I am sitting in the internet cafe on Hendala main road - cars and mopeds buzz and beep outside and I listen to the rhythmic clatter of knife on metal as the take away next door cooks up this evening's kottu. Everything is still very much alive and kicking on an evening, if not more so than in the day time. The temperature has gone down to 27 degrees - which is bearable, although the bbc tells me that humidity is at 76%, which I'm guessing is quite high because I'm still sweating - I know, it's very unlady-like to sweat and admit it - sorry - Miriam says women 'gloss', they do not sweat!! Tomorrow at 9 we head to Colombo station to make my first 10-hour train journey East, something I will be getting used to doing twice a week for three weeks out of each month - Miri has graciously decided to stay in Colombo one week out of every month for reccuperation purposes! So, tomorrow heading into the unknown - I have only been given the worst reports about where we are going, so we shall see! Hotter weather, hotter curries, no running water, no electricity - here we come ;) Back Friday for the weekend, so this is my goodbye internet post (been spoilt in Colombo with internet at 50 rps or 30 p and hour!) and I thought I'd tell you a couple of lessons I have learnt this week: First of all, I am learning that Sri Lankan internet cafes and uploading photos do not go together very well - I have learnt this after waiting for 20 minutes for 5 pictures to upload - so you will have to bare with me ;) Secondly, I have learnt how much water we usually use and how little it is possible to use. When the water didn't come on this morning I groaned a little bit because if you don't shower at least twice a day here you begin to feel uncomfortably sticky...I went to the tap outside, which still seems to have water in it when all else fails - wunderbar! - filled up the bucket and used half a bucket of water for a bucket shower, which left me cool and refreshed. Lesson 2 = I can make definitely make do with less. And finally, people are never entirely happy with who they are and how God made them (I speak for myself, of course, if you consider yourself to be perfect!!)...So, we all know about tanning lotions as used by the sun-deprived in the UK (no offence meant to anybody who uses them ;), but how about Whitening Cream.? Sri Lankans don't like to be caught in the sun (which is rather unfortunate) because they don't like dark skin and all that's associated with it (reminiscent of the victorian train of thought, i.e. 'those with dark skin are peasant field-workers') and so many people here use Whitening Cream, to whiten or make their skin paler. For some reason, this was more of a shock to me than tanning cream - I guess because at home the general consensus is that tanned skin is more healthy looking. When I told a friend about tanning lotion they couldn't believe it - why would a white person want to be dark skinned?? So, lesson 3 - we always want to change ourselves in one way or another but maybe we should just be happy with the way we are (a lot easier to say than do ;)...
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