On the Shores of the Indian Ocean

OK, los amigos. so much world, so little time has been keeping notes for a few days now, trying to sort through the jungle of thoughts and impressions that are cropping up more quickly than cornfields in Iowa. As we near the end of week two, I’ve decided to call a halt to it and just throw them all up here on the blog, so they can ooze down into your consciousnesses like a Pollock painting. I’ll caption the photos that I’ve thrown in purely for visual relief now, so you know what you’re reading around if indeed you read any of the text. Last Sunday (the day after Chuck’s birthday; happy birthday, biggest bro – did you get all my voice mails?), I went with two colleagues from MSF-Spain (who are also trying to start up relief work here) to a really glorious beach resort just south of town, and we lay around like slobs reading and sleeping for the whole afternoon. Coming after a lovely yoga class, this was a great way to remove myself from the traffic and other joys of Colombo’s streets, and recharge my mental batteries for the week to come.So people seem to want updates from Colombo. At the start, let me say that if you’d like an idea of the general situation, and of the needs we’re trying to address, check out the World Food Program, UNHCR, and ICRC websites: they seem to be updated fairly regularly and give basic facts that'll interest you. Since this is my personal blog site, I don’t really talk about the work we’re doing here – it’ll be my own reactions to life in Colombo.

One week on and I’m finding the differences between Colombo and Beijing fascinating. I really love the opportunity to switch so rapidly, from a pretty established pattern and life in Beijing, through a glorious vacation in Malaysia, to what’s rapidly becoming a fairly established life and pattern in Colombo. The opportunities for comparisons and learning more about the world and how people shape their lives, and cities, and countries…well, it’s just incredibly rich for me. So much more rich, I think, than if I’d gone back to the US between assignments, for example: that more or less makes the US the comparison ground for one’s impressions of the rest of the world, and that’s just all wrong since of course the US is so out of the mainstream, in terms of how most of the world lives.

My friend Bart in Holland opined, when I told him I’d be coming to Sri Lanka, that he was glad I was finally going somewhere that really needs MSF, or something of that general tenor. I’d been laboring under the impression that Sri Lanka was actually ahead of China on most development indicators; this impression came from my correct sense that Sri Lanka’s healthcare situation is generally quite good. Indeed it is better than China’s for the broad mass of citizens so far as I’m able to tell (health care and insurance more broadly available, not a whole lot of endemic diseases of the sort that afflict millions around the world each year, like TB, AIDS and malaria). But – much as an MSF volunteer might wish it so – a country’s health stats don’t necessarily predict its development status: Sri Lanka lags rather behind China on indicators like per capita GDP and so on. Though it is well ahead of all the other South Asian nations, as far as I can tell.

But consider a few random factoids I’ve perceived: ATMs and credit cards are way more common in Colombo than Beijing. Why? Is the banking system just more open – yes, banking in China is a Byzantine, insane nightmare – or is it just a different path of development? There are far more “mixed” supermarkets here than in China: even in Beijing, you find cheese, pasta, cornflakes and other “western” foods only at the select “western” supermarkets; here just about every market has at least a few such basics. Why? I don’t think there are that many more expats here, really. Are these tastes inherited from Colombo’s colonial days? Lord knows Sri Lanka is blessed with a magnificent indigenous cuisine (when next you see me, I shall be completely round!), but perhaps the average Joe here appreciates variety a bit more than the average Jane in China? And finally, my favorite indicator: not many bicycles in Colombo, as opposed to every Chinese city I’ve ever been in (well, except Chongqing which is too hilly). Don’t know if cars and 3-wheelers per capita are more or fewer here than in China, but in Colombo the motor-vehicle to bicycle ratio is wayyyy higher than Beijing! I think this is a pity – yet, however much Beijing’s streets scared me as a bicyclist, Colombo’s seem a bit scarier.

And not just because of the occasional car bombing. In fact, mostly NOT because of that. 18 months in China quite thoroughly numbed me to worries about the many times a vehicle I was in came within two centimeters of another moving vehicle, and it’s a good thing since that happens, if anything, even more often here! But I’m not yet quite used to all the gun-toting soldiers on street corners (they don’t seem trained to point those things down at the ground…and when the car I’m in drives past in such a way that it’s pointing directly at me, I always wonder “does that gun have a safety? Is it engaged?”), or the sandbagged entrances to important government buildings or residences. Turns out while I was sunning myself in Malaysia there was a car-bombing aimed at the Pakistani High Commissioner, on August 14 (google search: Pakistani High Commissioner Colombo).

My appointed rounds occasionally take me past this spot, and I wish I could find a security-conscious (read: I’m not really sure I’m allowed to take, let alone post, a picture of this) way to take a picture of this spot: there’s sort of the burned shell of a small tree on the sidewalk, and on the wall of the building right next to where it happened, there’s a splatter pattern of pockmarks (seems they packed the bomb with pellets or something of the sort) for quite a wide radius. Then there’s the really lovely restaurant I ate in last week after a movie with a (new, non-MSF) friend. The next day, out with another (new, non-MSF – aren’t I little Joe Popular!) friend, I found out that it’s directly across the street from where a breakaway faction headed by a former high-ranking LTTE guy has set up office. (They’re supported by the government, so they can have an office in Colombo.) Now, a brief reading of the past 30 years of Sri Lanka’s history tells us that the LTTE is a bit like the mafia, in that you don’t sign up then sign out like a gym club membership. Then you add the fact that this breakaway faction (google search: Karuna faction) has been fighting the LTTE for a few years now – well, basically, many feel it’s just a matter of time until another car bomb goes off trying to target someone from that office. Result: not so much for that lovely restaurant any more. Moral: one moves on to new restaurants here for different reasons than one does in NYC.

There’s not a lot of dividing line between work and play for me here, something I’ve always managed in other times and places. I live upstairs and work downstairs; and, like last year in Nanning (before moving to Beijing), I share a house with my colleagues. Right now the colleagues are our Head of Mission (absolutely delightful and impressive French woman), Deputy Head of Mission/Logistician (Sri Lankan guy who’s been in the US, currently Berkeley, for some years), a surgeon waiting for a chance to get to our project on the Jaffna Peninsula, and me. We eat our meals and tell jokes together (the macabre humor does come out occasionally, I must admit), and of course work closely together all day long. Mercifully, as of last week we have one office staff member whom we’ve hired locally, so it’s not purely the three of us – until she arrived, it was just the expats working in the office and that might have felt a bit claustrophic. (Otherwise, we’ve got drivers, house watchmen, cook, cleaner – but we don’t work quite so closely with them all day long.) The whole mission is still a bit in startup mode: my predecessor and the Deputy HoM/Log arrived, with one incarnation of the HoM, in early June to establish accounts and procedures, set up the office/house and start bringing on board all the people to run our actual programs. Since then each HoM has basically worked a month (Judith, here now, is the third and she’s planning to leave in mid September to be replaced by another short-termer; after him, we seem set finally to get a HoM who will be here at least a few months); my predecessor has just left, and the deputy HoM/log plans to leave later in September…at which point, after a month here, I’ll be the person who’s been in coordination the longest.

This makes us, I think, a more typical MSF mission than China was – remember that MSF’s roots and core are humanitarian emergency medical relief, to populations affected by disasters (whether natural or man-made), epidemics, and so on. So very often MSF staff are flying into a wholly new place to get things started, which means finding living and working quarters; establishing an ability to receive (from Paris) and exchange EUR or USD; hiring translators, office staff, and drivers; establishing contacts with appropriate national and local authorities (usually ministry of health and its branches and offices) to establish the locations, needs and guidelines for our intervention; and then to start bringing on board the medical staff – both expat and national – needed to help people. But since our China mission was long established and I actually shut down more offices than I opened while there, I’m enjoying the rather “frontier” feel of this current work. It does mean, though, that I’ve a tendency – especially now that I have my own bedroom to retreat to when absolutely necessary, and now that I’ve got my office set up very much to my liking – to just start working any time I’m awake and not feeling completely sick of the work: so I find myself at the desk at 7AM, or 9PM, and think little of it as long as the ball is moving down the field on at least some level. (We accentuate the positive here.)
These notes have dragged on more than long enough and I do hope I’ve not bored you to tears. So I’ll close with some thoughts on the wildlife of Colombo. The first thing I noticed, right away my first morning, were the fantastic and clearly tropical bird sounds. It’s like the feeling I had two weeks ago, on my jungle-trail hike on Tioman Island, Malaysia (how long ago and far away does THAT seem now!): the kinds of sounds that – growing up – I only heard when I went to the tropical bird house at the zoo are now my morning and evening serenade. To my chagrin, I find on the downside that I’m back in the land of roaches on testosterone. Longtime NYC friends will recall my explaining that at least NYC roaches have the winter die-off to keep them in check: not so the subtropical ones I met in Taiwan. ‘Twas there that I first learned that roaches, like little boys and girls the world over, dream of flying one day – except, of course, that roaches really do when they live in the right climate! And we won’t go into the ants: imagine me putting an open packet of crackers into the freezer in order to clear a minor ant infestation, 12 hours after I opened it, and you get the idea.

But where’s the “circle of life” balance? What eats these little beasties? The lizards! Imagine me just last evening around 7:15, studiously working on the accounting at my desk, when a little shadow scuttles across some of the receipts I’m sorting and entering: the most adorable little 2-centimeter lizard that any lizard mom could possibly hope for seemed to positively squeak with fear to get out of my way when he felt my eyes upon him. But fear not, little lizard, I hope that you and all your bigger cousins will continue sharing this lovely, big house with me – and eating all those darned ants and spiders that seem intent on squatting here as well.

‘Til next time, mes amis. Send up good thoughts for peace and humanitarian space. Both are needed here.

Rain in Colombo

Yes, friends, so much world, so little time has landed in the beautiful island nation of Sri Lanka, in its capital city, Colombo. As I draft these words, it’s 7:15 on Sunday evening, and my first day in Colombo is winding down. These entries will all be about my weeklong vacation in Malaysia, not about Colombo yet. (No, these towers are NOT in Colombo.) I haven’t had the energy to bring out my camera: 1) I’ve got work to do here, and 2) I thought, considering how busy I’m about to be, I might do well to let y’all know how the vacation went and that I’m here and whole before I start documenting the streets and scenes of Colombo.
That said, I’ll provide a few small items of interest. First: Colombo is 12-1/2 hours ahead of San Francisco. Meaning no disrespect whatsoever to my hosts in my new (for now) home of Sri Lanka, nor to any of the fine people in Delhi which apparently also enjoys this magical time zone, but HELLO?! Half-hour time zones? Not a good idea. Too confusing. I recommend an international commission to ban such ideas in the future.
A further note, from the jaunt I took around my neighborhood in between rain storms this afternoon: I am a short walk away from the Ministry of Coconut Development’s Agency for Coconut Development. This is true. Photos in front of the agency point out the many things that can be done with coconut fibers, wood and other parts you never even knew a coconut had. Coconuts, one suspects, are a prime product of this fine nation. More later, my friends!

But what are we looking at, you ask? Kuala Lumpur, KL to those who want to be in the know, boasts the world’s tallest buildings, Petronas towers. These are they – the round spiky items with the little pedestrian footbridge between the two, about half way up. The general public can go to and walk across the footbridge, but I’m not sure about climbing all the way up – I tried neither, since it’s always nice to keep something for one’s next visit.

I did, however, go the viewing platform of KL Tower, the world’s fourth tallest communications tower (KL, for all I loved it, does seem a bit obsessed with size comparisons…) Thence the aerial shots you are seeing, taken a mere 36 hours ago or so, as I whiled away the time between arriving back in KL on my morning flight from Tioman Island (aka paradise – see below) and catching my evening flight to Colombo.

The Old & The New in KL

One of these is the side of a gorgeous modern shopping mall in the main expat and shopping district in town; the other is the back view of an old (the old? the oldest? I didn't have a guide book...I didn't take my tourist reponsibilties very seriously, so sorry...) mosque downtown, close to Merdeka Square, about which see more below. :-)

The Sultan Abdul Samad building, according to our corres-pondents here at so much world, so little time, is the most photo-graphed building in Malaysia. So why should so much world, so little time be an exception?! This lovely little building was once the home of the British colonial administration and now houses, if I recall correctly, court offices. It’s across the street from Inde-pendence Square, aka Merdeka Square – home of the world’s largest flagpole, about which more later. (Are you sensing a trend here in KL?) Part of what I found so delightful about KL, to be honest, is its scale: it’s not too big, not too small. True, it lacks the extra- ordinarily vibrant street life of Bangkok or Beijing, but frankly after a year in Beijing and 17 months of China’s vibrant streets, I rather welcomed the change: KL is vibrant and multi-cultural in ways that are new to me; waking to the sound of the morning call to prayer is something I’ve not done since a week spent in Jerusalem nearly 20 years ago. There are streets full of Indian spice shops and vendors, and others full of Chinese shops and vendors. Then there are the ultra-modern ultra-chic malls peopled by anything from tight mini-skirt toting sales girls promoting Mentos to more traditional muslim families with women in full burka; and, of course, everything in between with a healthy spattering of us pasty-faced travelers, tourists and expats.

Hotel Maya

I'd decided to really treat myself to a nice hotel in KL, and I hit it dead on with the Hotel Maya. This is the staircase next to the sweet little restaurant that served the morning buffet breakfast - the whole hotel has this awesome open-column architecture, and sadly I never found time to take a shot of the pool or spa, which sort of float above the central column in the middle of the hotel.

World's Tallest Flagpole

Size, it would appear, does matter. KL is proud to boast, at Merdeka Square, the world's tallest flag pole in the spot where, 49 years ago this August 31, the flag of an independent Malaysia was raised for the first time.

Beach Bumming

Turns out I seem to actually know what I need, on occasion. Three nights in KL gave me a chance to catch up with emails, sleep, order great room-service food, and generally leave behind the stress and tension of leaving China in such a rush. After that fine transition out of my Beijing life, I thought a few days of total decompression (and not in the bad, diving-related sense) were needed. I'd chosen Tioman Island, off the southeast coast of peninsular Malaysia, as my destination of choice to just let everything go. My choice seems to have been a good one. After four days there, I've landed in Colombo quite well rested, delighted at my new higher-level diving abilities, and very much ready and excited to get to work here. Now if I can just stop hanging on the blog long enough to learn my new responsibilities, maybe I'll get a little something done here. :-) Wish me luck.

Tioman, the information sheets tell me, is the third-largest island in Malaysia, after Penang and Langkawi. Yup, when you order Penang Curry in the Thai restaurants in New York and San Francaisco, you're odering something named after an island in Malaysia. Go figure.



It's roughly half the size of Singapore - which basically means Singapore is bigger than I realized, though part of what makes Tioman seem big is that there's only about 5km of road on the island: from a bit north of the aiport (you can see the runway in the foreground on one of these shots), to the Berjaya Resort south of Tekek Village. One of these shots shows you both the main pier for Tekek Village, and the control tower for the airport, which gets 4 to 6 flights a day.






They're building a big new airport on the southern end of the island, for Boeing 737s. I think this is sad: there are plenty of islands you can fly to on big planes and stay in big resorts. There don't seem to be quite so many where all the bridges are still made of wood, and where there are more motorbikes and walkers than cars, by far.

Views from Swiss Cottage, Tekek, Tioman Island

That's Pulau Tioman in Malaysian, assuming I've understood correctly. I actually spent a full week in Malaysia without one single guide book: it all came through the web and recommendations from friends (big, big ta out to once and future MSF colleague Ching, who doctored our patients in Nanning until just about this time last year and is now back in London - but who took time from her busy schedule to tell me about good places to let it all go in Malaysia), and I'm happy to say it worked out wonderfully.

Tioman Dive Center is located on the grounds of Swiss Cottage, and is the best and only necessary reason to stay there: the location is perfect, but otherwise the Swiss Cottage feels a bit like a campground: accommodations are basic and spare, and they pretty much leave you alone. Seems I may have gotten a few bedbug bites (at least, I don't think they're mosquitos), but other than that I've no complaints and many happy memories, as these photos attest: all taken from the grounds, or from the deck in front of my little room, where I watched the waves breaking 10 feet away every morning and evening.

So these were my days on Tioman: run in the morning and watch the sun rise. Go for the morning dive. Have lunch. Relax. Go for the afternoon dive. Relax. Watch the sunset. One evening: go for a night dive (very, very cool: finally saw photo luminescence, or whatever it is where you move your hand in the water and little bacteria light up and luminesce in little sparks in the water). Eat lots of good Malaysian food. Sleep well. Tough life, huh? I did complicate things a bit by signing up to get my advanced open water certification, but considering the dives I got to do, it was certainly well worth it!

If you're wondering how I got that nifty angle on the sunset - like, not right at beach level, but sort of above the beach? - here's the secret: I was in the tree house. :-) Though I got on my own case a bit about that fact that here I was on vacation - relax, right? - and what do I do but sign myself up for the Advanced Open Water Diver course, which meant theory readings on saftey and decompression illness and underwater navigation etc. But when you consider that the bulk of said readings occurred on this little platform, with the views you've just been seeing and many more, you'll understand that it wasn't all that painful. And the rewards...ah, those wreck dives. And the sheer coolness of seeing stonefish (highly poisonous, usually well camouflaged and just sitting on the ocean floor) hanging out a the hull of a wrecked ship at 30 meters beneath the surface. Sweet, huh?