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.