(Half) Negombo News – June ’04
India - 13th to 28th May 2004
Bangalore - We arrived in Bangalore on the evening of May 13th to be met at the airport by Ray Allanson from New Zealand. This was a great surprise … we only found out the day before we left SL that Ray was in India. Ray and his family lived in India for 2 years ages and ages ago and Ken got to know the family quite well during a visit to India while they were there. Dorothy also met Ray on her first visit to India six years ago. Ray took us back to the Mission flat where we also caught up with Stephen and Polly Taylor from Tassie whom we had also met in India several years ago and Ted and Dot Harrington (Melb). Our time in Bangalore was rather low key. The only commitment was Ken doing the exhortation on the Sunday morning. We went into town twice (and enjoyed a nice lunch at a 5 star hotel and two visits to our favourite [and Ari and Ange’s] coffee lounge, Barista), and spent most of the rest of time at the residence reading or chatting. We caught up with quite a few familiar faces and that was most enjoyable. We had expected hot sticky weather in Bangalore. Usually at this time of the year it is around the 30 degree mark and really quite unpleasantly humid. But it was unseasonably cool – only around 26 or so degrees – and the humidity way down so it was quite pleasant weather wise.
Ooty - On 19th we headed south to Ooty in Tamil Nadu. If you’re looking for it on a map it’ll probably be shown as Ootacamund or Udhagamandalam (which is its Tamil name). Ooty is in the hill country and is so very, very nice J. Tim and Sarah Galbraith and family enjoyed a visit there about 18 months ago and it was their happy experience that made us choose Ooty as our destination. Ken had not been there before during any of his earlier travels so going to Ooty was a first for both of us. We had a really nice time.
Getting there was a bit of an experience. We chose to go by car rather than catching a train and a bus. It meant that our travels should have only taken us four hours instead of eight hours that the train/bus combination would have involved. The trip ended up taking us about an hour longer than it should. The car we travelled in was a brand new “Tata Indica” (a very small car similar to a Toyota Starlet). It only had 1,200 kms on the clock when we left Bangalore. We were picked up at the Mission residence at about 8.00am. Bangalore is in low-level hills with very few if any steep gradients. Hence many Bangalore drivers have never driven in steep hilly country … well ours certainly hadn’t. The last hour of our “four-hour” trip involved a lot of climbing and about 37 (not exaggerating—they were all numbered!) tight and steep hairpin bends. Our driver was in his early twenties but aged about 10 years in the last hour of the trip. He had no idea at all on how to drive a manual car in hill country. He didn’t know to select the gear needed to get up and around a bend before he actually got to it. By the time we were 45 minutes into the one-hour hilly bit he’d burnt out the clutch having ridden it almost non-stop. Thankfully we did manage to convince him to pull over when the smoke started pouring through the interior air-vents! But he still didn’t understand what had happened. He told Ken that it was a new car and the clutch wasn’t adjusted properly. Fortunately a man who stopped to help us knew something about cars and twiddled something which enabled the car to limp the last few kms into Ooty. We’ve no idea what the driver did, presumably he had to have the clutch replaced before heading back to Bangalore. However we suspect that on the downhill journey he may well have burnt the brakes out before reaching the flat plains again! Not sure whether he still has his job or not. Don’t think the boss would be happy.
Our accommodation was in a hotel that has grown a bit like “Topsy”. It involved a number of bungalows which each contained about four bedrooms which opened out directly into the grounds so when you left your room you stepped outside rather than into impersonal/cold passage ways. Most of the buildings were constructed in about 1920’s. They are quite well maintained. The floors were lovely old polished boards, there were high, pressed metal ceilings. Our room (and probably all the rooms) had an open fire-place and its own little sitting area in the enclosed verandah. It was quite a rustic setting full of old-world charm and comfy with most mod cons. We enjoyed sitting in front of our very own open fire until night three when it smoked us out and suddenly the open fire lost all its charm L. We didn’t bother with it again – it wasn’t that cold and the little blow heater in the room was enough to keep us snug. Ah, the comfort of sleeping under a blanket and having both a bottom and top sheet! The gardens were quite pretty with lots of garden beds full of flowering dahlias, snap-dragons, alstroemeria’s (we’ve learnt to remember that one!) and so on. Bet the mention of all those lovely flowers impresses you, Ian! Our accommodation was about a 15-minute walk from the town centre so we were away from the hustle and bustle of life.
Ooty was refreshingly cool, relatively clean and very, very pretty. Overnight it probably got down to about 12 degrees and during the day the maximum temp would have been about 23. The weather was fine most of the time – there was one wet afternoon. We happened to be there during the 108th annual flower festival and the extensive, nicely landscaped botanical gardens were planted out with lovely annuals and there were quite also few floral displays (cut flowers and potted flowers). Certainly not as grand as the Melbourne Garden Show but still enjoyable. Also the gardens of many of the hotels and businesses were planted out and participating in various garden competitions.
The public library at Ooty has to be seen to be believed. It is in a beautiful, graceful old building – very “British” and is stacked from floor to ceiling (literally) with the most amazing collection of ancient leather-bound books. There are quite a few old, graceful “British” buildings in Ooty which all contribute to its serene atmosphere.
When Tim Galbraith was there about 18 months ago the Library was having a “clean-out” to make room for more books and many old books were up for sale. Can you believe it – they were selling things like the first editions of old English classics for an absolute song. Tim picked up some bargains apparently! We think he must have cleaned them out as the only stuff we could see that was for sale was old but of no great significance – as far as we could tell. J
We took two ½ day bus trips while at Ooty to see some of the magnificent country-side. The mountain ranges were stunning. Huge, sheer rock faces towering over deep broad valleys. Beautiful waterfalls. Clouds coming over rugged mountain ridges and tumbling into the valleys below temporarily obliterating everything in sight before moving off again exposing breathtaking scenery. The mountains are rugged, the vegetation is lush and the rolling clouds add a sense of mystery and serenity to this magnificent part of God’s mighty creation. However, at times we could see a little further than we wished. When peering out of the bus window we wished we could see at least a skerrick of road beneath us but because we were so close to the edge we could only see the drop into the valley below but, thankfully, our travels were again without mishap.
The animals we saw on this trip were monkeys and there were heaps of them. Now Morgan and Samara, we’ve sent you lots of riddles while we’ve been away; here are two more. Not really riddles – just questions.
Question 1. If you were a monkey what would be the advantage of having a tail? Answer 1. The monkeys we saw found them really useful for swinging on rails and in trees.
Question 2. What are two of the main disadvantages of having a tail?
Answer 2. It must hurt when your friends pull you around by the tail and it must hurt even more when your friends swing you by the tail! We saw both things happen a number of times! L Yeow!!
Ooty must be the chocolate capital of India. It seemed that every second shop sold home made chocolates. Guess there are not many places in India where chocolate is easy to keep without refrigeration. Surprisingly we ate very little L – which is really a sign of remarkable control J!
The other commodity that we would loved to have indulged in was antiques. There was one shop in particular which has some beautiful old furniture and an amazing range of lovely old lights/lamps. There were several pieces including one particular lamp/candle-stand that we would have loved to have bought but there is no way we could get them/it home. When we were leaving from the Cochin airport to head back to SL we were particularly glad that we didn’t try to bring any fragile/delicate pieces. Having boarded the plane we were watching the luggage being loaded. All but one piece seemed to make on board safely. But one big box (which was poorly tied/taped) had fallen off the conveyor belt while being loaded on the plane. The box had big “fragile” stickers on it and it had developed a distinct bend in its middle. Not only that, the ground staff were shoving it around quite roughly - even kicking it! And it was marked fragile!! Can you imagine how cross you would be if you were sitting in the plane watching your fragile package being handled like that?!
In summary, Ooty was great. We had a lovely time and both think it is one of the nicest places we have seen in India.
Ollur - Having thoroughly enjoyed our Ooty odyssey we travelled by road to Coimbatore (about three hours from Ooty), dropping down from the wonderful mountains back to the flatter country and warmer, stickier climate. From Coimbatore we caught a train to Trichur (about a three-hour trip) and stayed with Tom and Suzy Kanady and family at Ollur in Kerala. It was great to see them again. Our last visit was in August last year about three weeks before Alex, Tom and Suzy’s son-in-law, unexpectedly died from a blood disorder leaving behind his wife Sonia and their little boy Austin who is now just approaching his second birthday. It’s a tough time for them all. Sonia seems to be coming to terms with the fact that Alex now sleeps in the dust of the earth awaiting the call of his Lord and Master. It must be very hard for her facing life without Alex and knowing that dear little Austin’s memory of Alex will fade. But Sonia is showing a great deal of faith and her longing for the kingdom is of course heightened and very evident. Austin is a dear little chap who looks quite like his dad. We were glad to see a mouth full of teeth when he smiles – last time we were there, when he was about 14 months old, he still didn’t have any teeth! We bought him a toy tip-truck. It’s made out of sturdy plastic and has a button which when pressed pops the tray up and of course anything in the tray slides out. The truck is a biggish one (40cm long and 25cm high) and is the only “big” car/truck he has. So Austin was impressed and it certainly made us pretty popular J. There’s a picture of Sonia and Austin with his truck on the website.
Regardless of the sadness we spent a lovely couple of days with them all. Sonia and little Austin live upstairs from Tom and Suzy and their youngest daughter Seenia. Their son Solwin was home on holidays from college and we also saw quite a bit of their middle daughter Sofie, her husband Fraison and their little 5 month old son Alfred who live about 20 minutes away by train.
28th May ~ “home” again
The plane touched down in Sri Lanka at about midday on Friday 28th May so we were “home” by about one o’clock.
Busy, but…
Our first job was a visit to the post office to see what mail was waiting for us. While we had been away there had been an advertisement in one of the national English language papers offering the booklet “After Death – What?”. As we left for India, we had also sent out an offer to the 150 most active contacts on our books for the booklet “God is One or a trinity?”. The post office box was full J. There were approximately 60 requests for “ADW?” and about 25 requests for “God is One or a trinity?”. All this mail, together with preparations for the June BTSD on the following Wednesday meant we had a lot of work to get stuck into straight away.
But … by Saturday morning Dorothy had the beginning of tummy troubles and Ken’s troubles (together with a fever) started about 12 hours later … we’ll spare you the details. We both spent most of Sunday asleep and decided on Monday to head off to the doctor as we had to be better in order to be ready for Wednesday’s BTSD. The doctor poked and prodded, looked down our throats and in Dorothy’s ears (warning signs of ear-infection) and prescribed a variety of pills. We are always a little reluctant to take pills but this time even more so as we weren’t confident about what we’d been given. The instructions by the girl at reception who handed out the pills matched the doctor’s advice regarding Ken’s concoctions. But as for Dorothy’s … the dispensary instructions on the envelope the pills came in didn’t match the doctor’s. In fact the third lot of tablets for Dorothy had instructions “to be taken if fever develops”. When Dorothy said “what fever – I have a threatening ear infection” the receptionist cum nurse cum doctor’s helper crossed out the word “fever” and wrote “ear-ache”. No need to change/check the tablets – just change the label! Fortunately neither ear-ache nor fever developed and the tablets are still in their packet.
However, whatever it was the doctor gave us did have us up and about on Tuesday and thankfully we were well prepared for Wednesday’s program. We did have the wind knocked out of our sails though and it took a couple of days to spring back to good health.
There were three in the bed and the little one said ‘roll-over, roll-over’; and they all rolled over and one fell out. There were two in the bed and the little one said …
Thankfully our troubles didn’t have us admitted to the Kandy General Hospital. The daily newspaper dated June 7th reports that “Health Authorities have decided to conduct an investigation after another patient died after falling out of his bed at the Kandy General Hospital. … another patient died under similar circumstances last week.” The article goes on to report:
Ø “Dr S… issued an internal circular allowing a family member of critical patients to remain beside the patient’s bed”; and
Ø “Although there are only 200 beds at the Kandy General Hospital around 3,000 patients receive in-house treatment, causing congestion. At the 35-bed Ward 13 alone, 111 patients are being treated. Three patients usually have to share a bed.”!!!!
No jolly wonder patients fall out of bed!
And now do the mathematics for the critical care ward. Take for instance a 10-bed ward, multiply that by three for the number of patients in each bed and you have 30 people. Double that number as each of them can have a family-carer beside the bed and then you end up with 60 people in a room designed to accommodate 10! So much for fresh air and adequate facilities etc.
Peter H. Perhaps this approach will help you in your planning for the Box Hill Epworth? It may bring an international flavour to your patch of the woods! Just a suggestion J.
Close to the airport
One of the many good things about the location of the Mission residence is its proximity to the Bandaranaike (Colombo/SL) International Airport. The airport is only about 10 kms south of us as the crow flies and it takes us about 15 minutes to get there by road. It really is a big plus given the number of trips we/others make there.
Being so close means that we see lots and lots of planes at quite low altitudes (much to five-year old Praveen’s absolute delight when he is staying here). It also means that our conversations get cut short fairly regularly as the airforce jet fighters also use the International airport and there are frequent reconnaissance or training flights – or we presume that’s what they are – and the planes’ roar drowns out all other sounds. They certainly come roaring past; they often fly in tandem which of course doubles the noise. On Wednesday 9th June at about 8.30 am or so one jet went screaming past – presumably very, very low. Neither of us saw it. We were both busy and didn’t rush out to have a look – but it was remarkably louder than normal. Not long after there were lots and lots of police/ambulance sirens to be heard. We didn’t think much about them. Thursday’s headlines in the national “Daily Mirror” read “SLAF MiG Bursts Into Fireball”!
The paper reports that the jet had taken off, flown north over the top of Negombo when the “pilot radioed base, that his aircraft flying at an altitude of 3,000 feet, had developed engine trouble and that the craft was beyond control and he would eject himself aided by the in-built parachute. … the pilot managed to manoeuvre the aircraft to return to the path, but later, on second thoughts, had diverted to the lagoon fearing a crash on land…”.
It crashed in the lagoon about 5kms south of us – between the airport and the ocean. The lagoon is a very, very big lagoon. Its ocean mouth is here in Negombo (about 15 minutes walk from our house) and it extends south towards Colombo for about 20 kms.
The accompanying photo in the paper just showed a small snippet of part of the fuselage with chaps climbing over it and someone with the “black box” in their hand. Not sure if the “fireball” headline was an exaggeration or not but regardless we’re glad it made it to the lagoon and didn’t land at our place!
The paper also reports that “on 18 August 2001 another SLAF MiG fighter jet crashed at Seeduwa (about 15 kms south of Negombo), while it was on a routine training mission killing its Ukraine pilot and injuring seven unsuspecting people on the ground. The fighter plane was on a low manoeuvre when it crashed into a house, near the Bandaranaike International Airport completely destroying it.”
Being near the airport has some advantages but maybe there are one or two drawbacks as well!
“Offed”
Celia is our cleaning lady. Celia has been coming once a week since about early February and cleans the house from top to bottom. It is fantastic - it makes an enormous difference to the time available to us to concentrate on Mission work. It means that the preparation for Bible Truth Study Day and subsequent tidy up is reduced significantly. Celia appears to be delighted to have the job and has made a number of passing comments about her friends’ congratulations that she has picked up the work. We had been trying for some time to find a cleaning lady but it was a difficult task as we needed someone who could speak English and most people who do have been fortunate enough to have had a “better” education and therefore have “better” jobs.
We’ve noticed that Celia now has a new pair of thongs. Up until two weeks ago she always wore a pair that were only ¾ length! The rear ¼ had completely worn away so her heels had no protection from the ground. Now she’s lashed out and bought a new pair – perhaps the additional income has made a difference.
Many Sri Lankans seem to like to start their day early and are up at the crack of dawn or before and are busy cleaning their houses and sweeping the yard. We don’t know what time Celia gets up but she is happy to arrive early and get cracking on the jobs. We had to put our foot down the other week. Her arrival on our doorstep was becoming earlier and earlier; she started arriving just before 7.00am. Now while we are always pleased to see her, the joy just wasn’t there at that hour! Now she’s back to a 7.30am start.
Celia is always keen to please and often reports on little things she’s done around the house just to show how diligent she is. Celia’s English is quite good though at times the sentence structure or choice of words is quaint which results in humorous expressions. Last week she noticed that the kettle was on and no-one was standing by to turn it off once it boiled. It happens to have an automatic cut-out but Celia didn’t seem to realise so, in her desire to please and to ensure that the kettle didn’t boil dry, she told Dorothy “madam, the kettle was on so I offed it”! It’s become a common term in our house for the time being, lots of things are now either “onned” or “offed”. We’ve both had a good laugh about it. It has had us thinking about that Sunday school hymn…. “oft in danger, oft in woe…”!! J
Artistic talent
Many of you at home will have seen the pictures that Suresh made for us late last year. Suresh is 14 years old and the second son of Raja and Pathma (Nuwara Eliya). The artwork he gave us last year includes three pictures made out of coloured (painted) pencil shavings! One was of a vase of flowers, one of some flowers and butterflies and the third was a stunningly beautiful and impressive Macaw parrot.
All of the three boys are very clever with their artwork. Dhileep (16) does not seem to be a good as Suresh. Praveen (5) of course has a long way to go but even so, for a five-year old his drawings are good. A couple of months ago both Dhileep and Suresh won gold medals for their age groups in a Central Province School art competition.
Suresh recently entered an island wide art competition. His picture was entered in the category of wildlife/the environment and its importance to tourism. Photos of Suresh and his entry are on the web site.
There were 3,700 entries of which 112 were selected to go on display. Suresh’s was one of those on display and his piece was awarded a high commendation for his age group. That means that the quality of his artwork is in the top two or three percent of the entries. We went to the exhibition with Raja and Suresh to see his work and the display. He collected his certificate while we were there. It was great to see some recognition of his talent and we hope that in the long term he will be able to use this talent to earn a living; not necessarily as an artist but using his abilities in some form of graphic design for example. We thought the piece that won “overall first prize” was pathetic and wonder if “some-one knew some-one” so that it was the personal connection that counted rather than talent. The artwork that won “overall second prize” was quite stunning. Striking colours and amazing attention to detail. It was won by an entrant in the next age group up from Suresh.
We’ve made a couple of enquiries trying to identify what course of studies he needs to follow but at the moment he is a bit too young to be doing art specific studies. But we’ll continue to make enquiries so that hopefully Suresh will be able to undertake some formal college training once he has completed school.
A fright
This week we spent some time with our hearts in our boots after the computer crashed early on Friday and we had no idea why. Was it a virus that had got in and destroyed any/all or our records or programs? Was it a hacker? Had the hard drive died and taken all our records with it? When eventually the technician arrived on Saturday he discovered a few loose connections and once everything was in place and secured again the computer was up and running and we’d lost nothing at all J. Aaugh - what a relief. We do of course keep a back-up of critical records but there is a lot of other stuff that, while it wouldn’t be a disaster to loose, would be a hassle if it was lost.
The Mission Matters
Bible Truth Study Day – June
Having got our act together on Tuesday 1st June (despite our tummy troubles) we were pleased to see lots of people in the lounge room again for June’s BTSD on Wednesday 2nd June. The program involved a total of 13 people – a couple down on last month. As always some of the regulars couldn’t make it for a variety of reasons but overall we probably have a “pool” of about 25 people of whom about eight or nine make up the class each month. Two of them are currently in England. Their travels are totally unrelated – they just both happened to go to the same place at the same time!
The good thing is that for the first three months of our 2nd year with this program we averaged nine attendances by friends seeking a knowledge of the Bible message compared with four for the first three months last year. So that’s a great improvement.
The two morning sessions of the June program were both selected as a result of contacts asking “can you please do …”. The first session was “God is One not a trinity” and the second was a summary of the message of Revelation. After lunch the discussion group considered the “fruit of the spirit” as a follow-on from the previous month’s consideration of “born of water” and “born of the spirit”. It was a lively and interactive group. We both stayed within earshot but out of sight – it encourages those attending to participate – they are more likely to look to us to lead the discussion if we are around. It depends on the topic as to how much we involve/remove ourselves and who else is around; in this instance both Tissa and Raja were involved. AND it gives Ken’s voice a rest!!
The final session for the day under the heading of “What did they mean?” focussed on a number of passages that are traditionally used to support the trinity.
BTSD program starts at 10.00am and concludes at about 4.30pm. One of the chaps who comes along has now twice turned up at 8.00am. The last thing we need at the beginning of a very busy and demanding day is someone on the doorstep two hours early. He only lives a 10-minute walk away, it’s not like he has to catch the early bus to be sure he’ll make it on time. Aaugh! It can be hard to retain a sense of humour at times.
The advert and the literature offer
As we said earlier there was a great stack of requests for literature waiting for us when we returned from India on 28th May. As I sit here and write on 13th June we have to date had about 102 responses to the newspaper advertisement for “After Death – What?” (ADW?) from new contacts and about 30-35 responses to the offer made to approximately 150 of the existing contacts. In addition to these requests we are now starting to receive responses from people to whom we sent ADW?. Some are asking for further literature, some are enrolling for the Bible Correspondence Course and one gentlemen requested we visit him – which we did on Friday 11th June.
We were able to offer the booklet ADW? in both English and Sinhala J. About 18 of the requests have been for a Sinhala language booklet even though the advertisement appeared in a English language newspaper. Other than the classes we have had to date with Margaret, which involve translation as she is not able to speak or understand very much English, this is the first time “preaching” in either of the local languages has occurred. It is a small beginning with great potential.
The translation program
There are now three Sinhala booklets availale; “ADW?”, “Who is Jesus?” and “Christ is Coming” and there are heaps more in the pipeline. A further three are currently at the printers and another three or four are in final checking stages. Tissa continues to come to the house twice a week and with his assistance enormous progress has been made with the translation project. We were despairing of it a couple of months ago when it temporarily ground to a halt but it is now well and truly back on track J.
Raja continues to try to move the Tamil translation program along but his work has to be co-ordinated with activity in India and it’s not easy but we are still hopeful that it will work out. There is one booklet (“Salvation”) available in Tamil which was produced in India several months ago.
Bye
That’s the end of our tales regarding our recent activities. We’ll be in touch again soon.
Love from
Ken & Dorothy