Another random blog post.
Well. I just want to write a brief post titled, ‘how to get
things done in Sri Lanka.’ I’ve noticed
it’s a little different than how it’s normally done in the states.
1. Booking
hotels:
Booking hotels here has been considerably
easier than I thought it would be. It
definitely helps that most hotel owners speak English, although the Brits
definitely screwed a lot of other things up (you know with that whole
colonialism thing for starters…), it’s nice that English is still the go to
medium language between tourists and locals (and to another extent, Tamil and
Sinhala, but that’s a whole other post
worth topic…) Secondly, I have to say, I’ve become very reliant on my PDF
lonely planet that I downloaded to my iphone.
It’s easy to whip out when I’m in a hurry and looks a lot less
conspicuous that carrying around a hard copy of a guidebook (although having an
iphone here feels a little excessive too, although I’ve seen a fair amount of
Sri Lankans with iphones). Basically,
I’ve booked four hotels myself and one homestay in the past month, and my
friends have had similar experiences, and I’ve called the day before or the day
of for all of them, while this isn’t completely new for me, given how last
minute my family at home travels. One
caveat though, restaurants and good food aren’t always available, so plan that
ahead of time, contrary to home…
2. Meeting
the right people:
I think I’ve realized the longer
I’m here, things in this country happen best when they happen by chance. I know this an absurdly vague sentence and
might not make a lot of sense to anyone but me.
However, I’m convinced. When I’ve
been here I’ve realized that the more I try to get things to happen, albeit
usually in a timely manner, the less likely things will go smoothly. BUT, if I just kind of skate by and decide
things in a little bit of an indecisive manner, things have been working out
great for me! Which I guess is perfect for me, as I am infamously indecisive
(read: I won’t pick a place to eat dinner unless physically forced or
bribed).
For example,
planning independent study. I started
really freaking out about independent study this week. Before that, I figured I had enough cushion
that I would be able to singly handedly plan the perfect independent study and
creatively bring everything together.
And then this week, I knew I would never be able to do anything and I
would independent study, and then I would fail study abroad and then I would
never be able to do anything, ever.
After frantically emailing several people and then finding the
most-perfect NGO that I could work with, and then never hearing back from then,
and then repeating this process. I just said what ever, well technically my
director said whatever, do want you want to do, let them figure you out later…
I tentatively scheduled a trip to Pottuvil, because I read in Lonelyplanet that
they have some cool mangrove lagoons, and that mangroves were pretty cool. It was Thursday at this point, I woke up that
morning with the feeling that I was going to travel so I packed a couple days
of clothing and toiletries that morning, and I booked a hotel on Thursday night
for Monaragala, a town about ¾ the way to Pottuvil, and then another beach-side
hotel in Arugam Bay for Friday night. The librarian at ISLE, Tilak (a.k.a.
awesome a.k.a. Mr. Giles-esque from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (a whole other
posts’ worth of material)) gave me some directions about buses. A quick stop at the dry cleaners later, I was
at the Kandy bus stop arguing with a ticket guy in very broken Sinhala about
whether or not their was an inner city bus to Monaragala.
A note on intercity buses, as often as
people try to tell me otherwise, I’m convinced intercity buses don’t
exist. For those of you who don’t have
to pleasure of using foreign public transportation, intercity buses are these
magically buses that only stop at the larger towns along a given route, rather
than stopping at every intersection to pick up the many carry a large bag of
coconuts, not that I am opposed to taking coconut on the bus, I just wish that
when people said there was going to be an intercity bus, that there actually is
an intercity bus…
Back to the
story. Well basically on Friday I showed
up in Pottuvil and asked the nice hotel owner at the Arugam Bay Surf Resort
helped me make a reservation with the Hiddiyapuram Fishermen’s Cooperative to
tour the lagoons. Upon returning the
hotel, a Sri Lankan sitting down asked be about my Sinhala alphabet bag that I
bought at Paradise Road in Colombo. I
told him that I could in fact speak Sinhala, and write at a the level of a very
young child. Then he tells me he that he
is a senior lecturer at the university in Pottuvil in the Science Faculty and
that if I need help I can email him. All
I can say about this, SCORE!
But we will see,
he sounded enthusiastic about helping me get situated in Pottuvil for
independent study.
Moral of this
absurdly length anecdote, stuff happens when you go with the flow, contrary to
popular belief.
A side note:
The standard
interaction with Sri Lankans
S.L. What’s your country?
Me: America, but
I am living in Kandy now, I’m a student at Peradeniya University.
S.L. What’s your
subject.
Me: I study
Sinhala, environmental stud~
S.L. Why are you
studying Sinhala?
Me: I don’t
know, that ‘s a good question.
S.L. (in Sinhala
to everyone around them): This girl can speak Sinhala!
Another one
Me (in Sinhala): Excuse me, where is …?
S.L. (in English): What did you say?
