Home Sweet Home

It's Friday 9:40 am cst in Nashville, TN and I am home! Just had an enormous breakfast out with my parents who picked me up at the airport around 7:30 this morning. 40 hours since I left Full Moon Garden Hotel at 4:30 am and I am finally home.

I'm off to shower and and and, well, I haven't thought that far ahead. It's good to be home and I'll write again soon.

-Chris

Taipei part 2

It's Thursday 7:10 pm and I'm in the Dynasty Club in Taipei, Taiwan. I made it here 4 hours earlier due to the Bangkok transfer desk asking me if I wanted to grab the 1:30 flight instead of the 4:55 pm flight out of Bangkok. Since the lounge in Taipei is loads bigger than in Bangkok I jumped at the chance. This made my layover in Bangkok only 30 minutes and now I get to hang in Taipei for 3.5 hours instead of just 30 minutes. I love it when a non-plan comes together!

The flights thus far have been perfect. I just watched Meet the Fockers for the first time on the way to Taipei and was having to contain my laughter. A few times I didn't do so well!

In my last entry I said 2 Sri Lankan trains had collided but that was wrong. The train hit a bus trying to beat the train and I believe all the people killed, up to 50, were on the bus. Some were injured on the train. 50 lives is still 50 lives though.

I heard that Sri Lanka has the highest vehicle accident and snake bite death rate in the world. I only saw 2 snakes while there one being a viper and the other a more poisonous type but forget the local name. Though I saw many close calls on the streets, I didn't see one accident. I did see a rolled tuktuk after one but there didn't appear to be any injuries. I was told by Iyan that the buses are where the most people are killed. The buses are the largest and ironically the fastest traveling vehicles on the road and it amazes me the way they manage to squeeze thru nonexistent gaps in traffic. One went off the road and into a ditch the other day killing many more people. If I live to be 100 I'll never understand their hurry to get somewhere and wait.

I saw Jesper off last night at the Full Moon Garden Hotel at 10:30 as he left for the airport and his 1:30 flight. I grabbed a shower, went to bed, and woke around 4:00 am for my 7:45 flight. Leaving Colombo was certainly a lot easier than arriving. I was less tired and a little more seasoned this go around so the strangeness of it all was now familiar if not comfortable. I saw Chris, she has been there since early March?, and Brad, from the new crew, at the airport restaurant this morning around 5:15 am each enjoying a cheeseburger and Coke. Not to be outdone, my cheeseburger was ordered with fries.

It was hard to see Jesper go as we had not only spent our first 2 weeks working side by side as with everyone else, but we had also literally been side by side for the last 2 weeks. He made my trip that much more enjoyable and I have to say I learned a lot from him. He's traveled all over the world and it we had some fairly involved discussions on everything. I give much respect to the Jesper man and look forward to seeing him again either in BC or Sri Lanka. "Neal. Blah, blah, blah." - Manoche

I just heard from Katie who is doing well in Tibet. She says the Yak butter tea is an acquired taste, but the people are as friendly as the Sri Lankans. I know she'll have a great time there. Next stop for me is San Francisco, then Atlanta and finally good old Tennessee! 7 flights down 3 to go.

-Chris

Farewell Sri Lanka

It's Wednesday 12:15 pm in Galle and this is my last entry from Sri Lanka. Jesper and I are renting a van at 3:00 pm to drive us to Colombo where I will stay at the Full Moon Garden Hotel one last time before flying out at 7:45 am tomorrow morning. It seems appropriate to spend my last night in the same place as my first nearly a month ago. As I fall asleep tonight I have no doubt my thoughts will be far different than those I had my first time there.

On Monday night we had met Paul and Michael and Ravi at the Lighthouse as scheduled. Without going into details, it couldn't have gone better. We have secured local contact now for us to purchase land and clear customs with our equipment. That's all still a long way off, but having a local contact whom you can trust is huge for us and indispensable for a project such as the one we will try to undertake. After the meeting, Jesper and I had one last pleasant meal inside the Lighthouse restaurant. I'm a sucker for Spring Rolls and 675Rs beef tenderloin!

On Tuesday morning we visited the job site one last time to say goodbye to Shantha, Lasanta, and everyone else. We gave them gifts to remember us by and it was a very nice closing for our time spent there. We told them we'd see them again soon and we all hope that will come true. We found out that 3 of the new crew, whose last day is today as well, is extending their trips by a week to transition the next crew. I hope that idea stays going as it seems to help and speeds up the learning curve. Good luck John, Rob, and Jane!

Later Tuesday we went back to Unawatuna for one last 2 hour session of beach time. I, finally, bought a few items from the beach merchants. Mike sang a song and I bought a little rubber necklace from him. I also bought a white cotton shirt from a lady selling clothes out of a very large bag. It only seemed right to buy something after I had said no about a thousand times in the previous weeks. One last club sandwich at the beach restaurant and we were off to Galle to check emails and get the ball rolling back home for our project.

This morning we visited Jesper's company's adopted family in Ahangama. T.W. Kularathna is the husband and his wife is H.H. Pathmini. I said earlier she had a boutique but she actually does batik work which is designs drawn or sewn into fabrics such as sarongs or other traditional wear. T.W. buys vegetables from the farmers market and sells them on the street. We met Iyan again at Club Blanca and he had a tuktuk waiting to take us to their land. Jesper took down the account information Iyan had opened for this project so additional money can be sent once each phase is completed.

Three men were digging the well on site and there was a pile of sand and a stack of concrete block for the foundation work. T.W. was very happy and beaming ear to ear. He cut coconuts for us to drink and eat and showed us all the plants on his 1/4 acre tract. 3 coconut trees, mango tree, and others. We also saw cinnamon plants. He now sleeps on the property in a mud walled hut to protect his newly acquired materials. He pointed to his dog and told us he was a good barking dog.

After coconuts and fond farewells we rode back into Ahangama and grabbed a bus with Iyan into Galle. Now, I sit one last time in the impersonal yet all too familiar internet cafe next to the P&J City building. I've printed my flight intinerary, sent off a few final emails and am about to sign off and pay my 100Rs for an hours worth of time. I'm excited to see my family in just a few days but sad to leave this place as well. I'm so glad I was able to extend my trip for a few more weeks and it has made all the difference in coming to terms with what I've experienced here and what it all means to me. Without the extended time I don't know how much a part of the upcoming project I would have been, so again, it feels like I was exactly where I needed to be.

I will not try to sum up this trip in a nice closing paragraph because it's not only impossible but my journey is far from over. It has only just begun really. It's a big big world with miles and miles of ocean and land between us but kindness and generosity are as universal as a smile. Thank you to those who have sent me many well wishes and words of encouragement. I forget sometimes that people actually read this. It has been a very cathartic experience for me to write down my memories and this trip as I experienced it. No doubt others had different experiences but we are all different people.

(Jesper just told me a train from Colombo to Kandy just crashed and at least 50 people were killed. I believe it happened at an interchange where trains stop for lights and let each other pass but something obviously went wrong and they hit head on. We had stopped at a light on our way back as well so it's all too familiar for me. I'm just imagining all those smiling faces I met on our train ride.)

Well, it's as good a time as any and I'll be talking to many of you soon for the first time in a while. I look forward to catching up with my friends back home and sharing my experiences with them, but I can't wait to return to my new friends in Sri Lanka.

-Chris

We've only just begun

It's Monday 2:30 pm in Galle and you're all asleep. Just finished my first bit of shopping in the Fort area and it went better than I expected. Jesper and I are a lightning fast pair of shoppers!

Let's see, Saturday morning around 3 am the power went off which means no ceiling fan. You can feel the difference in a hurry. Power outages are quite common but usually come back within the hour. This one was different. I woke up and went out onto the deck to cool off and found the silhouette of another person already sitting there. I thought it might be a local Sinhalese so I didn't say anything as I was half asleep. The shadow said, "Hot, isn't it?" I answered yes and then after a moment thinking that was pretty good English I asked curiously, "Jesper?" He laughed at me and I asked when did you get out here? He said just a minute before me. That's how out of it you are at 3 am dripping in sweat looking for a breeze. I told him I was relieved I didn't have to have a broken English convo just then. It was pretty funny. Hmmm, well maybe not that funny on screen but we laughed about it then. Come to think of it, we laugh at just about everything.

On Saturday, after grabbing a few more hours of sleep, we took a complete zero day and hit the beach at Unawatuna. Met a few ladies from Holland and Germany, grabbed some lunch in the Beach Club at our gangs usual table, played frisbee and swam for a few hours until grabbing a tuktuk for Galle at only 100Rs! We must be getting good at this. Later that night Manoche prepared steak and fries for us and it was great. Then he came out and asked if we wanted more. Uh, let me think....YES! It was a great dinner and Manoche is a really great guy. He is definitely in the right business as he is always making sure you have everything you need and will go to any length to do so.

However, a "big music man" was staying at the hotel that night and since this was Poya-day, a full moon Buddhist holiday which occurs oddly enough once a month, they figured we may all want to watch Sri Lankan karaoke videos he had produced. I will only say they weren't what we would call "good." After about 2 hours of this one of his posse approached me and asked if I liked it. Lying, I said "yes, very good." He then gives me Volume 2 Sri Lanka Ultimate Karaoke on VCD and says "I give to you!" I now have proof of our night and can't wait to strap my friends down and play the video over and over again. You can run but you can't hide!

The music must have done some good though because on the following Sunday morning Jesper was thinking hard about what more could be done in Sri Lanka. We had all talked about the inefficient use of labor and lack of any machinery but knowing it and talking about it doesn't accomplish anything. I too, wanted to do more but knew what kind of effort it would take and honestly I wasn't ready to tackle that kind of project on my own but, you know how it goes when bouncing an idea back and forth between a few motivated people. So, without releasing any details just yet, we are working on a fairly big plan to come back around the New Year with all the required equipment and do this thing right. It would be about a 2 month project. These are simple houses and with some planning and 1 or 2 pro equipment operators we could literally move mountains. We are meeting with Paul and Michael tonight to get local contact points for us to work with while away, but we are excited about this plan and feel better now that we have a plan of action to go after instead of just more thoughts. More on this later. Stay tuned, we'll all need your help!!!

Later on Sunday we met Ian at the Galleria and gave him the first installment of 25,000Rs for the Ahangama family to get started on their well and foundation work. He said we could come out in the next day or two to see the work being done and we hope to have that opportunity before leaving. After returning to the Tuc Tuc last night and a great dinner of baked chicken and jumbo prawns I asked for a ride to a phone so I could use my phone card. Manoche had one of his guys grab the motorcycle and at 9:30 pm I was off on my 3rd ride thru the night on the back of a Bajaj motorcycle. Things shut down pretty early at night here and we had some trouble finding a phone. After 2 or 3 stops, my patient driver drove up to a house and we went to the front door. I quickly gathered this was one of his friends houses where I sat in the living room for 30 minutes while his friend and his mother and grandmother tried to figure out my card and their phone. The phone system here is, well, unexplainable. At least from me.

Anyway, after a lot of talking and number pressing I was hurried over to the phone and told it was ringing. I listened and heard nothing but after a minute I was able to hear my mothers voice mail on her mobile phone who is in Florida at the moment. I left her a hurried Happy Birthday greeting and wished I could have talked longer but since my card never worked my late night hosts were letting me use their own card. They said, "You tsunami worker, right?" I said yes, and the 25 year old man of the house smiled and said, "Now we help you. No problem." I thanked them, they thanked me? and asked me to return anytime. I left my 500Rs phone card on their table and said, "It's yours now, I obviously can't use it." Back on the Bajaj for another ride beneath the night sky and upon return Manoche told me no charge for the ride. I guess you can't go wrong wishing your mom a happy birthday from Sri Lanka!

I have made some great friends on this trip and as some of those relationships continue to grow so does my need to help this country and their people. I cannot help but think I am exactly where I was intended to be. Between my past month here and our future plans for returning my path is set and it feels, for the first time in a long time, clear.