When I leave a place where I have lived, I become more aware of things that annoy me about that place. Must be some form of separation anxiety. I am annoyed at the numbers of police, military and now private security that line the streets with rifles in their hands, routine traffic checks and block roads for 30 minutes at a time while an important, high level political figure drives by. On Friday there were 1000 security personnel on the streets according to my trusted friend, Mr. Kularathna. I am not exaggerating when I say that on each block at the beginning, middle and end of the block on each side of the street, there were 2-4 men standing with rifles. Three times this week I have waited 30 minutes in traffic for a roadblock to be lifted.

On Friday night we went to a Latin Jazz performance courtesy of the US Embassy. On the way, the road was blocked so we sat for 30 minutes and arrived late. But the musicians were even later, arriving at 7:40 for the 7:00 performance. It started at 8:00, one hour late. The truth is we are not big jazz fans but when you live in a hotel room, you look for things to do out of the hotel. Hence our attendance.

On Saturday we attended a craft show and on the spur of the moment bought a hand made quilt. It is lovely with a very traditional pattern called Baltimore Beauty. I guess all our careful planning with our packing was for naught. I will be shipping a box home if our Vancouver guests who arrive this week to work on Ron’s project don’t have room to take it as extra luggage.

We also went to a park where artists display their work, looking for a gift for Mr. Kularathna. We didn’t see anything we thought was appropriate so tried a gallery. No luck. We decided to get him a photograph by one of SL’s famous photographers so will order it on Monday. While we were at the park, we wandered into a plant sale. Because security is so tight here, there is very limited parking, almost none on the streets. So in these kinds of outings, Mr. K. drops us off and goes to find parking and we always manage to find one another. While looking at orchids, he came up. Since I wanted to give him one I asked which one he preferred. He basically said he appreciated it but not to buy him one. He has a lot of orchids at home and didn’t want me to spend money on him. He is so modest and very unique in a country where so many people are struggling to make $5.00 a day, which is considered to be a living wage. Anyone dependent on tourists is really struggling as the continued fighting here has chased most tourists away, lots of cancellations at hotels and guesthouses. This really impacts people like trishaw and taxi drivers. So with all of this going on, Mr. K gave us five mangos when we got back to the hotel. We have been blessed in so many ways during our time here, including having people like Mr. Kularathna and Geetha in our lives.

Last night we were invited to a birthday party. Veena’s sister-in-love and niece both had birthdays this week. We had a delightful time. There were about 15 adults and children there and we had some great conversations with several of the other guests. We talked about the passivity of the culture and one woman commented that this is the reason people don’t complain when others jump ahead of them in line or in traffic. . This made total sense and I was surprised that I had never put that together. They want to avoid conflict. This week is the first time in 13 months I saw someone confront someone who jumped ahead of her in line. Ron’s trishaw driver also confronted another driver who cut him off in traffic, a very common occurrence. This also was the first time either of us had witnessed a driver expressing anger. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves at the party and felt very privileged to have been invited into someone’s home who is a Sri Lankan. We had a traditional southern Indian veggie meal and it was delicious, witnessed by our going back for seconds and unable to eat dessert due to overindulgence.

Today we are going to the latest Johnny Depp movie. Yes, The Pirates of the Caribbean made it to Colombo! We have sorely missed seeing good films here and will never be able to catch up. Guess that’s a small price to pay for such an adventure as this.

Back from the movie. Well I’m not sure I would classify this as a good film but it got us out of the hotel. We had another first: a cue. There were about 100 people who got to the theater before us and they were in an orderly line! We have never seen a long line in all the time we have been here.

The already bad roads are getting worse with each rainfall. The pots holes are deeper and the edges of the roads more eroded. I didn’t realize how damaging rain could be but there are inadequate storm drains and consequently we get a lot of flooding and standing water and the water is tearing up the roads. It is a mess. We are also experiencing an increase in Dengue fever and another mosquito borne disease called Chikungunya. I am thankful to be living in the hotel where we have less exposure to the bites.

Today’s headlines in one article states “Thousands of civilians flee rebel controlled areas in the East”. The first line reads, “Scores of civilians continue to flee…” I read the article and counted 55, not thousands as reported in the headlines. This is a non-government newspaper. Yikes!

Another article was on the private bus sector. There are 16,500 registered owners for 17,152 buses. That means most bus ‘companies’ have one bus, folks. It also states that 90% of these 16,500 have pawned their buses to leasing companies. The government determines bus fares. Because the fares are low, it is difficult to make a profit. Malpractices such as heavy passenger loading, collecting passengers on the way and race driving are all done in search of profit. Hence there are accidents every week reported where bus drivers kill pedestrians in an effort to beat their competitor to pick up the next passengers. People often run along side the bus and hop on while the bus is in motion. Passengers also hop off while the bus is moving, sometimes getting run over by a car that is on the left side of the bus where the passenger is hopping off. It is surprising that more aren’t killed due to these practices. There are other accidents reported of buses missing a curve and going down ravines, etc. This is probably due to the overcrowding, making it difficult to control the bus. At home we frequently commute by bus but here I am unwilling to get on a bus. There are not air-conditioned, they are packed so tight that men are often seen hanging on for dear life in the doorways, and the driving is unsafe at best.

We had a great Italian meal tonight with friends from Ron’s work and the restaurant is right in front of our hotel. Life is good here in paradise five degrees above the equator where the Bergman’s are nearing the end of their adventure.