Another Afternoon by the Ocean

I’ve realized, to my chagrin, that the weeks are rushing by and family and friends actually go to the blog periodically to see new things…and see only the same old posts. So I’ve assembled a few more random thoughts. Big hug out in particular to Ondrej, who reminded me it’s been a while since I posted. Sounds like your emergency rotation is going great: so glad to hear it. Hope your field posting goes well, whenever it comes. I promise to check YOUR blog any day now, 我的朋友。(For those who don’t have Chinese characters on your ‘puters: any time you see little boxes trailing across the screen, imagine that those are Chinese characters you’re not seeing. In this case, the Chinese for mi amigo.) Oh, and Mom? The post office in Ridgewood is on Ridgewood Avenue, and I need things to decorate my walls with: post cards are most welcome.

(There was some sort of kite festival going on, it seemed...)

And, as always, what are we looking at? Judith – head of mission – has left (sob!), and Roshan – deputy head of mission – is leaving very shortly (double sob!), but, to quote Elton John, “I’m still standing.” (That IS Elton, isn’t it?) So here are a few shots from a brunch and lazy oceanside afternoon at the swank Mt Lavinia hotel, to bid these two important and much-loved colleagues adieu. Thanks for the memories and support, guys.

The funny thing about my life right now is that, though I’m in a context that’s far less settled than what I experienced in China, my day to day life is rather a dull overabundance of office work that takes up at least 60 or so of my waking hours each week, balanced by periods where I lock myself into my room and read, at the moment, Tintenblut while listening to soothing muzak. If you’ve been following the blog, you may understand why I’ve developed an insatiable appetite for Bee Gees muzak. NOT! (BTW, if you’ve not heard of Claudia Funke’s wonderful fantasy series about the intersection of written word and “real world,” do check it out: It’s a book-lover’s series, and I think at least book one is now available in English, though I admit that I’m finding this installment a more gripping read than book one, Tintenherz). Yes, my current surreal existence does mean I continue to need regular doses of fantasy literature in order to retain a tenuous grasp on what we like to call reality.

I mean, I could report the interesting items that come up, for example on the Reuters news feed, but they’re not really happening to me, and y’all can check those out on your own time. I also don’t figure I’m well positioned to provide the weekly or monthly news summary. Oh, why not…the worst that happens is they kick me out of the country for a well-developed sense of humor, huh? For those of you don’t check the news on your own, here’s a small example of the otherworldly reality that is now ours here at Oh So Much World, So veeerrry Little Time….one fine tropical day week last week, in the course of half a day, the reports I saw could be paraphrased, in sequence, roughly as: 1) Government of Sri Lanka categorically denies Monitoring Mission (aka Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, the group charged with monitoring the now sadly tattered Cease Fire Accord that brought a much-needed respite to this truly remarkable island, back in the halcyon days of 2002) reports that it [GoSL] has agreed to renewed peace talks with those terrorists, 2) government reiterates its firm commitment to the peace process, 3) government clarifies that it is extremely eager to talk, but only if those terrorists agree never, ever to fire another shot or do anything to harm anyone ever again, no matter what. Meanwhile, from the other side of the aisle, come regular reports that every time the government breathes, more civilians suffer and die.



The sad thing is, it seems increasingly true clear that the actions of both sides are causing fear and loss to more and more civilians all the time, despite each side’s repeated assertions of commitment to the peace process. Actually, rather scarily, the tigers said not long ago (after government forces retook a small area that was strategically important to them) that in their view the government has now firmly broken the accord, and now the rest of the island will learn what suffering means just as much as the north of the island has had to learn it.

Then there’s the very strong anti-NGO sentiment on the island, much of it rooted in the post-tsunami backlash: too many NGOs who landed on the island after the tsunami, some of which maybe didn’t do the best work and some of whom probably didn’t behave very respectfully or respectably. Then there’s all the usual reasons a government and military faced with an apparent resumption of civil conflict might not want NGOs around. So you’ll probably understand one’s need to develop a shell, and it seems mine is humor.

So let’s get back to the important stuff: my life as an overloaded office worker. Whilst still in China, I enjoyed thinking that China had invented bureaucracy at a time when my ancestors were still living in caves and hadn’t yet figured out how to cook meat. Silly Paul, that’s like thinking America’s so-called government couldn’t get any worse than the living nightmare foisted upon us by the rich back in the 1980s! Come to find out that these former British colonies down here in South Asia take bureaucracy to whole new levels of development! My brain is an alphabet soup of ministry acronyms that form my daily rounds, in the process of trying to acquire visas and working permits for our colleagues (and oh by the way, for me too…). It is a good test of recall: when I don’t feel like I’m starring in Kafka or Beckett, I wonder if there’s some highly evolved alien life form taking notes of my reactions, a la rats in a maze: “it took him only two weeks to figure out how to get his application out of ministry A and all the way to ministry C! Clearly he has the ability to learn from experience.”

(No, these are NOT the same shot: notice the crowds in this one, related to the above-illustrated kite festival.)

But what legacy will I leave behind, I ask myself occasionally? When I asked a Sri Lankan colleague if she’d ever worked with hanging file folders of the sort that have been omnipresent in all American businesses I’ve known since the late 1980s, she said she’d seen them on television (as in, on American television shows – how fabulous is that?!), but had never had the chance to work with them.

(As you can see, I am truly suffering here in this hardship post...so, Chuck: DO worry about me! A lot!)

So I think the lasting legacy I’ll leave across the world as I move from place to place with MSF is an American filing system: I also introduced hanging folders in China, where my national-staff colleagues had never heard of them or seen them before. There, though, our MedCo also used them; even though he’s French, he spent substantial time in the US, doing clinical work after his MD. How do the French file things, you ask? In notebook binders: think of the three-ring binders you may have used in elementary school. Everything related to a given topic gets stuck in one sheet protector, and stuffed into the notebook. I hate this way of filing things – so inaccessible and hard to sort out, as you have to take the whole thing out and go through it all, then fit it all back into the sheet protector, just to find one sheet in a batch of a hundred.

(But is it water polo, or water volleyball? Neither net nor goal gave away the secret...)

You understand, of course, what I mean: my life is boring! If the biggest excitement I have to report is the introduction of hanging file folders to MSF Sri Lanka, I have to think you’d rather watch reruns of Oprah. So let me not hold you back. More some time, dear friends. Let us all repeat Elvis Costello’s mantra: What’s so funny about peace, love and understanding?
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...And We Left @ Sunset

Super Viking!

Sunday morning I woke up with a bit of time to spare before our departure for the Mount Lavinia trip. So I popped my camera in my pocket, and headed out for a short tour of the neighborhood to give you all a flavor of the streets I know walk every day.

I begin with one of my favorite visuals here: the buses. I count at least four different cultural referents here: Lanka (Sri Lanka) Ashok (a deity, I believe, of Indian origin) Leyland (presumably from British colonial days) – and last but certainly not least for us Scandinavian-Americans: it’s the SUPER VIKING! A far cry from NYC transit buses, and rather more interesting, wouldn't you say?

Streetside Shrines

Little street-corner and streetisde shrines were one of the first things I noticed, driving to my new home from the airport in the wee, wee hours of August 20. Here you see two shrines from street corners very close to me: here, a tuktuk parked beside one corner shrine…

Here, Buddha seated behind pennants at one down the road a small piece…

And here, the gorgeous, huge tree that shades the second shrine. Gorgeous, huge trees are omnipresent here.

Ministry of Coconut Development

This is it, folks! My colleague, Thoshanka, doesn’t understand why I think it’s fabulous that Sri Lanka has a Ministry of Coconut Development. It’s the most natural thing in the world to her. And consider how abundant this natural resource is, here: it really does make sense. I think what tickles me is that it’s its own ministry – it doesn’t just fit in under something broader, like, say, Agriculture.

Urban Contrasts

As in China, wealth and poverty, development and lack thereof rub elbows much more habitually and commonly than I’ve seen in the US. The National Blood Transfusion Center basically shares its back yard with…

These little shacks by the railroad tracks, where folks have hung their clothes on the line to dry,

This little lane with a biker,

And these cute little shacks by the side of a very busy street.

Fruits Stands & Street Dogs

As you’d expect, the fruit stands are abundant…

As are the bananas, which I’ve learned to eat with my curry and rice in the afternoon, or my string hopper, hopper, kottu, or any of the other myriad of awesome food I’m getting here…

And after Beijing, the street dogs have been a bit of a surprise: they’re the friendly ones. They don’t take much notice of you, except the totally teeny little guy who ran along behind us on our way back the swim club late one Poya Day (full moon day off each month, celebrated by Hindus and Buddhists alike so a day off each month) – making us feel dreadfully guilty that we couldn’t take him home and adopt him. It was totally “are you my mother time” with him. The means ones are the guard dogs, who mercifully so far have stayed behind their fences: wouldn’t want them chasing after me, from how they sound at least!

Neighborhood Shots

Narahanpita Junction, very close to our office-home, complete with SAG sign: when I arrived at midnight on August 19, I thought "why has has the screen actors guild come to Sri Lanka?" But no: 'twas the 10th staging of the South Asian Games.

The neighborhood boys, off for a cricket outing on Sunday morning.

...and finally, two shots of the little lane that So Much World, So litle Time now calls home.