First week.

I would have liked to document a day by day progress, but as I lead a fairly mundane existence at the best of times we’ll just condense things as space requires. In any event my first week in Sri Lanka was marred a tad by the effects of jet lag, an allergy to the mosquito bites causing my joints to swell and trying to adjust to the incredible heat and humidity. Let me just comment here on how much of a difference it was to my usual residence of Calgary Alberta… at home it can get so dry that even cactus plants get dehydrated – maybe I’m exaggerating a bit (okay a lot), but it’s just an analogy, so in my first week in Sri Lanka it felt like I was being steamed alive. At first my skin felt it was about two sizes too small which made the simplest movements stiff and awkward, the slightest effort would result in heat exhaustion or light dizziness, but still with all that was enjoying my time of… adjustment.

So with that, doing anything during the beginning of my stay was accomplished through great mental effort and a bit of leading around by relatives. As well I should note that I was going full force into the local lifestyle without the benefit of A/C and a very good mosquito repellant (Off! sports cream works well in Canada but the mosquitoes here treat it like an aperitif) – so the average tourist would probably fare much better as the environmental and cultural shock to system would be minimal.

Now as to my experience the first week and a few impressions, I do have a few interesting tales to tell; firstly my uncle (who is know in the family as a bit of prankster) had been preparing for my arrival a few days before and the local children were curious and asked him what he was doing, to which he replied that a visitor from Canada was arriving – the children immediately assumed it was a ‘sudtha’ or white person and got excited at the prospect. Of course instead of correcting the children on their misconception, he proceeded to play on their imaginations with stories of how the ‘sudtha’ needed things to be very clean (hence he managed to get some of the kids to help), as well ‘sudthas’ could only eat certain foods, were very tall and giant in stature… etc, etc.

So the next morning I woke up and shortly after breakfast, and a bunch of kids came around to see the strange ‘sudtha’... I probably looked a bit strange to them but was obviously no white person. Which was taken in good humor that they had been tricked but were still curious and tried talking to me in Singhala- unfortunately I had a rather limited vocabulary. Still I managed to play a few games and even taught a few card tricks to them, though jet lag set in pretty fast so only after a few hours took my leave and zonked out again.

The next few days were more and the same, gradually getting accustomed to the climate and picking up a few extra words of Sinhala here and there. Also visited my other uncle and by some rhyme or reason became President of the Rajagiria Udayana Community Association. In fact, there is a bit of a rather lengthy background story to this that would take knowledge of my Uncles’… eccentricities to fully appreciated, but for now just assume there is quite a hilarious story behind the whole thing.

Unfortunately the same uncle had chest pains that same night and had to be taken to hospital, though he was cleared by the doctors a couple of days later. We were a bit worried as he is getting on in years but was in regular form in no time - a mixed blessing, but a blessing none the less.

Here I would like to share a few of my observations and general impressions, firstly Sri Lanka is a hot and humid country... okay old joke, actually the country is in far better condition than I imagined. I had only my experience as a lad of twelve to go by, and in comparison the country has changed quite a bit. Firstly the roads and infrastructure and in much better condition than they were previously, but more importantly there is a greater sense of national pride and confidence. While I wasn’t as aware of everything at work in the country when I was 12, I did notice that people really didn’t seem to care or had very little hope in the future. At that time the LTTE terrorists were stronger and there was also another terror group called the JVP and between the two, traveling by bus or going to market was a life threatening endeavor. I am giving a very bereft description of the situation which I hope to rectify at a later time with a thoroughly researched essay on the topic, already have a bit of documentation but the issue is so complex that it’ll take a bit of time (a slight understatement).

Though getting back to the topic at hand, another thing I noticed is the odd prevalence of western culture – and I mean odd in that it shows itself in ways I really couldn’t anticipate. For example, it was interesting to hear the orchestral themes to a few movies on the local TV stations, but their implementation left me scratching my head a bit – the theme to ‘Superman’ being used to showcase a political talk show, and the ‘Back to the Future’ theme used to introduce a nightly news program. As well the use of advertising, for some reason it was deemed a good idea that every half hour no matter what the program is in the middle of, a short ad will appear with the change of time for example your watching a debate when all of a sudden there is a beep and a graphics screen with 7:30 pm flashing and then a quick commercial of whatever company sponsored that intrusive ad – and the show itself kept on going while the ad ran!

Heck even government security signs have commercial support, it does seem quite silly and almost reminded me of some moments in the movie Idiocracy (brought to you by Carl’s Jr.), but there is one difference. The people here just use the ads for money, and loyalty to the company providing them is almost non existent, now to explain why would take a lecture on the cultural psychology that I really don’t want to get into but suffice to say, while the ads here are more intrusive I doubt they really do as much damage as to people in say Canada and the US. Again I’d like to go into that further but for another time.

Surprisingly enough say a few familiar ad signs that made a bit nostalgic for home… and made me feel a bit ill – a very strange feeling if you ever have a chance to experience it. Almost curious enough to try the ‘McRice’… almost.

Well tis getting late and I’ve written probably most of the important events, if I think of anything later I’ll be sure to add an entry on the subject, but for now I’m going to sleep -brought to you by Carl’s Jr. (seriously if you haven’t seen Idiocracy go out and buy it right now, ah, who am I kidding… just torrent it, you glorious pirating bastards)