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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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.

The past month has been hectic. I've had a friend run over by a car (long story), visited a beautiful temple in the East, saw three leopards in Yala National Park (no lions here, Lisa), opened the computer room at the school where we have been working for four months, and finally bought a boat, engine, and fishing equipment for a fisherman who lost his boat in the tsunami.

Sometimes this place makes me shine with pride, and sometimes it makes me cry with sorrow. Two steps forward helping someone get back on their feet and always someone approaching me who still needs help. There is a ton of charity work being done but the people who get overlooked are the quiet, shy ones who are hesitant. They slip through the cracks.

The fisherman, Somarathna, is one of these people. He approached Sam and me about two months ago and after meeting with him, talking to Sam, and meeting his family, I knew I had to help him. He has been a fisherman for forty years, lost everything in the tsunami, has three children that he cannot provide for anymore, and is a quiet, honest, polite man. I contacted a few charities to see if we could get him a new fishing boat, but nothing was working. Friends of Unawatuna does not fund individuals, a sometimes frustrating ...