be the tropical paradise it may wish to appear as.

Traffic delays for traffic surveys

Our driver was late picking us up for work this morning. His explanation was there were traffic delays because they were doing traffic surveys. I didn't quite know what to make of this until we emerged onto the main road, which is usually quite congested at the 715am peak hour, to find a row of uniformed policemen holding the cars back at the pedestrian crossing, making it easy for us to get out across the three lanes of road (which translates to 6 to 8 lanes of traffic). As we looped back in the opposite direction we could see a dozen or so young people, presumably university students, casually dressed in every day clothes and sandals, with clipboards in hand leaning into the drivers' windows asking a bunch of questions.

One can only imagine the type of questions being asked - "how do you find the traffic congestion along this stretch of road?", "how long does it take you to get to your destination?".

The traffic snarls on all the side roads and stretching far past our turn off did not look pleasant. Hope they got some useful information out of the exercise!!
Photo from the Asian Times. That traffic looks remarkably ordered though! Normally there would be two more rows of tuk tuks woven in there too.

Colombo wildlife encounters

 House crows - If you think Alfred Hitchcock's 'The Birds' is your worst nightmare, then don't come to Sri Lanka. The house crow is the most ubiquitous of birds, everywhere and in almost plague proportions. Being corvids, they are also pretty smart, and incredibly bold and have no problem prancing onto your table to help themselves to something they want. Beware the beak!

 Considerably cuter than the crows but just as cheeky, this chipmunk pushed the lid off my bowl of Bombay mix that was served with my beer and proceeded to have himself a little spicy feast.

We have a couple of geckos darting about our living room walls. Figure they are good for keeping the insects at bay. But this little guy, no bigger than my pinkie finger, decided that my bed was a comfy place for nap. I think he was more scared than I was, poor little guy.

Negombo photos are up

Negombo

Last weekend I took myself off to the fishing town of Negombo. For no real reason other than to get out of town and just to see what there is to see. In reality it was like going to Palm Beach for the weekend, if you are a Sydneysider, in terms of distance, not in terms of standards of living! 30km up the coast, the road north was basically a parking lot, lined with small shops, "superstores" and various suburban development so you didn't really feel like there was any break between the towns at all.
When I hailed a tuk tuk outside the office I'd asked him to take me to the bus station but he took me instead to a street corner further out of town that the bus passed by. Well at least that is what he claimed and happily it turned out to be true and he probably saved me another hour stuck in the frightful Friday afternoon Colombo traffic. The "express" minibus was happily air-conditioned and turned up almost straight away. When I got off at the other end, there were tuk-tuks awaiting, they knew exactly where my guesthouse was and whisked me away straight away. I am going to get incredibly spoilt having this door to door, instantaneous transport service!

I had chosen to say at the cute and quirky "Icebear Guest House" which billed itself as Sri Lanka with Swissness! Owned by a Swiss couple for 20 odd years, it was a lovely old Colonial villa, set in lush tropical gardens. Dinner on the terrace, overlooked by a statue of Shiva, with definite Pan like characteristics, traditional music wafting on the breeze, waves crashing on the other side of the garden fence. It was a lovely little oasis that felt safe and welcoming.

 

The guesthouse had bikes available so it was lovely to ride into town and explore. I soon came to the beachfront where strips of hessian were stretched out everywhere with various former sea creatures drying on them. A guy with very good English, who claims that Rick Stein interviewed him for a recent cooking show, started guiding me around and as he was very informative and friendly I went with the flow. He explained the different kinds of fish to me, and how they were treated, where they came from, as well as telling me about the difficulties of life there. It's still monsoon season here, although fortunately it's nothing like the terrible events they are suffering in Northern India, so the seas are quite rough and he told me that over 60 fisherman had died in the last 2 months. When you see their boats, that's not surprising in some ways. It's back breaking work, bending over and turning and tending to all the thousands of individual pieces. It's not often really that we get to see the daily grind of our food production so clearly.

He then took me around the fish markets, explaining all the various types of fish and what was going on. It was certainly easier for me to take photos with him there without feeling intrusive, although I did a fair amount of shooting from the hip too to try to capture the atmosphere as much as a could.

 Took a leisurely ride further north up the coast road and at one point was invited in to look at an Islamic school that I was photographing. Inside was just one room, the side walls sort of a lattice brick work to let the air flow through, a low wooden beamed ceiling with only one or two lightbulbs. There were a few wooden benches and tables but not nearly enough for the 150 kids, boys and girls, that the teacher told me they teach there every day. Apparently they are taught in English and Arabic. I wasn't able to find out whether any Sinhala or Tamil, the two official languages of the country are taught, so I am curious to find out more about the relationships between the various ethnic and religious groups here. It may have been my perception only, but it did appear that the settlement around the school and the adjoining mosque were poorer and even more run down than other sections of the community.

Reading in a hammock in the garden, eating (prawns, prawns and more prawns!) and having an Ayurvedic massage happily occupied the rest of my relaxing weekend.

In the news

 I'd forgotten how much delight there is to be found in reading local newspapers. It tells you so much about the culture. Here are a couple of gems from Saturday's paper. I personally find it hilarious that the National Australia Bank has no problem with their acronym being NAB, so the heroin peddler nabbing gave me a good chuckle. And as to the parliament restaurant and vegetarianism, shall we propose that as part of the current election campaigns in Australia!!!

What to eat

I was a bit disconcerted when my project director told me to stop at Macdonalds on my way to work on my first day. The local Macdonalds is apparently a local landmark, and will prove useful in directing tuk-tuk drivers to take me home. But I kind of have a moral stance against Macdo and was hoping this was not going to be the pattern for all my eating options here. Fortunately that was not the case!

The supermarkets certainly have far less variety than what we are used to at home, and the sweets and cakes aisle, and the powdered milk aisle for some reason, are enormous. But there's stuff and the fruit and vege selection, while very different, should keep me well enough fed.

From what I've read so far, there isn't a big culture of eating out, a fact that was reinforced when I needed a bathroom stop on our 16 hour long field trip on Tuesday and there wasn't a cafe or restaurant for at least an hour (along a road that was almost completely lined with buildings and commercial places) for us to stop at. The touristy areas are apparently different.

I've already been introduced to the delights of 'short eats', deep fried pastries such as samosas and fish puffs etc that are a common snack or lunch. Lumpraise (lump rice) is another lunch specialty, basically saffron rice with curry and chicken wrapped in a banana leaf and butchers paper. Pretty tasty.

This blog from Bootsnall gives a great summary of all the food delights I have to look forward to. I've only been eating out with work colleagues so far so I will have to wait til I get out on my own before I start pulling out the camera.

The beginning

Welcome to my blog - Tales from Sri Lanka. I have just moved here to work on a project for the next 6 months. I am based in Colombo but I am aiming to get out travelling and exploring as much as possible. This little blog will be my repository of thoughts and observations and photos from my time here. I hope people will find it of interest. May the adventures begin!

Sri Lanka in the field