Part 1 - Our New Home
Dorothy’s first week and Ken’s fourth week as "residents" of SL are coming to an end. Dorothy’s travels and arrival were problem free and Ken was able to meet her at the airport. We had thought Dorothy might have to find her own way to Negombo and the residence as there had been heavy rain and roads were flooded, but it dried up sufficiently to allow easy access to the airport.
Negombo is a fishing centre about 40 kms north of Colombo.
Our new home is in a fairly quiet neighbourhood – well quiet if you take away the noise of the ducks, dogs, occasional trains (they all seem to come through at the same time of the day but the line and the station is about 1km away and their clatter is more reassuring than intruding), heaps of birds (mainly crows), frogs galore in the evenings and some chappy who does the morning prayers for the locals - unfortunately he’s a bit tone deaf. There is a bit of traffic noise but it does not intrude significantly.
The house is a double storey residence at the end of a lane. It feels quite secure; it has a high fence surrounding it and a gate made out of iron bars. From the street you come in through the gate into a courtyard and onto the front porch. The building is designed as a dual residence but we have access to and use both sections.
The front door opens into a large room complete with two large ceiling fans. This is our living and dining room and is also used for the memorial meeting and for the conduct of the "Learn to Read the Bible Effectively" (LTRBE) seminars. Also downstairs is a good sized kitchen (the one we use) which has lots of cupboard space, a gas oven and cook top (bottled gas), a double sink (and a single sink!) a fridge/freezer and an automatic washing machine. There is another pokey room off the kitchen which leads to the backdoor – I’m not sure what this room is supposed to be used for. There are two bedrooms and the big bathroom which includes a shower recess, large hand basin, bath, bidet and toilet. All the fittings in this bathroom have a peacock blue marble swirl – really very noticeable, but certainly not the least bit tasteful.
The stairs open onto a large landing which is more of a room than a landing and it is here that the "office" is set up. There are 3 bedrooms, another fairly pokey kitchen and a smaller bathroom in a less offensive powder pink. It also has a shower recess, large hand basin, bidet and loo. We sleep up here and use this bathroom. There is lovely balcony which catches a bit of a breeze from the sea, which is about 1 km away, and has quite a pleasant outlook across roof tops and lots of palms. The floors throughout are a terrazzo tile and the ceilings are a dark stained timber – a great place for the mozzies to hide. Fortunately the mozzies in Colombo are not carriers of malaria so it is only the nuisance factor that makes you hunt them out. We have a mozzie net over the bed which is great. Our bedroom has an a/c so half an hour before bedtime we set up the mozzie zapper and turn on the a/c. The a/c goes off as we go to bed and then the fan goes on. We get quite a good sleep this way.
The upstairs area can be accessed by an external spiral staircase (which we don’t use) or the internal staircase that can be locked off. There is also a carport/garage at the side of the house.
There is no hot water so if you want a hot wash it’s a case of boiling the kettle and filling a bucket otherwise it’s a cold shower which, while not too bad, doesn’t inspire you to stay under for too long. Maybe that’s what all of Aust needs at present to minimize water usage. We discovered one interesting feature this week. When you turn the shower on in the upstairs bathroom the upstairs kitchen tap runs! Turning it off is quite easy – you just turn off the shower. A handy feature I’m sure if only there was a need for it. There is also an eastern toilet outside – but neither of us has been sufficiently interested to even go and look at it!
For those of you to whom Dorothy gave a yellow piece of paper with our address and phone details please note the phone number is WRONG. Our number, if dialing from Aust is 0011 94 31 38779.
Part 2 - Negombo Shops
The Negombo shops are about a 10 minute walk away. There is a full range of shops including a supermarket which sells a large range of western foods though they are a bit expensive, a big fish and veggie market which has more flies than it has fish, a number of banks and innumerable stalls at which men sit trying to sell the repaired umbrellas, shoes, bicycle tyres, etc (how they make one sale per day is beyond comprehension). While fairly extensive, don’t be mistaken, this shopping precinct is nothing like Eastland, Highpoint or indeed Chaddy. It features items you’d never find at any of these 3 centres.
So far our meals have been very unadventurous. Fruit, weetbix, toast (IXL jam and vegemite bought locally) and coffee for breakfast (the coffee is a bit ordinary but we have some brought from home which we will use once we’ve finished off the local supply), sandwiches for lunch – including toasted ones cooked in the sandwich maker. The evening meals have included crumbed chicken, mashed potatoes, peas and carrot, fish curry and rice; and rissoles and veggies. We can drink the water here once it’s been boiled. It has a bit of a yucky taste but is still drinkable. The local cordial is good but of course we don’t want to drink cordial all day long. We now have Fran Caudery’s ginger beer recipe and hope to become brewers of this fine beverage. We’re amused by the brands of dairy produce you can buy. We’ve seen Happy Cow and Red Cow products. We’re on full alert for Mad Cow produce!
Part 3 - Local Wildlife
The local wildlife which has been spotted to date (apart from the dogs, cats, birds, bats and mozzies) includes a rat at the airport, geckos running on the interior walls of the house and a humungous snail on the front porch. Its shell was about 7.5cm long and was spiral/cone shaped with a striped pattern. If you found its shell on the beach at home you’d take it home and put it on the mantelpiece! Ken reckons it would march off with a whole packet of Defender. I reckon if you were around when it moved it’d sound like a street sweeper! Now he knows why the tomatoes and coriander he planted haven’t grown. There are some other tiny flying critters which can give a nasty nip. There is a little animal that looks like a squirrel and climbs trees just like squirrels (and I have since found out is in fact a squirrel – I guess that accounts for it squirrel like looks and habits!) and a lizard that looks a bit like a water dragon.
Part 4 - Life In Sri Lanka
Our daily routine appears to be developing as the domestic duties happening in the morning, the bulk of the day being used for Mission work and at about 4.30 pm/5.00 pm we head off down the street to get the required supplies. It’s too hot to wander far during the day and it’s good to get the washing, ironing, cleaning, etc done before the daily wash. Then at least you can feel reasonably fresh for the majority of the day. The shops and stalls are open until at least 7.00 pm – we think they probably close up at about 8.00 pm.
The temperature in the house hovers around the 25-30 degree mark 24 hours a day – and gets well into the 30’s outside. It is very, very, very humid. The least bit of activity means you almost instantly become very sweaty. It’s amazing what humidity can do to your hair style. Mine looks and feels a bit like yesterday’s floor mop. It hasn’t done anything to Ken’s hair – maybe the humidity hasn’t found it yet!
A tropical storm hit on Wednesday at about 9.00 pm and added a great deal of unwanted excitement to our lives in a very short space of time. Suddenly we had a major downpour through the ceiling right above the computer and all the attached bits and pieces – the screen, keyboard, printer, modem, hard drive and speakers. Aaugh! The water was gushing in and all we could do was to try to keep it away from the equipment and wires. Fortunately no damage was done. It also "rained" on Ken’s side of our bed – but not too heavily and not for too long – it dried out okay.
On Thursday Dorothy and the washing machine became acquainted. Despite Joan Byrt’s instructions I managed to take about five hours to do three loads of washing – I was not a happy soul. However I learnt a lot and think/hope that the next washing experience will be a bit more successful. Some of the wash cycles go for a good two hours! Choose that one regularly and your clothes get a month’s washing in one go and wear out. I haven’t timed the short cycle yet but I suspect it lasts an hour.
On Friday we headed for Colombo and had quite a successful day. It’s about one hour by air conditioned inter-city bus. The fare is 60 cents each and it’s virtually an express service. The bus is a large mini bus. Custom built it would have a row of double seats down one side and a row of single seats down the other side. The bus owners have added a further row of fold-up seats so that the isle can be filled with passengers and then an odd arrangement of seats immediately behind and beside the driver.
On arrival at the bus depot in Colombo we decided that, as the place where we were going (extension of our visas to Christmas - Dept of Immigration) was close to the railway station, we'd take the train. Bad mistake. We lost an hour waiting. On arrival we went to the counter, picked up a form, filled it out, went back to the counter, a lady ticked some bits, then sent us to "office 3". Here an important man (busy reading the newspaper) and with NO papers on his desk, ticked some more bits and said in an important tone, "go back to the counter, please". So, back to counter. The person we needed to see was at lunch so until they returned we stood at the counter while about five other staff sat doing nothing other than look at us. Hurrah, the person we needed returned from lunch …again more inspections ending in a request to "proceed to the cashier" – one desk down along the same counter. Where's the cashier? Gone to lunch. Forty-five minutes later she returns. We pay our $110 and then have to go back to original man who gives us a numbered token and a piece of paper. Twenty minutes later (the passports had travelled from token man's desk to a lady three desks behind and then forward to the front again), our token number is called and we pick up our passports with visa extensions stamped. Phew.
A whole day can be taken up doing one very simple thing.
Part 5 - Bible Mission
Our Bible Mission activities are only now starting to get momentum. Ken has been busy over the last 3 weeks doing the legwork to get an office up and running and has made contact with some of our local brethren and sisters and existing contacts. There have been a couple of Sunday morning meetings, two LTRBE sessions and two meetings with a contact who is preparing for baptism.
Today, it’s photocopying and overhead transparency day in preparation for tomorrow afternoon's third LTRBE session. So we'll hope some progress is made today on that. Last week’s session was a non-event as the flood waters prevented anyone from coming!
Next week we're hoping to get letters out to 800 or so contacts reacquainting them with us, and offering new literature. So we'll see what result that brings in.
In Conclusion.......
That’s all for now, remember to log in next week for the next chapter in the "Life and Times of K&D in SL". Please note it may take a week or so to get into the Saturday rhythm for the updates and there may be times when we are "out-of-town" and unable to prepare the updates on time.
Thanks to everyone who has sent messages – it’s great to hear from home. Thanks also to everyone who has helped us in so many ways in our preparations to go away. Your contributions have been significant and very much appreciated.