Monday, November 20, 2006

Pike's visit... and a few nasty blisters

I haven't been posting for a while for a couple of reasons. First of all, I had an excellent mini-holiday with Pike who was visiting me from India. We went to Unawatuna where we were boozing with the hotel owner (aka practicising relationship management) and sitting on the beach, speaking three hours about reincarnation while others were partying. In Mirissa we were just enjoying the whole paradise beach on our own. There was just a handful of other tourists, and of course another hotel owner with whom we drank some beer and went for a late-night dip in the ocean. That was so amazing! I felt like being seven again. :)

Then we both had to work for a few days in between. Next weekend we were supposed to go to Kandy but I got so sick that we ended up taking a bus back home from the Colombo bus station. Others went partying as I stayed in bed and slept for 13 hours. Next day I reckoned I cannot just be sick as it is the last weekend with Pike in Lanka. So we went to Kandy anyways (on my birthday). The bus ride took 5 hours instead of the normal 3+ hours because of some road construction works and shitty weather. Well, we had 1,5 beers each and dropped to bed dead-tired. A bit different birthday I'd say. :) Next day we umm... did nothing special... we just went to this Temple of tooth that was supposed to be the most amazing temple ever, but it was nothing spectacular. We did, however, go to see some Kandyan dances and firewalking afterwards and that was pretty neat! Again, early to bed just to wake up next morning at five o'clock. But that wake-up was something else! Dozens of monks were chanting somewhere near and Kandyan drummers were giving them the rhyme. All sorts of animals joined into the chant and soon the whole valley was like in over-arching natural harmony. Now, that's something you don't experience in every other country at five o'clock in the morning.

The reason why we woke up so early was that we wanted to go and see the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage before heading back to Colombo. On our way there we were quite sleepy and as I accidentally noticed that the bus stopped where we were supposed to get off Pike was still fast asleep. She was almost left in the bus as it took off in haste. Finally, we saw the elephants. I think for her it was a nice experience although it felt a bit like the people there were more interested about tourists' money than the elephants. For me personally it was a bit perplexing. I didn't feel anyhow special that there were dozens of elephants roaming free around me. Have I become too much accustomed to this country? Maybe, 'cos the same non-reaction happened when I saw Cesar (our 2-meter Comodo Varan) for the first time.

Anywho, it was ten days of great time with Pike. I'm so glad we are friends. Wouldn't change it for a thing.

Nonetheless, the life here has not been all that blissful when it comes to health. About 2,5 months ago my feet developed this itchy rash for whatever the reason. I scratched, of course, and it just went worse. I thought it would go away over time and ignored Paula's comments that I should get it checked because there are all kinds of germs here. Well, it didn't pass. It changed to a few really nasty-looking and painful blistering wounds.

Now I'm getting quite pissed off at having to worry about them every day. So, yesterday I visited a doctor... finally. That was a bit weird. It was a private hospital so I basically had to pay every time I wanted to talk to someone. But that was not the weirdest part. When I walzed into this doctor's room I said bluntly what was my issue and showed him my feet. He was glancing at them indifferently and said I should stop smoking (had had a fag just before coming in). I was like "Ok, has crossed my mind..." Then he took my blood pressure, said it was good, and suggested I still get my blood sugar checked. After this remark he asked me to take my shirt off and lie on the bed. "What does this have to do with my feet?" I pondered in perplexion but obeyed the orders. He pressed my tummy, sides and chest, listened to my lungs and said everything is fine. Then we finally got to the business of checking my feet and he wrote me a couple of prescriptions (not like the forms you're used to in western hospitals but just some scribblings on a piece of paper ripped from a notepad). Nah, don't get me wrong, he was a nice lad (and not at all as gay as he sounds like). Off I went with all these pieces of paper, got my hepathitis vaccination done, took the blood sugar test (which was normal), went to the pharmacy and bought the drugs he had prescribed me. I felt so happy that I got all these things finally done that I bought muffins for everyone on the way home.

And this is a splendid way to end a pretty random posting, isn't it? Muffins.

posted by Tomi Astikainen @ Monday, November 20, 2006 2 comments

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Picture time


Finally, the beautiful Kithulgala meditation retreat pictures are in Olande Ananda's web album. I added a few more pics in the October 2006 folder in Yahoo, and pictures from Pike's visit can be found from November 2006 folder. Enjoy.

Last weekend (5 days!) we spent at Unawatuna and Mirissa. Especially Mirissa is a paradise beach at this time of the year (you know, the one like in Lost or Tjareborg travel magazine cover) and there is absolutely no one! Just a handful of tourists and you occupy the whole wide beach! Thank you western media for giving us this soothing solitude! :)

Next weekend we're gonna hit the road to Kandy and visit also the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage. There would be the local AIESEC NLDS (National Leadership Development Seminar) at the same time but we're gonna skip it. Pity, I know, but the life is about priorities. And now the elephants are up in the priorities... or something.

posted by Tomi Astikainen @ Thursday, November 09, 2006 0 comments

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Mika


I don’t know if I have mentioned this before, but Finnish language is beautiful when it comes to friendship. “Ystava” and “kaveri” are too different words that would directly translate to English as “a friend”. However, being ystava (those should be a’s with two dots) sounds far more close than just “kaveri”.

(Sidenote: Thank you Hopsu for reminding me about this, and thank you for being there for me!)

I have never had that many really close friends. I’m actully quite picky when it comes to letting people feel that they really are the centre of my universe, but I hope that those individuals who have made it there, really know that they deserve to be there till the very end.

Have you heard of the saying “True friendship doesn’t require correspondence”? I agree and disagree.

I must have been about four or five years old, when I met Mika the first time. Our parents were family acquaintances since they were in the same business (yes, selling sewing machines was a lucrative trade in the eighties). Our friendship got on the fast track quite soon, and not seeing each other for two weeks seemed like an end of the world. Indeed, I was waiting the school week to end, just to pack my bag and go to spend a weekend with him or vice versa. At that time it didn’t matter that I had pretty bad asthma and they had a dog called Pastilli (breath mint). His mother used to clean the flat for several days before I was coming for a visit and they would take an air cleaner to try and avoid the unavoidable. There I was, hardly able to breathe, but enjoying every moment with my best friend. Often I had to be transported to hospital in the middle of the night. If you didn’t get it yet, yes, I was pretty badly allergic to dogs (and for dozens of other animals for that matter). Anywho, none of this was a hindrance to our friendship.

During the summers we would spend a lot of time at our summer cottage. There was this uninhabited rocky island just less than 1km from our shore. We’d go there and run around but naked, playing with Heman minifigures, swimming, boating and whatnot. Our first big project together was collecting beer and soft drink cans. We’d bring them from abroad, buy them from our friends and collect them from gutters. By the time we reached 400 different cans we decided to trash them since they were taking too much space. We used to go to their summer cottage to warm up the sauna and swim. We played different kind of outdoor games and board games, with just the imagination as a limit… and it wasn’t really a limit. In the winter we’d ride snowmobiles (ski-doos) and let our fathers come and do the dirty work when the damn thing got stuck in the snow.

Then it happened, our friendship was struck by lighting, as he suddenly “grew older” and I stayed as a kid for a couple of more years. Mika picked up some nasty habits like drinking and smoking. His peer group enlarged to consist of people that I couldn’t really care less about, some of them being skin-heads. Actually, I don’t remember the details but somehow we drifted apart. Both of our parents divorced around that time, so it might have had an indirect effect too. For years and years we didn’t stay in touch. Sometimes occasionally we’d see each other by accident or by arranging a quick meeting somewhere. Those rendezvous took only a few minutes at a time, and somehow left me feeling blank.

Finally, after almost ten years of absence we saw an effort to meet up properly and discuss things through. It felt so good! As if no time had passed. The same friendship was still there. The same overwhelming feeling of brotherhood had gone nowhere. Although we were living in different cities, we started seeing each other more often. Mika would drive all the way from Joensuu to Lappeenranta to spend a weekend with me. And every time I would visit Joensuu I’d catch up with him. Even when I was spending the last moments in Finland, he made it a point to come and see me before I leave.

Now all the roles, prejudices and worries are pushed aside and our friendship can blossom. He has a habit of sending me emotional messages that make my heart bound and eyes go wet. For most people that would appear quite gay, but for us it’s a sign that not a single moment should be wasted when a true frienship is in question. For our friendship, absense is not an issue, but when we do get together we enjoy every minute of it.

I have witnessed that even after years of being total strangers, once very good friends – ystavat – can come together again as if there was no time in between. I have also witnessed that if you want to regain the once lost trust, you need to see an effort, but the true friend doesn’t ask for you to make the effort. You do it naturally.

Mika, if you are reading this, all the peace, love and respect from here to you and your loved ones! You have made my life worth living. I’ll hunt you down when I get back, so we can continue from where we left.

posted by Tomi Astikainen @ Tuesday, November 07, 2006 0 comments