Home » Sri Lanka » August 24, 2005 Sri Lanka

Ten days to go until I leave this gorgeous, mental country. It's a place where you can drink an avocado, see monks talk to chipmunks, have tomorrow never come, and sometimes lose your mind because everyone is always at least one hour late. I come home on Monday the 5th and start school on Tuesday the 6th. Ummm, yeah, crazy. I waited too long to book my ticket and was starting to worry I wouldn't get home on time. Don't think that would go over too well with South if I did not show up for the first day of school, especially since I have not worked in a year. Well, I have worked, but not at school.

August 24, 2005 Sri Lanka

Lasulo
2006-01-06 19:58:12

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environment. It took four months of hard work and sweat, but watching the first children sit down and fiddle about in wonder on the keyboard made it all worth it.

Two shining moments. Charity work is like teaching. It can be extraordinarily frustrating and difficult, but every once in a while an epiphany happens, and my heart sings because I know I chose the right path in life.

Unfortunately, there are moments when my heart breaks. Two days ago, Sam and I were at his salon where he gets his head shaved, the old fashioned way with lather and a straight razor. It costs about a dollar and he gets his beard and head shaved and also gets a killer head and neck massage. If he were a cat, he would be purring during the head massage. Anyway, the guy who works there saw our picture in the paper. (We have had some good publicity in the national paper about FoU). He said that he was still living in a tent and no one had come to help him. So after Sam was done, we walked over there to have a look. As soon as we walked in, I almost started crying. They live three feet from the railroad tracks; there is no barrier. They have four crumbling walls, a shared bathroom down the street, no kitchen, and a tent where half the house had fallen down from the water. How does this happen? I was standing there in horror thinking of how horrible their living situation was when it got worse because at that moment the train went by. The whole house shook; the noise was unbearable. How, seven months later, can a family be living like this? There are six people living in one room, including two babies who were six months old. During the last tsunami warning in March, they ran up to the mountain, and someone stole many of their belongings. I have to help this family, but unfortunately I am running out of time. I took some other people there yesterday who might be back in October to help. We brought some food with us. The family was excited to see us, hoping we could help. We played with the babies and gave them the food and said we would try to do the best we could to help them. These are the moments when my heart breaks. It will cost about 2,000 dollars to build their house but to them that is a lifetime of work. They were poor before the tsunami; now they are almost homeless.

Ok, I have to go as Sam just walked in and we have tons to do.

Oh by the way, if you are expecting to see me tan and svelte from living in the tropics and doing charity work you have to think again. My hair is almost black (no hairdressers here - doing it myself); I am not that tan. I am heavier than when I left (rice and curry, sitting in Sam's van), my eyebrows, feet, and hands have had no attention from me at all, and the weather here makes my face break out like crazy. AND, I will have no time to New York myself before school begins so you will see me shining from the inside and Sri Lankaned on the outside. Not that that is a bad thing at all...