Our first visitors . . .

Sarah’s Mum and Dad arrived last Thursday. It’s great to see them and show them around. They are enjoying the local scenery, culture and interesting sights in the historic fort where we live. It’s great at the beach because we get to swim and snorkel while Grandma plays in the sand with Joe. We saw Lion Fish and Angel Fish and lots of others. No Nemos yet . . .
Here they are at the Lady Hill Restaurant

Mum and Dad have gone to the Hill Country and the Ancient Cities and get back tonight. Then we are planning to go to away for the weekend to see an underground temple and a national park. We’ve been told if we’re prepared to make a 5.30a.m. start we’re likely to spot a Leopard.

Joe and Sarah are trying to meet local families to try add to their collection of only 1 Mum and Tot those that we meet with regularly (as well as the Sydney children - see other blogs). So far we have met our neighbours, a Buddhist family that design and make really beautiful silver jewellery (Sarah’s Christmas present should be easy). They may be good friends for Mike and Sarah but their children are older and we’re introducing them to Sam Sydney, 14, later!

Joe has enjoyed two visits to the home of a poor Muslim family. Two sisters live in the house but one of their husbands died two months ago, they don’t know why, and left behind 3 daughters below the age of 6. The widow has to stay inside for 4 months and can’t meet anyone outsider her immediate family – until the end of January. However, I was allowed to go in the back and say Hi this time as she can now see women. All of them have names beginning with N!

Joseph trying on his usual "Mummy and daddy never feed me" routine . . .

Then there’s the richer Muslim family – the 4 daughter-in-laws of our Antique Dealer landlord. The one nearest here has slightly older children, but a fantastic number of BIG cars (Joe says “A Big Car”) and I can’t tear Joe away from them. The day they visited was Eid, and they gave me (Sarah) the most sickly drink I have ever had – it was a pint of bright pink milky fluid made with rose water. Also some sweets that I could only manage to nibble.

Last night at the Sydney’s Joe hung out upstairs with the kids until 10pm while we ate Sri Lankan food downstairs! I went up earlier to take him home and he wouldn’t come away. So we now officially have excellent babysitters.

Joseph shopping with our house help Vanita




Mike has had an important week. His Big Boss from Singapore (overseeing his employers entire Tsunami response) has been down and also the National Director for Sri Lanka. They asked him to give them an assessment of how the construction process is working throughout the organisation and areas for improvement. His presentation was really well received. Phew.


Bill Clinton was due to come to Mike’s office yesterday, but changed his mind at the last minute and went up north instead, which was a shame for his office. Mike’s local boss is leaving for USA today, and a local Sri Lankan is taking over, which is a good achievement.

We are having some of Mike’s Sri Lankan colleagues over for dinner tonight. Sarah made the food yesterday, but threw it out as the chicken was rock hard – it was like chewing a plastic ruler. It must have been an old thing. We get chicken in a place where they slaughter them and pluck them while you wait. Yummy. The guy told me to cook it slowly as they had run out of the better chicken . . . I’ve learned my lesson now!

Joseph in possession of Roger's cricket hat (Was it Sarah that managed to turn the logo so it clearly says "Trendy" to the camera?)




Food is proving difficult to master - we’ll get there! It is hard to know what ingredients we can buy – it really depends on what is available on the day e.g. whether the fishermen’s catch was good last night. The price of fish goes up if the weather is stormy. Our House Help is also trying earnestly, but the results are not great. The best meal we have had here so far is Spaghetti Bolognese, cooked by Mike and a Chocolate Beer Cake cooked by Sarah. Shame really, we were really looking forward to Sri Lankan food as it's been gorgeous when we've eaten it in the UK.

We haven’t seen a Christmas decoration yet, which just feels so good! Although we have discovered where we can order a Turkey from! Maybe we should put the effort in . . .





Photos below:
1. Sarah and Joseph on the parapet of the Fort.
2. Joseph on our neighbour's kid's bike - yes he's just about peddaling!
3. Joseph playing properly with trains on his new train track - generously given by Graham and Katy, and even more generously lugged over by Mike and Hazel









































Mike now on work things . . . for his engineering friends:

An Engineering Aside:
I’m pleased to say that it’s starting to feel like I’ve settled in to work now. Out of approx 250 national and international staff I finally feel like I know the key players. It took time as loads of people have “manager” in their title, but I’ve finally managed to look past all this and figure out the people who are actually making things happen.

I’m leading the development of a number of wastewater treatment facilities around the country. I had an amusing meeting with the Mayor of one district today. He told me what the solution will be, where we will locate it, how big it will be, and how much it will cost. I tried for a while to say that we needed to review a few basics like how much sewage there is, the frequency of delivery to site, the strength of the sewage, and to review a number of alternative possible sites before we could come up with a solution, never mind the cost. Instead of listening, discussing or even referring me to his engineering department, he got his secretary to write me a letter telling me where it will be, what it will be, how big it will be and how much it will cost. He then stamped it and handed it to me saying “There, now it has the Mayor’s stamp, so it is official. This is where you will build it, and it will be this size”. Quite amusing, especially when you consider that there’s absolutely no way on earth you could fit a treatment plant of any capacity on a plot this small . . .

The other amusing part of this story (if you’re still awake), was the writing of the letter. Myself, a colleague and the Mayor sat there with long bouts of absolute silence whilst his secretary and four assistants painstakingly took ¾ of an hour to type out the letter at the rate of about 1 letter every 10 seconds, and even then she had to make loads of corrections, printed out 5 different versions on plain paper then 3 on headed paper. Even then, the final printed version was amended in pen by one of her colleagues before handing to the mayor for signing. Even the mayor looked embarrassed!

The sad thing I’ve seen this week is a number of Internally Displaced People camps. These are temporary housing sites for people made homeless by the tsunami. They’re living in completely insanitary conditions, with nothing other than the clothes they’re stood up in. It’s so hard to see. I was talking to one of my colleagues about how we need to develop plans to decommission the sites . . . he put me right and said that now the sites are labelled as temporary shelter camps, they will be in use for decades to come as the Government will move undesirables and victims of the civil war to these sites when the tsunami displaced people move out.

I’ve had a few tricky cultural lessons along the way . . . even though I was warned about most of them before I came. In this culture, and in most of Asia, it’s considered essential to tell someone in any position of authority what you believe they want you to hear. This politeness is far more important to them than being factually correct. One example: If you ask an obviously poor person what their income is, because you want to know whether to install an electrical or hand pump in their well and want to check that they can afford to repair it if it fails, then they’ll tell you a huge amount, because it is cultural for them to want to make you feel good. So instead, you have to have a long conversation with them about their family and their life and slip in questions like “how many children do you have”, “how much kerosene do you use each week”, “what health issues do your children have”, whilst looking round their property to estimate their electricity consumption etc, and from that you have to guess their income.

Another example . . . whilst working towards developing wastewater solutions, I had already been told by colleagues that we have a problem with raw sewage being dumped directly into the sea. When I met the Municipal Engineer I unthinkingly asked him, in the middle of the conversation, where they were disposing of their sewage . . . I was trying to determine if it all went in the sea, or if there were other receiving sites that could be upgraded . . . and so he merrily told me that they had sufficient wastewater treatment facilities in the district to receive and treat all of their sewage. I’m glad I didn’t take him seriously or I would have abandoned our projects.

Photos below:
1. The great pleasure of handing over a completed house to a beneficiary family.
2. Tackling difficult issues. Our beneficiaries are generally the poorest, living in the worst areas. Problems with flooded/ undrained land surrounding our housing sites such as this are too common, and difficult to solve.
3. Cramped insanitary conditions in Internally Displaced Persons camps, that we're working hard to alleviate.

Elections and travels . . .

We've had a great break in the hills whilst the elections have been going on. There have been a number of difficulties in the country as a result of the former Prime Minister being elected as President. We expect further instability in the next few weeks and the scale of this will be understood within the next 2 weeks. Thankfully none of this is likely to be anywhere near us, but it could affect our operations nationally. You can probably find out plenty more on the situation here if you search around on the web.
For the Joseph fans amongst you, here's a few photos of his total infatuation with anything mechanical. He's speaking so many words now and frequently asks us to let him sit on motorbikes and tuk-tuks . . . as you can see.

The tractor picture was taken during our tour of a tea plantation and factory, which was great fun. They were completely horrified when we took their free cups of tea and added milk and mixed different blends and then announced that that's what a proper cup of tea should taste like!

Our election enforced holiday took us to the hills. We started off in Kandy - a city in the hills, where we stayed at a great guest house . . . and here is a photo of one of their lovely meals. Everything has chilli in it, but was lovely. This meal included plantaine, rice, fried aubergine, beetroot, sweet potato, peppers, chicken, and various unidentified shredded vegetables.






Kandy Botanical gardens are gorgeous, and we were amused by the aptly named "drunken trees", pictured below.










Transport was interesting. We had the option of paying a couple of hundred dollars to hire a car for a week - to drive on extremely bumpy hazardous roads and feel ill all week, or to pay just a couple of pounds to take the train . . . which was very very dirty, falling to bits, took twice as long as a car, but gave a much more comfortable ride, with amazing views, and better safety. We chose the train and really enjoyed ourselves.

The most amusing incident occurred when I flushed the toilet and flooded the train . . . they asked me why I flushed it! As I flushed, the pipe jetted water all over my legs and flooded half a carriage before we managed to isolate it. I thought you'd appreciate the picture of the gorgeous toilet! And one of the gorgeous train . . .

Joseph loved leaning out of the window, taking in the view, waving and calling "hi" to people and "bye" as we left them behind. He was a real star . . .















OK, so I made comments about rail safety - we saw many discarded carriages along our route and decided not to enquire further!














A typical photo of a rural railway station for you. I should have photographed the mad busy city station.



We loved Kandy and the rest of the hill country. We visited the temple of the tooth (supposed to have one of Buddha's teeth in it but it's reported to have been stolen and destroyed several times over the centuries. We moved on from Kandy to Newara Eliya which has lovely countryside around it including Worlds End (with a sheer 880m drop to the valley below) and the lovely Bakers waterfall. We moved on to Ella which has great views from the centre of Sri Lanka right to the coast on a clear day - amazing.

Here's Joseph walking down from "Little Adam's Peak", a hill looking over the plains below. He absolutely loves the outdoors and would spend his whole life outside and on mountains if we'd let him.

We finished up our travels at Hunas Falls hotel which is just gorgeous, and has this fantastic water fall below it.
All in all, we managed to get some really valuable time together as a family . . . relaxing and having fun.

















So our latest news is that we're back home, getting the house sorted. We're trying to get the washing machine fixed, a connection to the internet, the rest of the promised furniture delivered, a widespread damp problem fixed, the tv connected, mossie screens installed (we're still being eaten alive and it's horrible!), the previous phone and electricity bills paid so they don't act on the notices we've received that we're about to be cut off . . . funny . . . we thought we'd escape some of those issues coming over here!

Work is going well. I've been asked to design a whole load of sewage stabilisation ponds across the south of the country . . . the difficulty is that I think we need an entirely different solution to sewage treatment but this solution has already been promised. It's good to be involved in this kind of real engineering though.

Sarah's parents arrive here on Thursday. It'll be just great to see them (not just because they're bringing real Cadbury's chocolate!). We hope the house is in some kind of order when they get here.

So this is November . . . ?

It is hard to imagine cold rainy England with all the Christmas lights up and the shops full of spangley stuff. We have to remember it’s cold there when we are struggling with missing rubbing mossie repellent on 4 times a day, pollution, language barriers, cockroaches, unsafe car travel and missing everyone. It helps!

We just can't stop him from loving everything mechanical - motorbikes, tuk-tuks, cars. Now he's even got his new girlfriend biking!

Look - he can walk . . .
All by himself! It's amazing!
Since last week, Joseph has just taken off.
He's loving his new found freedom and
getting up to all sorts of mischief.

Fancy a holiday with a 4 poster bed?

We have moved into our home. Hooray. It is owned by a muslim antique dealer, so although it is smallish, it is really beautifully kitted out – lots of tasteful woodwork and furniture - doors with lattice work above and amazing four poster beds. It’s right on the main street, in the quiet, crumbling 600 year old fort area of the town, so Joe and I can jump out onto our doorstep for wanders and company whenever we want. Our Tuk Tuk travel has been greatly reduced, so that's more peaceful! It’s also really nice to be able to make a cup of tea
Our narrow, long lounge whenever we want it. UHT
milk though.

We even managed to get a decent oven and washing machine
(which currently makes a bid for freedom when we switch it on)

Antique dining room en-semble

We had our house help start. On day 1 I had to resist the urge all day to give her a big hug as I was so grateful for her help with cleaning the house so that we could unpack. On day 2 (yesterday) I started to get frustrated that she does things differently to me, and is just a presence in the house – so we are never alone, and she doesn’t really get things clean. My feet are literally black at the end of the day from the floors. I am going to give her a lesson in floor scrubbing. The good thing is, she wants me to tell her how I like things done. She cooked us dinner too. Can’t complain.

Tiny balcony overlooking
- erm, well not much really.

I have found a great Sinhala teacher and started lessons. "Kohomede" – means "How are you?". "Hondaiy" – means "fine". Good eh? It’s a zinch!! Do you think it will take me long to learn how to say "well I'm really hacked off about being eaten alive by mosquitoes, whilst swatting hordes of flies in the sweltering heat - and by the way, how come it's done nothing but rain here, in this "sun-soaked paradise", since we arrived?" (With a perfect smile on my face of course).

On Friday I bumped into a University friend, Rosie, who I had lost touch with after University. She’d been living in Birkenhead since then, but we met at the beach in Sri Lanka! She lives here too, 6 hours away, but we will meet up regularly I think.

Some of Mike's photos here. Looks like he's been busy taking photos instead of getting on with building things (only kidding!).

A water tower . . . !

Laying a new water main to a new housing estate in the south west.

A house - to be supplied by the water main and a new water tower.

Joseph's been adopted by our friends/ Mike's
colleague's children. This is their youngest, Joy,
aged 6, giving him a cuddle.


We are so fortunate to have the only gorgeous hotel, just across the road from our house. Sadly it's high western prices and they won't let us use their pool, but their coffee, cake and ambience are worth the price once in a while.

One of our most helpful friends is Niluk, our regular tuk-tuk driver. He completely loves Joseph and adores cuddling him, and asks us if he can carry him whenever he's asleep. Poor old Niluk's getting broody . . . got to find him a wife now . . .




Next week we have been asked to down tools and literally head for the hills as it's Presidential Election week. Some of Mike’s colleagues are off to Singapore and the Maldives! We want to make the most of a week in Sri Lanka, so are heading for the hills, tea plantations and ancient cities. So we won’t write more for a couple of weeks, but the next blog should have some good photos!

It's been tricky getting onto the internet for the last 5 days in a row, so blog posting may continue to be sporadic. We'll try and post photos here, but they take ages to upload on slow connections. Thankfully Mike's got to Colombo to post this one.