Keep Track of Julia: April 2022

I did not realize that I had not posted since January 20. A lot has happened, not the least of which is the collapse of the Sri Lankan economy. The Rajapaksa family has raped and pillaged Sri Lanka for almost 20 years. Their theft and corruption has resulted in 8 to 13 hour daily power cuts, shortages of petrol, diesel, cooking gas and food. People have difficulty in getting to work because there is not enough diesel to run all the buses. The electricity board does not have enough fuel to generate power. The cost of basic food stuffs is up 28%.

The Central Bank, headed up by a Rajapaksa crony, is printing money like it is going out of style. The Governor was replaced yesterday at the insistence of the IMF. They floated the rupee 3 weeks ago and it has been sinking like a lead balloon ever since. When I first came to Sri Lanka 9 years ago, the exchange rate on the Canadian dollar was LKR.110. Today it is LKR.237.48. The only saving grace for us expats is that the rate of exchange is outstripping inflation.

Finally, the long suffering Sri Lankan people are taking to the streets to protest. Of course, the cowardly and corrupt government imposed a curfew from 1800 Saturday until 0600 Monday morning to avert all the demonstrations scheduled for Sunday. Such idiots. Of course, the demonstrations were held on Monday and are continuing.

The latest word is that the PM. the former President and the brother of the current President, had his private jet brought from Uganda. People saw boxes being loaded on the plane and on Sunday, Namal Rajapaksa's, the eldest son of the PM, an MP (15 members of the Rajapaksa family are in parliament) wife and child flew out of the country on Sunday. Let's hope the rest of the vermin jump ship soon. I am predicting this week.

For my part, life continues apace. I am able to get everything I need at the supermarket and my veggie shop. I am buying rice and dal for my maid and have given her 3 wage increases since the beginning of the year to keep up with the rising bus fares. I finally got myself hooked back up to the house water tank as we may be facing water cuts soon. The electricity board is draining the reservoirs to generate power.

My landlady came home to stay after a 9 month absence due to a heart attack. It is good to have her back. Consequently, the planned renovation and move to upstairs has been delayed. I am sure it will not happen until she dies. She just celebrated her 88th birthday and I am sure she has a few good years left.

Mahjong is limping along a bit. First Gerry got COVID and ended up in hospital on oxygen up north in Manar. Then the petrol shortage has been keeping Deanne and Judith home as some of the lines for petrol are 9 hours long. This last weekend, they did not come because they are afraid of getting caught up in demonstrations. I managed to get to the bank on Saturday and had lunch in town without encountering any difficulty. I am proud to say that my maid, Vineetha, the most non-political person I know has been out on the streets with her entire family protesting. If I were a citizen, I would be doing the same.

I have also been managing to get to the pool at least twice a week. Now, we are experiencing heavy rains a little early this year, so I have to time my pool visits. At least the rains will fill up the reservoirs again and we can hopefully avoid a water shortage.

I went down to Colombo at the end of January to have a special test done my left eye to determine the strength of lens to put in after they remove the cataract. I was hoping to get the surgery done soon after, but my doctor contracted COVID so that delayed things. Then he seems to have been upset because I complained about having to wait over an hour to see him despite having received 5 messages telling me to appear at a certain time. I also complained about the lack of social distancing at the hospital which I guess he didn't like. Ironic that he caught COVID in the end. He has finally informed me that he will NOT be doing the surgery Now I have to find another doctor. Will attend auto it after Sinhala new year in the middle of April.

Lesley came with me to Colombo. We had a wonderful meal at the Kingsbury. I had a black ink risotto with calamari. It was wonderful, although my system did rebel for a few days after the seafood feed.

A friend of a friend, Jacky Donovan was referred to me. She was visiting Sri Lanka for a few weeks. We got together at Royal Bar in Kandy town and were inevitably joined by Ralph and Lesley who, it turned out knew her from England in the 1990s. Small world!

Deanne put together one of her soirées in February. It was nice to see people whom I had not seen for a while.

The rugby matches have resumed so I went to one at the Kandy Sports Club with Lesley and Ralph. Thankfully, Lesley and I sat far away from Ralph who yells abuse at the refs and the Kandy team at the top of his very loud lungs. Afterwards we had dinner at a new Italian restaurant that has opened in the club house. The service was terribly slow. I had gnocchi which was quite good preceded by deep fired mozzarella balls. Turns out that the cheese was not mozzarella but the best bocconcini I have tasted in Sri Lanka. It was a total waste to batter and deep fry them. I tried to suggest to the owner that they use the cheese in a tomato and bocconcini salad, but he didn't seem to grasp the concept.

Our team lining up for a sideline throw.

It was a very sunny day. Stinking hot on the field and difficult to see between the sun and the shade.

The iconic rugby scrum.

We also managed to get out to Simpson's Forest for swimming and lunch. They have a new chef who seems to be doing a good job. Lunches at Lesley and Ralph's also continue.

The king coconut trees were laden with fruit which was growing into plain coconut. Finally, I managed to get Tula to agree to let me get someone out to pick the fruit and prune the trees. My friend Jayanthi brought her man out from Talathuoya. He did a great job. So much so that I had him out for another day to clean up the bottom and side yards. I also managed to sell 73 tambili for almost LKR.3000. A good price these days. He also picked the pepper and I picked some coffee.

The coffee picking, fermenting, peeling and drying turned out to be a total exercise in futility. The coffee just broke up while I was peeling it. My fingers looked like those of a nicotine addict for a week afterwards.

Sarath is pruning the carapincha (curry leaf) tree. He also cut down the tambili and pruned the palms.

Here is the pepper and the coffee in various stages of drying.

Only coffee

All the tambili that was sold

The crap coffee that was not worth all the trouble. It all went to the pigs.

Film Club continues on. We have moved back to OZO where we get a much better everything; venue, service, meal. It costs more, but you get what you pay for.

The breakfast buffet at the Grand Kandyan has also resumed. We have managed to go a couple of times. We did try the lunch buffet one Sunday for a change. Not worth it at all.

L'Atelier has also resumed their events. We attended a quiz night organized by my friend Ravana Wijeratne. I was fun but very heavily weighted toward Sri Lankan questions. Of course, a Sri Lankan team won. My team came second. Not too bad for a bunch of ignorant expats. I actually learned something about Kandy and Sri Lanka. As usual, the food was crap, but the evening was fun and I met some people I had not seen for a while including my friend Fazmina who had moved to Kurunagalle and has now moved back to Kandy. George and Yvonne stayed the night. We went to the Grand Kandyan for the breakfast the next day, so a good couple of days. The only draw back was having to drive with George who is the world's scariest driver.

Went with Lesley and Ralph to a boutique hotel called Galavilla just outside Ampitiya. It is owned by 2 Czech women. I had a great swim and we had a good lunch. We also got together with Sarka (pronounced Sharka), a Czech woman who lives at the hotel. She was interesting although she smokes like a chimney. Always nice to make a new friend.

The quiz team got together for lunch at the Hideout. I had been wanting to try it for some time. The food was very good. Next time I will order the pizza which looked very good as it came out to other tables. It is on the lake road across from the tennis courts so it suffers from traffic noise, but you get used to it. It was packed with young tourists which was nice to see. Looks like a few tourists are coming to Sri Lanka despite the problems.

On the home front, I am having my fan blades repainted, have installed hand rails in my bathroom (a sure sign of age), and have been doing the usual cooking and cleaning.

Eggs Florentine that I made with English muffins I got from Michael who comes up periodically from Colombo. The muffins were a bit on the thin side, but the eggs tasted great with my homemade Hollandaise sauce.

And finally, as always closing with my furry family. The big news is the I have a new kitten who I have named Chewy as she is always trying to chew my fingers. She can't be more than a month old. Ashoka, the Kawasaki's tuktuk man found her in the Anawatte Tunnel. The tunnel runs through a rather large hill and has long outlived its life expectancy. The walls are dripping with water and during the heavy rains huge boulders and earth collapse from the mountain above blocking either or both entrances. I won't go through it during the rains. It looks like it will collapse at any moment. Ashoka found her sitting in a puddle of water. She is lovely and healthy. She has only been here a week and already the other cats are getting used to her. She went immediately in her litter box, is eating her kitten food and also has a nibble at the big girl crunchies. Amazing how quickly one gets attached.

A Chewy salad

She is about as big as my hand.

Another outdoor male cat that I have named Spot has also been coming. Turns out he is Lesley's cat Ginge. He comes about 1 km. to snack at my place and sometimes to stay the night.