12-4-05

It's Sunday and I'm grateful the internet cafe is open. Ron left today for the south coast, Hambantota is the town. They will be doing a training on spreadsheets. He worked Friday night, half of Saturday and a bit more this morning before leaving. He has high standards and is finding it difficult here to see that they are met. I think once they have the training sessions developed his job will be easier. But there will be a continuing number of trainings to develop.

On Wednesday I will join him. A staff member from ohe Aisa FOundation is going to meet up with the training staff in Hikkaduwa, southwest coast and I am catching a ride with him and his driver. Score!

Have I mentioned public bathing here? Many people do not have tap water service in their homes. Hard to imagine, being from America isn't it? So about two blocks from our home is a spring with concrete walls. Mostly men but ocassionally women bath here. They stand in the overflow area, wearing shorts and lather up and rinse off. Tuk tuk drivers loved to wash their vehicles here. Once I saw a woman doing her wash. Oy, if you have ever washed clothes by hand you know how exhausting it can be. Back in my hippie days, I washed my sheets by hand. Once. That was enough for this ole girl to say, I don't think so.

Today I am so happy not to be going anywhere to shop. I consider myself somewhat of an environmentalist. I try to limit my consumerism but let me tell you, when you are setting up a new household, there is so much to buy. And shopping here is a trail to say the least. So I am taking a day off and loving it. Just wish I could write the blog from home.

Last night we had our first dinner party with four guests. It was great to have friends over to see how far we had gotten on the house in 10 days. We still have lots of empty spaces but are proud of what we have accomplished so far.

So after they arrived, I went into the kitchen to put my wondeerful homemade marinara sauce lasagne into the oven. Lo and behold the pan didn't fit into the oven! It was a 9x13 pan and was about two inches too long. Yikes! I laughed (what are my choices?) and was thankful that I had on the spur of the moment bought a 7x11 pan when I had bought the bigger one. I also had a small casserole so cut up my lasagne and put it into the two smaller pans. Then I discovered that I have a one shelf ovnr. This is pretty funny if you have seen my stove in Vancouver. It is a commercial restaurant stove with two huge ovens and six burners and a griddle/grill. Well, I managed to pull it off.

Our housekeeper starts Tuesday. Allix was over last night. She's the program director. Here it is called "Chief ofParty". She uses Geeta three days a week and said she is a fabulous cook but is limited to Sri Lankan food. Good. We love the local cusine. Apparently, you just tell her what you want and she does the marketing and cooking. I am delighted as cooking in my wonderful kitchen is a trail by fire, literally. It is a tiny space and gets hotter than Hades in there. I am such a Magnolia blossom I can't tolerate the heat. So I am going to have her work for us three days a week. I had planned to use her two days a week but she wants to work six: three for Alix and three for us. I asked her what she wanted to be paid and she asked for 5,000 rupees a month. That would be $50. When I first arrived I wondered how people utilized full time servants. It is not unusual to have several. Alix's landlord has eight servants who live on the premises. Now that I have a house, I realize that you could clean the house daily. Our roof is not sealed to the wall. There is daylight that can see seen between the wall and ceiling. We have a light well that goes from the third floor to the first floor and it has two open windows that lets a bit of rain in. You leave the patio doors open but we now have screens on the wrought iron which helps to limit the dirt coming in. Anyway, all of this allows a lot of dirt to enter the house. We have had to cover the laptops with tea towels. So you could sweep, mop and dust daily if you were so inclined. I don't think I'm anal retentive about dirt but this is very different. Another thing about living in the tropics is you can expect lots of mildew and mold. We already have some walls that are covered with mold. I think it is unavoidable.

That's the news from Lake Sri Lanka where the men are goregous, the weather is sultry and the Bergmans are having an adventure.