Alive and kickin'
Sorry guys I've been in an internet-void for a while. I'm just waiting to start my work next week so I can post more often. Now I'm in an internet cafe cos I want to share some initial thoughts with you.To be honest the first couple of days were quite weird, at the same time I was just smiling at everything because everything was so new and exciting and on the other hand I felt the new environment wasn't that good. The flat was really dirty, all sorts of insects were running around and by the time I met a 15-cm spider I thought I couldn't live there. The worst thing was the heat in my room, that happens to be the hottest room in the whole community. I'm still not coping with that, cannot really sleep that well. However, I'm going to switch rooms at some point so shouldn't worry too much about it. Also the local traffic and pollution was quite terrifying in the start. There are dozens of spare-part stores alongside roads and now I understand why. :] They are driving like crazy!
However, the adaptation started pretty quickly. I don't mind anymore taking a shower [or rather just a line of dribbling water] with a few spiders, ants and a worm. I'm ok with the traffic and now it seems natural that people are tooting the horn constantly: it's not to irritate the others but to communicate with them. Oh yeah, and I don't care about the mosquitoes anymore. At first I was panicking if I'd catch dengue fever or even malaria but now I'm not scared of them anymore. I've been bitten by mosquitoes many times already, so if I catch the fever I'll just cope with it and go to hospital. That reminds me of one undone practicality... I still haven't got the insurance fixed. I got my visa only yesterday and opened up the bank account today. Maybe I get to fix the health insurance also today. That would bring me a certain peace of mind. It's funny how small things make you adapt better and better; cleaning and decorating your room, putting up a picture of your girlfriend, calling home, getting a wrist band from the trainees as a mark of being one of them, getting the practicalities fixed, eating good food in low-quality restaurants, sipping a bit of tap water every day to improve the immune system, the list goes on...
I won't tell you much of what has happened so far because I believe one picture tells more than a thousand words and I cannot yet upload the pictures. You have to wait till next week. I can reveal a bit though: last weekend we went to Dambulla and Sigiriya with Shek, Samantha and Sasha. It was so cool that Shek just said to me on Friday that we are going. I was like "Oh, they just assume that I go with them. Cool!" I didn't have to beg on my knees that I could go. Ok, Dambulla was not much more than a commercialized tourist attraction, although there was an impressive collection of buddha statues in the cave temples. But the locals who treat us like tourists and use their all wit to just rip off our money, sometimes successfully, brought my mood down. Next day I was afraid that the bad mood would continue as we went to the Sigiriya rock, a 350-meter cliff with amazing views and 1200 stairs. You see, there was a guy at the gate who just started walking with us and not even saying that he's a guide. We should have agreed before whether we want a guide or not but we didn't so now we justs silently accepted that we take one. He wasn't much of use in explaining the history of the rock but he took some nice pictures of us and acted quite politely. Actually I hate it when the people in the tourist locations call you sir. I'm not a sir. I'm just a normal guy like them. Sad... Anywho, in Colombo it's better. The sales people are not that pushy and they are more used to see white skin. Still, this is what I wanted... to experience how it feels to be different. And believe me, you can feel it.
As the last thing in this posting I want to give you my new phone number: +94775359809. By the way, when I tried to copy the phone numbers to my new SIM card I accidentally erased most of my numbers. So, if you want to stay in touch with me via cell phone, please drop me an SMS with your name included or put your number here in the blog.
Over and out for now!
posted by Tomi Astikainen @ Tuesday, July 25, 2006
6 Comments:
Ah, sounds like home to me. :-P
All of this sounds very...how should I put it...far away. :) I'm glad you are getting to see all these new things! Must be a great experience.
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