September 26, 2013

Yet another month has gone by.  I can hardly believe how quickly the days are going.  It will time to renew my visa in another month.

Ant wars continue.  After another two rounds of spraying, I think we have finally licked the problem.

I am going to look into getting a couple of acres of land so I can start growing vegetables.  Maybe here in Kandy or in Nuwara Eliya up in the hill country.  I am too bored here and really need something to do.  I think growing things would be most gratifying.  I would also have lovely things to eat and make some money in the bargain. 

Jayanthi and I dyed powder yesterday in order to make some rangoli.  Rangoli is a folk art form from India where patterns are made in living rooms or courtyards primarily during festivals.  I have had a rangoli kit for 25 years and never really knew how to use it.  Jayanthi is very good at it, so she is teaching me.  I will post pics when we get one finished.

September 23, 2013

Critter Wars continue.  Turns out that this is not the first time the snake has made an appearance.  Veenitha admitted today that she had seen it before, but did not tell me as she thought I would be scared.

The ants reappeared again last night.  This time in the spare room where my friend Jayanthi is staying at the moment.  She said she was not bothered and had a great night's sleep only to wake in the morning with a huge ant bite on her abdomen.  I, on the other hand, was on ant patrol most of the night again.

A new addition are big leeches.  6" long without blood in them.  You can imagine what they look like if they are full.  So it was poison time again.  The cat and I have stayed in the entire day.  I don't want her or me to get sick again.

Went out and did a big grocery shop.  Dinner tonight is hummus, tsatziki, Greek salad with real pita bread.  What a treat.  Also found bread fruit at last along some some tiny eggplants that look like large currents.  They are called titbhatu in Sinhalese meaning small eggplant.  The word is very descriptive.  Even if you did not know what tit meant, you would know what was being talked about so long as you knew that the word for eggplant is bhatu.

September 21, 2013

Election Day Sri Lanka!

Here's one for the books.  I am sleeping in this morning.  No Veenitha, no Ranjitha, when my door bell rings at 0800.  It is my neighbour informing me that a snake has just gone into my outside storage space.  He comes in with a long stick and starts poking around.  He finds the snake curled up in the front corner.  When he prods him, he slithers into the far back corner.  At that point, he splashes kerosene on him and he comes out and starts up the side outside steps.  A big black thing.  According to the neighbour, non-poisonous. 

Thought he went into the sand pile at the back which proved to be false.  He could have gone up the drain pipe to the roof.  All I need now is a snake infestation.  Now I have to put kerosene down in strategic places to keep the snakes away.  I am not surprised that they won't come around.  I can't stand the smell either.

So I took the opportunity to clean out the crawl space and found a moulted snake skin.  How long a snake has been living in there, god only knows.

So much for a peaceful Saturday.  Now I have to start my day from the beginning as I normally would has I not been snake-terrupted.

September 18, 2013

I have now scientifically proven that a cold is nothing more than the body detoxifying.  All the ant spray, combined with the general air pollution in Kandy have all invaded my body, which has finally rebelled.  I have been fighting one of the worst colds I have ever had.  The only thing is to let it run its course, but I finally succumbed to taking some Ayurvedic remedies.  One is called paspangu.  I had some of this from 25 years ago when I got sick while receiving Ayurvedic treatment at a meditation centre I was running a training course at.  It is a mixture of coriander seeds, thorns, tree bark and something that looks like grass of some kind.  The whole thing looks like a bird's nest.  You boil it up, inhale the steam through your nose and mouth as well as your ears.  Then you drink it.  Of course, it tastes like boiled elephant poop, but it seems to work.  Even the 25 year old stuff still had power.

The other thing is a sort of cough medicine whose principal ingredient is the bark that is in paspangu as well.  It is the thing that gives the paspangu its bitter flavour, so in the elixir, it is masked with sugar.  It seems to work as well. So after a week, I am almost rid of all the poisons.

Meanwhile, regional elections are scheduled for September 20.  There are rallies going on all around me.  Because I am at the bottom of a deep river valley, the sound carries like crazy.  I might just as well be at the rally myself.  Today, the President has come to do some campaigning, so Kandy town will be full of the army as usual. 

No going out for me.  I am getting cabin fever, but there is too much rain, too many land slips, too many young guys with guns and too much traffic to go out just now.  Maybe tomorrow.  I need to get out before the election as my friend Jayanthi says that for 2 or 3 days after the elections, the losers will be beating up and maybe even killing the winners' supporters.  Great to see "democracy" in action.

September 16, 2013

Man those ants are hardy.  The cat upchucked for 2 days, and I am half dead with what feels like the worst cold, and there are still a few live ants.  Mind you, it is hard to tell a flying ant from a termite.

The rain is relentless.  Now thinking of building an ark.  Not bringing ants, cockroaches or spiders on board though.

September 12, 2013

Dharma has been sick for a couple of days and yesterday she disappeared for 5 hours.  I was frantic.  I thought she was lying somewhere unable to move, or dead.  Then she showed up.  She did nothing but sleep for the rest of the day and night and seems her normal self this morning.  Amazing how you get attached to these little beings.

No sign of the other cats this morning.  One of them did come in yesterday afternoon and ate some food.  I think it was Blacky, as Billy just can't help announcing himself.

My friend Jayanthi has come up from Colombo.  Hopefully, she will come to stay with me.  I could use the company.

September 10, 2013

Well, I don't know if this idea of adopting Billy-Balls is such a good idea.  Yesterday afternoon, I hear yowling, thinking it was Billy.  I came downstairs and some black cat runs out of my office and out the window.  Meanwhile, Dharma is hunkered down beside the soup tureens on the side board.  She obviously thought that it was better to stay well out of the black cat's way.  These guys must have some kind of communication system.  Every cat welcome.  Not true.

Billy showed up this morning.  Had a feed and disappeared again.  He must be living somewhere, because he is very well fed. 

Finally got around to cleaning my fridge.  There was a perfectly frozen gecko in the freezer.  I thought of doing the experiment like you do with a frozen frog.  When you thaw it, it comes to life.   But I abandoned that idea and just put it in the garden.  If in fact it does do a Lazarus, it can go back to its natural habitat.  Although, I think that may be my kitchen.

The rain continues unabated.  Plus the temperature is climbing again, so it is hot and humid.  Not complaining.  Just saying.

September 9, 2013

Victory!!!  Ants Wars have been won by me.  Two nights now without a sign of an ant.  I love sleep.

I think I have acquired a new cat.  There has been a cat sneaking in for quite a while, eating Dharma's food.  There is a cat that lives on the property that borders my back yard, and I think that that cat was coming in.  I managed to scare it off because it already has a home.  Then this other cat started yowling around the place.  I never saw it, but I sure heard it.  It has the loudest, most resonant meow.

The other day, Dharma went outside after I closed her window.  She goes out from my veranda over the roof.  For some reason, she felt trapped out there and couldn't come back the same way.  I opened the front door to let her in and this other cat tried to casually follow her in.  The next day, he was driving me mad, yowling like crazy and he came in through the window to eat her food.  I finally got a look at him.  He is a lovely strong young male cat.  I got him to come to me and he is quite friendly.  Now I have started to put food out for him and he will come in as well.  He has been in some fights.  He has scabs on his head and a healing gash in his side.  Yesterday, I heard a cat fight on my front stoop and later in the day he showed up favouring one of his back legs.

I think he may have Siamese in him.  His head is shaped like a Siamese, he is a bit crossed eyed, and that yowl.   He tries to spray to mark his territory as well.  He is not old enough yet for the spray to really smell, but it won't be long.

I have named him Billy-Balls, because he has a set cojones on him the size of a dog.  The dogs have balls like horses, and I have not seen a horse, but the elephants.....!  No knowledge of the humans, but I have my doubts.

Once he trusts me enough, I am going to take him to the vet hospital to be neutered.  No more Billy-Balls, just Billy.  Whether he stays with me or not, Sri Lanka does not need another fertile cat.

Here he is:

This is Dharma watching him.  She is not sure of him, but at least she does not fluff her whole body when he is around anymore.  Yesterday, I think he was trying to mount her, about which she was not impressed.

Eggs come with their own nests here.

September 7, 2013

I am winning the ant wars, but it is a real Stalingrad.  Ant by ant.  The outside spray seems to have worked, but they are still coming into my bedroom every night.  I continue to spray and at least I can eradicate them so I can sleep.  The rest that I find in the house are dead, so that is something.

The rains are back.  I have no idea if this a monsoon, or just intermittent rain, but there is a lot of it and it is cool.  It is amazing how quickly you can acclimatize.  It is 25° and I want to put a sweater on.  A warm cup of tea tastes great in the cool weather.  This is the first morning the mirror steamed up when I took a shower.  Lots of savings on power as I don't need the fans.  Thank god I decided not to live in Nuwara Eliya.  It is always like this there and sometimes the temperature has gone down to 0°.

My cat and I have teamed up to make Net Art.  I have mosquito netting on all my windows instead of sheer curtains.  The cat chases something up the net and makes holes in it.  I then applique lace over the holes.  It makes for interesting patterns.  Soon people are going to be asking me to make them Net Art curtains.

Ranjith was here yesterday with a new assistant called Ravi.  I asked where Handy was and he told me his theory of work.  He says that if a man gets along with his wife he is a poor worker because he always wants to be with his wife.  That was the case with Handy who has gone to his wife's village.  On the other hand, if a man does not get on with his wife, he is a good worker.  Ravi was a very good worker.  He is married with a 2½ month old baby.  I guess he doesn't like his wife.  Too bad!

September 6, 2013

Ant Wars!  I have an ant infestation.  Sadly, mostly in my bedroom.  I spent two nights on ant patrol, only getting to sleep at 0330 and 0530.  The 3rd night, I slept from sheer exhaustion.  Yesterday, we dismantled my bedroom.  Washed everything, including the curtains, the windows, the woodwork and the fan.  Sprayed the hell out of the place, inside and out, and still had a few ants last night.  Ranjith is back today to finish the window washing, etc., so it is back to spraying.  I try valiantly not to use chemicals, but when it is raining ants as you are trying to sleep, you lose your eco-sense fast.

On a brighter note, I came downstairs the other night thinking my neighbour had changed her outside light to a red bulb.  It was the sunset.  The ridge and the sky were pure red.  Everything was bathed in red.  It lasted about 15 minutes which is long.  Usually the colours change every few seconds during a sunset.  I know it is the pollution, but it was stunning none the less.

September 3, 2013

I am reading a book given me by Manil called Nomad by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali woman living in the US.  She wrote another book called Infidel which I have not read, but will once I am finished with Nomad.  It is inspiring and depressing at the same time.

Inspiring on so many levels:  her personal struggle, her views on Islam and her rejection of them, her skill as a writer, her courage in writing what she does.

Depressing too on many levels:  the horrors of Islam as practised in Somalia, her treatment by her family, the fatwa put out on her life, and the knowledge that I am unlikely to be able to write as well as she does.

In any event, it has given me new impetus to take up my keyboard again and turn back to my book.  Here I go!