In the land of curry

I know this is sacrilege to say, but I'm bored of curries now. Can you believe it?! Sri Lanka has the most incredible curries but, it seems, that's all they have, and the monotony is getting to me somewhat, so I thought I'd get it off my chest and tell you about the food here.

The first thing you have to know is that Sri Lankans believe that you can't properly enjoy the flavours and textures of food unless you eat with your fingers. The good news is that everyone washes their hands before they eat although the bad news is it's pretty cursory and the scanciness of the soap leaves a lot to be desired. They then sit down and, if it's lunchtime, unwrap their lunch packet which is wrapped in newspaper, inside which is a hotch potch of rice and various curries wrapped in cling film. People eat off the cling film even if a plate is provided - why wash up a good plate when you don't have to, after all? The wife or mother in the family will have got up at 5am and cooked 3 or 4 curries and the rice and created the lunch packets for her brood before sweeping the house and heading to work herself. By lunchtime, therefore, the meal is luke warm which, given you're eating with your hands, makes sense, I suppose. I do miss piping hot meals, though.

Eating with your hands is tricky. Like in many cultures you're not supposed to eat with your left hand. People do, though, and as long as you don't serve someone else with your left hand, you won't be looked down on. The trick is to sort of squidge some rice and curry together and, with your thumb bent in your palm, flick it into your mouth. It's considered bad to get food beyond your first knuckle and this + the thumb flick is an art that I'm only just mastering.

The curries are scrummy though. Sri Lankans know how to use spices and so the flavours and fragrance of the food is stunning. They do like their meals, spicy, though so be warned if you're palate isn't used to that. I, fortunately, seem to be surviving fine with the spiciness but some of my fellow VSO-ers are struggling with it.

For Breakfast, Sri Lankans, or particularly Sinhalese, will have String hoppers and curry. String hoppers are like vermicelli noodles and are served cold in little bird nest like swirls. I have to say they're not my favourite, especially not for breakfast. They shouldn't be confused with Hoppers which are delicious. They are a small bowl-shaped pancakes made from a batter containing coconut milk and palm toddy that is cooked in a small wok-like pan. Curries are then poured into the Hopper and eaten - stunning and zero calories (not!).

Lunch and Dinner are then the ubiquitous rice and curry. Given the plethora of vegetables here, there are some incredible vegetarian curries - aubergine, carrot, cauliflower, bread fruit and beans create a veritable feast of colour and taste. Fish and chicken are also wildly used although I tend to avoid them having seen the street sellers stalls covered in flies on a daily basis. Curries are normally served with a sambol on the side. This is designed to give that little extra kick to the food. One of the most common (and most eye watering) is coconut sambol which is chilli powder, chopped onion, salt, grated coconut, and "Maldive fish" (salty intensely flavoured shreds of sun-dried tuna).

The alternative for curry at lunchtime are whats called "short eats" which are plates of wadei (spicy donut of deep-fried lentils), rottys (dough pancake filled with veg or egg), fish cutlets (spicy fish balls), and other deep fried delicacies. You're served a plate with a mixture of these and then pay for what you eat. The only watch out is that what you don't eat is served to the next table and the next and Sri Lankans don't have any qualms about touching food and then eating it.

One of the most dramatic dishes is kottu roti. I'm still not sure exactly what goes in it bar lots of vegetables and whatever meat you want. The spectacle is when the chef gets his two massive cleavers and starts chopping up the ingredients as if he was the drummer in a marching band. The noise is part performance part advertising as it is normally done in a glass booth at the front of the joint and seems very effective at luring the punters in.

The beauty of Sri Lanka is, given the different cultures - Tamil and Sinhalese (and to a lesser extent Muslim) there are two distinct cuisines. Unfortunately there are no Tamil restaurants in Galle but I have been to one great one in Colombo. The Tamils eat something called Dosai which are like giant pancakes which you tuck into with curry. Their curries are much the same as what we'd imagine of when we think of Indian curries and, as they say, a change is as good as a break, so I'm looking forward to my next Colombo trip to have some more.

The fruits here are incredible. I have never seen so many different types of bananas. I still haven't worked out which is which so sometimes I end up with the plantains by mistake and other times hit the jackpot by getting the sweetest tastiest bananas you've ever had. The streets are lined with stalls selling pineapples, guavas, jackfruit, papaya, and things I'd never seen before like wood apple (which won't be missed either - they taste as their name suggests!). It's the season for mangoes at the moment which are so cheap and so delicious it's difficult to stop eating them. Interestingly the only fruit that isn't nice here are apples. They began to be imported when the Brits colonised Sri Lanka and are very expensive and not tasty at all.

All of this is, of course, washed down with tea. In the land of tea, though, you'd expect to have the best stuff ever. Unfortunately the best is exported and Sri Lankans are left with the dregs. It doesn't matter too much, though, as they drink it in roughly a 50:50 mix of milk and tea and also with heaps of sugar. The other tipple is arrack, the local hooch. Arrack is made from toddy which is tapped from the flower of the coconut. When fermented and refined it produces arrack (33% proof) which is either drunk neat or with coke or lemonade. I've found it goes well with the local Elephant Ginger Beer here. Last night we had this month's board meeting and the board at the end (11pm!) adjourned to my landlord's house (just downstairs from me) for dinner and drinks. They quickly polished off 4 or 5 bottles of arrack and some got extremely pissed. I was allowed to mingle with the guys (but stuck to beer) but my landlady stayed firmly in the kitchen. It's not done for women to be around men when they're drinking in Sri Lanka.

As you can imagine given the sugariness of their tea, Sri Lankans have a very sweet tooth. There are always stalls at the market selling the most lurid coloured sugary sweets and something that is very similar to Scottish tablet. Cakes are also big here. We went to the funeral of one of my colleague's Grandmother recently (more of that in a future blog), and we took presents of two bags of sugar and a cake - what more do you need for the afterlife, after all?!

Well, all this talk of food is making me hungry, so I'd better go and sort some lunch out. If you're interested in trying to cook some Sri Lankan curries, there is a good website called infolanka.com that has some great recipes. I'd recommend the Cauliflower and cashew nut curry!

10 things you didn't know about Leeches!

Sri Lanka has about every different type of climate and terrain that you can imagine and we visited one of it's most diverse areas last weekend - the rainforest. Centuries ago the whole of the South West quarter of the island would have been covered in dense rainforest. Now only about 3 or 4 sections of it remain intact, the biggest of which is Sinharaja. It became a World heritage site about 30 years ago which, fortunately, stopped the logging.

8 of us woke up at 5am on Sunday morning and donned our long sleeved shirts, long trousers and, most important of all, our leech socks, and set out for about 1 hour to the edge of the Rainforest. Walking through the trees you expected to hear "Gabriel's Oboe" from the Mission playing in the background, but instead we were serenaded by the occasional motorbike driving through on the foot-wide path. There are some 22 villages within the forest and, despite regular petitions to the government for a road and bridge to be built further upstream, the only access they have is via the path into the forest.

Once we got off the main drag, things got much more foresty but, with it, came the leeches. I think if I had to go into George Orwell's Room 101, my worst thing would be leeches. They are the most tenaciously, skin creeping creatures you could meet. So here goes with 10 things you didn't know about leeches:

1. Leeches detect you through skin oils, heat, blood or even the carbon dioxide you breathe out. Every 2-3 minutes we had to check our boots and leech socks to pick off the little blighters before they managed to get into your shoe.
2. A leech has 32 brains - 31 more than humans!!
3. A leech will gorge itself until it's full and then just drop off. It will drink up to five times it's own body weight in blood!
4. Some barbers used to do surgery as well as cutting hair, and they used leeches. When a barber finished surgery, he would take the bloody cloth he'd use and wrap it around a pole to show passers by that he did surgery. This is the origin of the red and white swirled poles we still see today.
5. Scientists are studying leech saliva. They believe that chemistry that the stops the blood from clotting when a leech bites you will soon be able to be used on humans to prevent heart attacks and strokes. Sarah, one of our party, suffered a bite near her shoulder which didn't stop bleeding for 24 hours!
6. Hungry leeches were a problem for soldiers in 1799 who were marching from Egypt across the Sinai peninsula to Syria. The thirsty soldiers, drinking anything they could find, would drink leech-infested water. When the leeches attached to their mouths and throats, some died from blood loss, whilst others died from their throats swelling, filled with blood-filled leeches, thereby cutting off their air - horrible! We fortunately didn't have any fatalities within our group although 3 of the group were "attacked".
7. Four or five large leeches can drain the life out of a rabbit in half an hour.
8. The bite of a leech is painless due to it's own anaesthetic.
9. Burning a leech is not supposed to be a good way to get rid of them as they vomit things into your blood due to the shock!
10. The largest leech discovered measured 18 inches. The ones we encountered were little buggers but they couldn't half move!

Well, I hope you're all itching and feeling ghost leeches as much as I am. For a day after the trip I'd keeping having to check to make sure I hadn't missed one of the blighters. I can't say I'll rush to do the experience again. Because you were constantly checking your shoes and also having to look where you put your feet because the path was so uneven and slippery, the amount of animals and insects we saw was less than I'd expected. One of the highlights, though, was this Kangaroo Lizard which bounces as soon as a camera comes out just like its namesake (see picture). We also saw beautiful Doctor snails with bright pink, large shells, and some stunning butterflies. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable and would be able to last a series of "I'm a Celebrity, get me out of here" quite easily as he knew all the plants and what medicinal properties they each had.

I'm glad to say that I'm back on safe, leech-free land now, and things are going much better at work, which is great. There is certainly some interesting wildlife to deal with here, and that's just the Directors!! More about that another time.

I wish you all a leech-free week!

It's a whole other language

I knew when I got here that communication would be difficult but the reality is both better and worse than I expected. In Sri Lanka there are 3 national languages: Sinhalese, Tamil and English. In effect, there should be a fourth, Sri Lankan English, and a fifth, body language. I thought I'd only need to learn one - Sinhalese - but, in effect, I'm also having to learn the others too.

Sinhalese, firstly, is grammatically fairly straight forward. For example, there is no difference between the present and the future tense. This does lead to difficulties, however, when you're trying to work out if someone is saying that they're are doing something or will be doing something. Equally, the language is surprisingly duplicative; for example the verb to ask and to listen is the same. I can't quite work out why that would be the case but I suppose I have grown up with the most descriptive language in the world. The words bears no resemblance to English so I'm learning vocab through the most random associations of sounds imaginable. I'm focusing on learning to listen and speak rather than to read and write as the script is beautiful but unintelligible to me. I am trying to learn about 20 words a day and am having a 90 min lesson each week now so I hope to achieve my aim of being pretty fluent by the time I leave. My aim feels like a bit of a pipe dream at the moment. I just wish people would answer my questions (asked in Sinhala) in Sinhala rather than in English which is what happens most of the time at the moment.

The second language is Sri Lankan English. Most of the population have, at some point in their schooling, had to learn English, a hangover from the colonial days. Most haven't spoken it since school and also the teaching methods are very reading- and writing-focused rather than speaking-focused, so their confidence and ability is mixed. I met one of the Directors of the Chamber recently and he admitted to me in very broken English that he'd woken up at 5am on the day of our meeting very worried that he'd have to meet with me that afternoon and converse in English. Although it was a very disjointed conversation, I understood most of what he was saying. Even those who don't speak English, pepper their conversations with both English words and Sri Lankan English. For example, when I got here, I kept being told to go to the Bus Halt or the Bus stand. It took a while to realise that a bus halt is a bus stop and the bus stand is the bus station. I was also warned not to eat certain foods because they're "heaty". When I asked what heaty was, my colleagues said: "But you must know, it's an English word". Fortunately VSO gave me a Dictionary of Sri Lankan English which states that heaty comes from Ayurverdic medicine and relates to certain foods or combinations of foods. For example tomatoes, some sea food and pineapples are all heaty foods. I have to agree that if I've had a prawn and tomato pasta dish, my tummy has felt a bit odd in the past. With the help of my Dictionary, I'm slowly getting used to this new vocabulary and you'll probably have to help me back into English English when I get home.

The final new language is body language. Sri Lankans, like Indians, have 3 main head moves: a nod, a shake and a sort of wobble. The wobble means OK but looks more like concern would in the UK. The shake is sometimes used to mean yes and no. The nod can mean "I'm listening" as well as "Yes". I admit that there are many times when I still don't know which is being used so I have to clarify. I've noticed that some of my fellow volunteers have started to perfect the head wobble but I, as yet, don't seem to have a wobbly enough neck! I'll have to keep practising.

Tomorrow I've got my next Sinhala lesson which is on past participles. I hate to admit that I'm not really sure what a past participle is in English so hopefully everything will become as clear as mud soon. Until then, do practise your English skills by sending me an e-mail as I'd love to hear your news. I'm feeling slightly bereft of news from home at the moment.

Following in Buddha's Footprint

Let me wish you a happy Vesak! Thursday this week was one of the most important Poya days or full moon Buddhist festivals, in the Singhalese year, the Vesak Poya. Buddha very considerately made sure that he was born, died and gained enlightenment on the same day and, to top that, he made sure it was a full moon! Singhalese celebrate the festival by adorning every building with paper lanterns that turn formerly drab places into beautiful, if slightly kitsch, structures. In true Sri Lankan style, there are 2 days of public holidays so it seemed rude not to make it into a week's holiday.

Sam, a fellow VSO volunteer, and I, set out last Sunday in true Buddhist Pilgrim style, to climb Adam's Peak. At 2243m, Sri Pada (the local name) is the 3rd highest peak in Sri Lanka, but it is revered as it is purported to have a footprint of Buddha at the top. The Christians tried to take over the mountain for themselves by claiming it's the footprint of St Thomas; the Muslim's claim it belongs to Adam who set foot here after being cast out of heaven; the Hindus say it was created by Shiva. So, all in all, it's a pretty sacred place. I just wish they all could have chosen a mountain with an easier climb. We started the climb at 0245 in order to make it up the 5,500 steps for what is described as the most incredible sunrise. We enjoyed rain all the way up and it wasn't to be our auspicious day as we were greeted by thick cloud cover and a biting wind! The footprint isn't even visible after all that. I really suffered on the way back down with my legs turning to jelly. Sam, who has summited Everest, made it down like a mountain goat so I felt extremely embarrassed to be hobbling so badly. It has knocked my legs out for most of the week - well that's my excuse for not doing much!

In order to have a bit of luxury after the climb, we spent the next 3 nights in the most amazing tea plantation bungalows. There is a company called "Tea Trails" who have converted 4 former Plantation manager's bungalows into exquisite 5-6 bedroom villas complete with butler, swimming pool, and total colonial glamour. Although it was relatively pricey, everything was included - all drinks, all food, laundry, tea factory tour. I'm not sure how much profit they made out of Sam and I as we took full advantage of the free bar and delicious wine. I've really missed wine since I've been here as it's very expensive normally. You're left with "lion beer", the local tipple, which is an OK lager but gets a bit boring after a while. Suffice it to say that the Gin and Tonics and Wine went down very well and now I've vowed that June is an alcohol-free month! The villas (we spent a night in 3 out of the 4) are set in working tea estates so you're surrounded by the ubiquitous tea pickers overlooking the reservoir - picture postcard perfect. To top it all, it's cool enough to wear a fleece. I can't believe how excited I got to be able to wear a fleece again! Unfortunately (fortunately) my jeans are too big to wear now so I couldn't get the pleasure of wearing them too.

After 3 nights ruining our livers, we headed on the train East to Haputale. The train line is a British legacy and is the most incredible feat of engineering over the ridges of the hill country. At times there are sheer cliffs on either side of the tracks. Haputale is a sleepy town in the hills and the jumping off spot to visit Lipton's Seat named after the Scot, Sir Thomas Lipton, who put tea on the map. We walked up to his view point on top of an escarpment overlooking his factory and what feels like the whole world spread out at your feet. We climbed early to get ahead of the cloud cover and, as if with an alarm clock, the mist rolled in at 10am covering everything, just as we'd been warned.

I headed back to Galle today on a long 6 hour bus ride. I was lucky enough to get a direct bus but was unlucky enough to have to stand for half of it. I'm getting used to these long journeys here in Sri Lanka. Even though the distances aren't really that far, the roads are so bad that everything takes forever. I've got into the habit of listening to books on my Ipod which is a great way to pass the time people watching, watching the view, and not getting bus-sick from reading a book with the constant slamming of breaks and hairpin bends in the road. I'm glad to be home now and have a day tomorrow (Sunday) to sort myself out before I crack on with things at work. I really hope that work improves when I get back. I've decided to bite of small chunks to try to feel like I'm achieving things as the list of potential "to dos" is depressingly long. I think the break will help me see things with a clearer perspective.

Until next time, happy Vesak.

Like herding cats!

I know it's a physical impossibility but Sri Lanka is a game of 3 halves at the moment. The first half is being here; I'm loving it. The second is working with the 18 permanent staff at the Chamber; they're untrained but keen to learn and I'm making (slow) progress with them both individually and as a team. The third half, however, is working with the Board of Directors; I'm tearing my hair out!!

The Galle Chamber of Commerce and Industry is focused on developing the capabilities of the small and medium entrepreneurs in the Galle District - a very worthy vision. To do this they have a 30 Directors who join the Board on a voluntary basis whilst managing their own businesses. The Board meets once a month on a Saturday night at 7.30pm (which turns into 8.15pm Sri Lankan time). Unfortunately it is a total boys club; I was told no self-respecting husband would let his wife attend as a director (a) because it's so late, and (b) because everyone retires to a nearby watering-hole afterwards and gets plastered on Arrack, the local hooch. Women here are not supposed to drink. My first Board meeting went fairly smoothly. They all start with a formal welcome speech, followed by a Buddhist prayer, and then a moments silence. A very random agenda of topics is then followed with the things you think should receive the focus, getting only scant appraisal. After my first meeting, I thought my issue would be cutting through the hierarchy of the Board. People are seated in order of seniority and the level of interaction is virtually nil. How wrong I was...

The second board meeting was a disaster. I turned up on time and, after hanging around for 45 mins for everyone to arrive, and after the prayer, welcome speech and moment's silence, Mr Lakshman, the Chairman said: "Miss Jules, we'd like to invite you to give a short speech after which you can leave because we're concerned about you getting home late at night." I, of course replied: "Don't worry, I'm fine to get home at the end of the meeting". Suri, the Director General (and the power behind the Chamber) then said: "You're welcome to do a 10 minute speech but then you must leave as this is a meeting for Directors and you're not a Director." I was flabbergasted. I tried not to make it show and did a small speech about why I was at the Chamber and then made my exit. I cycled home absolutely furious and probably made all those who saw me laugh as I was talking to myself all the way back!

On the Monday I found out that after I left, some of the newer Directors had said that it was inappropriate that I had been asked to leave and the Board then proceeded to discuss me for a further 90mins. 5 Directors vehemently opposed me being involved but the balance voted that I be allowed to be involved in everything, warts and all. So, the situation has actually worked in my favour. After digging further and approaching Suri directly, the instigator of my dismissal, I think the reason I was asked to leave is that Suri didn't want to be embarrassed in front of me. I know some of the other Board members were going to take him to task over his inappropriate behaviour and, I guess, he didn't want me witnessing that. Suri is both a former Captain in the Sri Lankan Army as well as a former Chairman of the Chamber. He treats the staff as if they're his battalion and it is appalling to watch. I think he also thought that Mr Lakshman, the current Chairman, could be his puppet but Mr L has a little more spine than that so they're now clashing on almost every decision. I need to get Suri on side because with him I'll get things done but without him I'll have an uphill battle. As they say: "better the devil you know"!

Anyway, the task ahead of me is huge. I need to get the Board to agree to a clear objective and set of strategies to follow; I need to improve their decision making capacity by setting up effective sub-committees to manage key projects; I need to refocus them onto their vision of developing the small to medium entrepreneurs in the District; etc. The list is very long. I know what I need to do but how I'm going to do is still a bit foggy when you're herding cats! I've asked Mr L for a series of workshops with the Directors but, based on my first experience and his advice, no one will show because their own business take priority (understandably so). He's therefore agreed the sum total of 30mins per board meeting for me to run various sessions. The next one is on the 22nd May so I've got to make it a humdinger of a session and try to convince a smaller group to then work with me on the Chamber strategy. I think I know what it should be but if I don't create it with them it will just gather dust in a drawer somewhere. The other thing I'm doing is visiting each Director one by one at his business to try to build up more of a relationship with them. They're businesses are pretty varied. Today I met with Mr Manamperi who runs a Funeral Parlour. He kindly showed me all around the business including where they embalm the bodies. Fortunately there wasn't anyone on the slab when I visited. He is keen, though, to investigate Cardboard coffins so if anyone out there has any links to the Cardboard Coffin industry, please let me know!!

After a particularly frustrating day at work today, I headed to the Lighthouse Hotel (a very plush hotel with 2 pools and a gym that I've become a member of), to pound up and down the pool to try to work through some of my angst. It worked especially as I was lucky enough to witness one of the best sunsets so far here in Sri Lanka. So, it's not all bad here.....!

"The Journey not the arrival matters" - T.S. Eliot

This weekend I've only just begun to understand what TS Eliot meant and yet it seems to be inbred within Sri Lankans. Let me explain ....

This Thursday we set off on a four-day "Harmony Development Council" Trip to the North East of Sri Lanka along with about 70 fellow Council Members. The trip was the brainchild of an NGO called Business for Peace Alliance (BPA) who are focused on, as the name suggests, undertaking conflict transformation through private individuals doing business with each other. The idea for this specific event was to bring representatives from Chambers of Commerce in the Singhala-majority South of the country to meet with representatives from Chambers in the Muslim- and Tamil-majority East of the country to meet, become friends, and share ideas to bring more harmony to the country. As the BPA rightly say, although officially there is peace in Sri Lanka, there certainly isn't yet harmony amongst the different communities.

On Thursday I have to admit I met the bus at 0600 with dread. Knowing that I had an 18 hour bus trip ahead of me that day, and seeing the drums that were being loaded onto the bus, I knew I was in for a raucous ride. We started out with 10 representatives from Galle and, as we travelled north, this mushroomed into about 70 people from the different Chambers and the BPA across two buses. Fortunately this included Sam and Sarah, 2 fellow VSO volunteers, who are both working with the BPA; I was extremely grateful for their moral support throughout the trip. The music started early in the morning and percussion developed as the day went on from a drum, to bottles, boxes and all parts of the bus that make a noise when banged becoming the orchestra. Having grown up with Dad's rule when travelling "stop every 3 hours for a break", I found it rather frustrating that we'd often stop after only 45 mins from the last stop to either have tea with someone's relative at their house, to stop to buy booze, or to view a reservoir. It wasn't until the last day (whilst on the 15 hour return journey) that I realised that the issue is probably more with us Westerners. We're focused on arriving and will huff and puff through a journey trying to make it pass as quickly as possible with our ipods stuck in our ears, or a book firmly in our hands, or lulled to sleep by the boredom. Sri Lankans, rather, know that the journey is going to be a long one so settle in with their music, their nibbles, and their smiles and are quite happy to elongate the trip as long as is necessary to make as many stops as all participants want to make. I think there is something to learn from that.

Day 1, 2 and 4 were almost entirely driving (48 hours in all across the 3 days!) in order to achieve the focus which was getting to Trincomalee, or Trinco for short. Trinco came to fame for its deep water harbour which made it a tempting prize for the Portuguese, Dutch and finally Brits. More recently, however, this history has been overshadowed by the civil war which began in 1983. It became a flashpoint for ethnic tensions thanks to its population which is almost evenly divided between Tamil, Muslim and Singhalese communities. It hit home to me how difficult it must be to have lived in the area first when we stopped at a beach south of Trinco. Beautiful white sands dotted with colourful fishing boats flanking a warm blue sea with no humans cluttering the view stretched before us as far as the eye could see. We ate our rice and curry using our hands (as all meals are done in Sri Lanka) and, it wasn't until we headed back to the bus, that we were told that it was good we hadn't walked further because there are still landmines in this area. (Thanks for telling us after the fact!!). The beach was a major fighting ground between the government and the LTTE as it was used as a key point to smuggle firearms from the North to the East by the Tamil Tigers.

A little further north, the road met a river and the only way across was via a rickety rope ferry (see photo). Here the bridge, like most in the East, had been bombed during the civil war. The Chinese are currently building a new crossing which is supposed to be ready in 3 months. In some respects that will be a shame because the ferry is a stark reminder of the history that none of us would want repeated. I doubt the bus driver would agree, however, as he clearly thought that he'd lose his livelihood as the front and rear of the bus scrapped, like finger nails down a blackboard, both going on and off the ferry.

What brought the horrors of living in the East to life most starkly for me, however, was the visit to a Tamil village that had been scheduled. The ladies of the village described to us how many of them had lost their sons and husbands during the fighting, both as active cadre, and through kidnapping to become child soldiers within the Tamil Tigers. Many of them left the area and waited in India until things started to improve. This was the case after the 2002 ceasefire. Although this was rarely followed by either party, many families returned to the area in 2003 and 2004 only to be decimated by the Tsunami in Dec 2004. 50% of the people in the village we visited died. The families are slowly rebuilding their lives based on the predominantly fisheries-based economy in the area. Many children don't get beyond O-Levels, however, because the standard of teaching is mostly poor with badly trained and under-paid teachers who focus their efforts on private tuition after school to the richer children.

Despite the stark realities of the trip, there were lots of laughs to be had by all. One morning camp fires were lit and the whole group got down to preparing our breakfast and lunch for the day. Vast vats of rice and curry were prepared along with some nibbles for those with a sweet tooth. One of the delicacies during the New Year period that recently passed is oil cakes which, as the name suggests, are made from a sugary dough that is deep-fried. I managed to get the whole cooking to grind to a halt when I tried my had at a couple of these. The trick is to poke the cake with a stick to create what can best be described as a nipple on the top. Unfortunately, after 3 attempts, I only achieved 1 decent nipple much to the hilarity of the on-lookers.

Each night during the trip we slept on raffia mats on the floor of halls with all the women in one room and all the men in the other. Despite the lateness of each night (around the camp fire with multiple bottles of Arrack, the local hooch, being consumed) the women would get up at 5am each morning. This is what they do everyday at home so I guess their body clocks are predisposed to it. They must have thought us extremely slovenly as we slept in until 6.15am. At least it meant they were all done in the showers by the time we were up. It does take the women a while to get into their saris and put coconut oil through their waist-length hair. Our "don't care what you look like" approach is a little quicker!

How much harmony was developed, I couldn't tell you, but based on the harmony of the singing and drumming on the way home, I'd say the trip "did what it said on the tin". I was glad to see my bed when I got home, though, I can tell you!! Until next time, keep well, have fun during the election this week, and drop me a line if you've got a spare moment.

Underwater Buddhist Meditation is to be recommended!

Sorry for the dearth of blogs over the last couple of weeks. Sri Lanka pretty much shut down for a week and a half this month due to the Parliamentary Elections and the Singhalese and Tamil New Year celebrations so I and my fellow VSO volunteers used the opportunity to explore the south of this amazing Island.

On the 8th April the elections passed with surprisingly limited trouble. The Sri Lankans are incredibly politically motivated and the Presidential Election in January got a 75% turnout. These Parliamentary elections had a much lower turnout at 55% (Brown and Cameron, eat your heart out!) probably due to the fact that the opposition where campaigning not to win but rather to stop the ruling party, the Sri Lankan Freedom Party (SLFP) from getting a two-thirds majority. Unfortunately that wasn't to be the case which means President Rajapakse now has a mandate to change the Constitution and, most likely, remove the limit on presidential terms he can hold. His family now hold key seats including his 2 brothers, his cousin and his son (who studied in the UK and got a 3rd!).

Because of trouble during previous elections, VSO required that we "hibernate" on the afternoon of the election and the day after. This required us to stay in one place and keep safe. My compadres and I decided that the safest place to be was on the beach at Unawatuna, about 5 km south of Galle. It's so tough to hibernate!! Unawatuna, Una for short, is a beautiful bay that has become a backpacker magnet in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankans interpret this to mean that we want Bob Marley played permanently in all bars. I don't mind a bit of Mr Marley, but come on!

Close to Una is the number one spot for whale watching in Sri Lanka. Only recently did Zoologists realise that Sri Lanka is perfectly placed to see both Blue and Sperm whales. About 8kms off the coast the continental shelf on which Sri Lanka sits is at it's narrowest with ocean depths of 1km - perfect whale country. They head west between the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea in April and return in the opposite direction in Dec/Jan. We were lucky enough to see between 6 and 10 Sperm whales up very close and 1 Blue whale at a distance as well as a pod of dolphins. The Sperm whales were mainly logging which, as the name suggests, means they are doing log impressions on the surface - not the most photogenic position to be in!

After a couple of nights chilling, Sam, a new VSO volunteer to Sri Lanka, and I headed east to go diving at the Great Basses, an outcrop of rocks about 16km off the coast of Sri Lanka. It had been heralded by many people as "the best diving in Sri Lanka". We arrived at Kirinda harbour at 6am in the morning and were loaded into 2 fishing boats - just 4m long wooden boats with a small outboard motor and nothing else. The fishermen who had come in from their night time fishing to sell their catch clearly don't see many foreigners so, by the time we were ready to leave, we had an audience of about 75 people gawping at us. After we left the harbour we headed to the horizon seemingly heading no where. Fortunately the Great Basses is marked by a lighthouse which, though knocked down by the Tsunami, has now been rebuilt. After the long and rather uncomfortable boat ride, the expectations for the first dive were extremely high. The look on Sam's face when we surfaced after the first day matched exactly what I was thinking, though - what's the fuss about?! I suppose I've been spoilt with some incredible diving around the world but it was a real anti-climax - very little coral and quite a few fish but poor visibility. After 3 dives on the first day, we were ready to pack it in.

The second day was better, though, probably because we'd reset our expectations. I decided to practise some Buddhist meditation underwater to pass the time. Buddhist say that you control your own feelings and it's not others making you feel like that. One meditation is to focus on 3 different people: 1 you like, 1 you dislike and 1 your ambivalent towards. The aim is to think about the 1 you dislike and to find out ways to like them. At 20m below sea level it was relatively easy to do! The last dive was on a wreck at only 7m of depth. My Buddhist meditation swapped instead to making up conversations between the fish I was watching!! Clearly madness was setting in by that point.

Where we'd based ourselves for the diving was fortunately also next to Sri Lanka's most visited wildlife reserve, Yala, so we decided to continue our animal odyssey with a safari the next day. Yala apparently has the greatest concentration of leopards of anywhere in the world and we were fortunate enough to see two on top of a rocky outcrop. My favourite siting was of mother elephant which I saw at a distance across a lake filled with storks and cormorants. After a few minutes looking at her, a baby elephant came into view. After about another 5 mins, a third tiny baby elephant could be seen under her. It stayed almost glued to her side all the time. It reminded me of Russian dolls where you open one and you get another smaller one - very cute. Yala abounds with crocodiles, elephants, jackal, peacocks, spotted deer, monkeys, mongooses and loads of birdlife, the most beautiful of which were the bee-catchers (see photo).

After so many days of animal-watching both on land and in the sea, we decided to do a bit of "temple-bashing" and so headed to Kataragama, one of the 3 most venerated religious sites in Sri Lanka held sacred by Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims alike. People pray to Kataragama throughout the year but most especially in July when pilgrims express their devotion in ways ranging from walking the length of the country to gruesome acts of self-mutilation such as piercing their tongues and cheeks with skewers! I think I'll give that a miss. The main devotion we saw was pilgrims setting fire to coconuts, holding them aloft whilst saying a prayer, before smashing them on 2 stones within the temple complex. I didn't understand why there was such intensity in the act of coconut smashing until I found out it is highly inauspicious if the coconut doesn't break. One poor man we watched didn't have any luck and his coconut remained resolutely intact. He was followed by a very slight young girl who hurled her coconut down and it smashed to smithereens. The look of horror on his face and glee on hers was a sight to be seen!

After all these days of travelling and seeing the sites, we decided a couple of days chilling on the beach was called for so we headed to Tangalla to catch up with some of the other volunteers. Tangalla has one of the most beautiful stretches of beach but, because the currents are extremely strong and there are very few places that you can swim safely, it hasn't developed. This didn't matter to me as a hammock had my name on it and that's where I remained bar a trip turtle-watching one night and a kayak around the lagoon behind the hotel (well - you can't just do nothing!).

I picked probably the busiest day to travel in Sri Lanka to get back to Galle - the Sunday after New Year when everyone was heading back from their families to their homes / places of work. How so many people could get onto a bus, I just don't know. Just when you thought it was full to bursting, they'd get another 10 people on. I made it home in one piece and it really did feel like coming home, which is a great feeling. The only downside was it meant back to work - but more of that in the next installment!

Until then, practise your Buddhist meditation (underwater if you can!).