November 24, 2012

Here we are on day 2.

I don't know how I get into these things. I find myself running a household with 2 live in servants without speaking their language. My sign language is good enough to write a dictionary. Mind you, there are some short comings. Today I found out that no-one had bought them enough food.

But back to the beginning of the day. I am starting to acclimate. I did sleep part of the night. Up at about 6:30. Hopefully, that should have me up long enough to sleep through the night. It is hot, but there is no air conditioning here, so I have had to get used to it fast. I am sticky all the time, but that is just the way it is. I was dripping wet with sweat the minute I got out of the shower. Thank God for deodorant.

As it is the tail end of the monsoon, it thundered like mad overnight and rained like crazy. That makes for high humidity.

I have found a reliable auto-rickshaw guy who I can phone for transport. I went out with him this morning to ARPICO. It is a huge Wal-Mart style establishment. They even had cheese and olives; two things that it was impossible to get 25 years ago. There are no milk alternatives though. It is all cow's milk with more powdered than anything else.

So that is something new. Some things never change, however. This is still the land of the lumpy pillow, thus the trip to ARPICO to buy a new one. Should have a better sleep tonight.

Things are still bad on the cleaning front. I have told the seemingly clueless people who are supposed to be running the bungalow that it needs to be scoured from top to bottom before Nirmala comes home. I think she is dying and I would hate to contribute to it by bringing her into such an unhygienic environment. We will see. People always tell you what you want to hear and then do nothing. Thankfully, I have some competent contacts that can help me.

One of Nirmala's friends dropped in to check on things earlier this afternoon. I could hardly believe my eyes. An attractive Sri Lankan man. His family and Nirmala's have friends for more than 2 generations. That is how things are here. Time moves slower and reaches back farther than in our culture. Anyway, he is the one who established that the servants had no food. We promptly went out with the peon to buy food. At least Amal (that is his name) knows how to get things done having a Ph.D. in business and having lived in Australia for a long time.

The market we went to was very different from ARPICO. Now this is more like what I expected. It was large and relatively clean and well organized. Even Amal was impressed. Needless to say, we got a lot more groceries for a lot less money than I had paid earlier in the day.

It is funny that ever since I got here, I was sensing that the politics is very similar to what it had been when I lived here before when a socialist insurrection erupted in the south and most of the cabinet was assassinated. Amal confirmed that this is indeed the case and the President and his cronies are setting themselves up for something similar. Why is that when I show up in a place, it erupts in revolution? Let's hope it is no worse than last time.

My former landlady, another get things done type, has an apartment for me to look at. We will go either tonight or tomorrow morning. At this point, I really can't leave until I know that Nirmala is OK or she dies. Everyone who will admit anything seems to thing that the latter is the most likely. Anyway, she is supposed to be coming home on Monday or Tuesday of this week. I just hope we can get things ready in time. I guess I was supposed to come to Sri Lanka now in order to help her. Well, what are friends for? It makes me very sad to think about it though.

My bags have finally arrived. So now I can unpack.