Monday morning we left the house as usual for the train to Batti. Stepping out of the gate, the water pours down our backs and inside the tuk-tuk the rain drums on the roof relentlessly. After turning left around the corner and towards the main road we were already doubtful as to whether we’d make it to Colombo. The sewers at the side of the street have overflowed, joining the stream in the road. Water pours over the pitted concrete like a waterfall. Next, a dip in the road, the water creeping up the bonnet of an oncoming car. We turn back, deciding that we in our little tuk-tuk are no match for this weather. So, back home for now (thinking how nice it is to have such a flexible job!). Out to work one minute and back the next! A phone-call to the East confirms that parts of the track are covered with 4ft of water, so no chance of a train this week then. We go back to our humble abode, where the rain is also raining inside through the roof here and there and wonder what to do next!.
Later we visit a friend in the next road, wading through the muddy water that leads to her gate. Miriam reminds me that the snakes might have come out with the rain. I look down at the muddiness and hope that the snakes disappear at the vibrations of our plodding great feet, instead of waiting around. It seems that it is raining in everyone’s house. There seems to be a gap in the market for ‘handy-men’ in Sri Lanka. People generally leave holes and other damages to fall into disrepair and instead move house when it’s no longer liveable (those who can afford it). This also accounts for the why people don’t go in for ‘interior design’ or making a home look pretty (apart from the very rich/more westernised). The floors and walls are normally bare. A house is just a building to live in.
So, Sri Lanka has just had the rainiest week in 30 years. Temperatures have also been low - down to 20 degrees (Miriam even went so far as to say ‘It’s freeeezing!!’ several times and I even wore socks one night!!). There has been flooding in many parts of the country, most of those affected being the poorer people who live right next to the rivers and the sea. The muddy water at people’s doorways has been pushed inside. In the Colombo area it seems that the rain is easing off and the water level is going down again. We asked our tuk-tuk driver if ‘Crocodile River’, near where we live, had overflowed, to which he replied ‘Yes, the crocodiles are coming out and eating all the coconuts!’. We felt this was a somewhat light-hearted view of the situation..!
I’ve tried to put photos up again and failed. The internet connection just can’t seem to cope with more than one photo at a time. We even made a trip to McDonald’s to see if they had wi-fi – they didn’t but we still had a Big Mac, so as I said in another post: anything for a bit of air conditioning and some chips (or fries which are totally different as Miriam is pointing out)!! Another failed quest we have been on lately is to find a bike. Miriam got one a few months ago but it seems that she has the last second-hand lady’s bike in the area. There are plenty of bike shops full of men’s bikes and people who are stumped at the question of where one might find a bike for a lady. Apparently, it’s common for ladies from the tamil areas of Batticoloa and Jaffna to cycle but practically unseen in the southern Sinhalese areas. So, the quest goes on...!
Back to Batti tomorrow if the rain has stopped...
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