random things I've picked up traveling by myself

Traveling By Myself.

I guess I'm trying to compensate for falling so far behind on publishing posts, so I'll attempt to write about something of substance.  This will be able traveling by myself in Sri Lanka.
Even before I arrived here in Sri Lanka, I was warned again and again about the possibility and reality of sexual harassment as a women traveling alone.  The early portion of ISLE was relatively easy,  traveling in an airconditioned van with fellow americans with a director who spoke fluent Sinhala and English and all hotels and guesthouse prebooked.  Now, already almost two weeks into independent study, I realized that I am still able to arrange things for myself.  It involved learning the appropriate moments to put myself out there and ask for help and talk to strangers as well as the equally important times when I needed to be quiet and walk away.

My independent study site is located relatively close to a big Sri Lankan surfing hub, which I unfortunately don't have the abilities to appreciate.  This makes my presence here a little less conspicuous as other places in Sri Lanka.  However, I've had to take several day trips in and around the area, in addition to two weekend's worth of solo travel to different site visits.  The last weekend in March, which also happened to be Easter Sunday weekend, I spent with a family in a small Christian fishing village south of Putulam on the island northwest coast.  The following weekend, I traveled to Kotukal Lagoon, in Pottuvil, Ampara District, on the southeast coast of the island.  Additionally, I travelled from Pottuvil to Colombo, the width of the island, in one day on public bus.

While on independent  I have take several trips around the area to survey paddy fields and vegetable farms.  I understand that I stick out tremendously and I usually don't even mind the stares I get.  I can tell when I'm getting tired or hungry, because that's when I start getting annoyed at people.  I have been very fortunate in that I have no experienced any serious sexual harassement.  There have been several instances when I have heard men talking about me in Sinhala, but I prefer to just tell them off in almost perfect, Sinhala, or when I'm particularly tired, I'll swear at them in English...

I have also noticed that I receive more help when I'm traveling by myself.  I try not to stand out and dress in normal, non showy clothing, but people here always think I'm lost.  And I've noticed that it might play to my advantage to let people help me out.  I try and listen to advice, especially with regard to travel and bus plans.  The trick to this is asking as many different people as possible.  I found that then you can take an tally of the several different answers that people give you (trust me, there will be several different answers) and then you get a pretty accurate picture of what's going on. So, I've learned not to be too terrified of strangers in bright, public places during the day.  In my case, people are just too shocked to hear a sudu, white person, speaking Sinhala, they generally respect me.  I've also found it's helpful to sit next to army officials, policemen, or women with children on public transportation, they will not mess with me.

I'm also learning to be a little bit more aggressive than I previously was.  I remember before leaving for Sri Lanka that I told my brother I needed to practice my tough girl look for when I have to walk down the street.  While this is somewhat necessary, the most trouble I have comes from 3-wheel drivers who want me to pay a fare to drive me somewhere I could probably easily walk to.  These drivers are generally the only people I will attitude.  And now I've learned that simply flicking my hand at them and telling them to get lost works wonders.

So overall this post was sufficiently random, but I hope it gives a little more insight into some of the things I've learned about traveling alone.  For my next post, I'll try and talk about things that are specific to my independent study.

Getting Things Done Here

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?

Some Cool Pictures

Monks do laundry too

Lankan Moss

Sigiriyia

This is a beautiful moonstone

Guard Stone

Buddhas in Colombo

Fancy Elephant

Tea Country

More Lankan Moss

I went to the end of the World 

And then had tea after

Words of wisdom

Cows like the beach too, Trincomalee

Pigeon Island, Trincomalee

Big Ice Cream Cone

Dancer

Big Elephant

Kirinda

Kirinda

5-headed cobra, Kataragama

Pigeon Island, Trincomalee

A Brief Update on things

It's official, this blogging thing mostly definitely isn't for me.  I've so far failed to write one post in the 50+ days I've been in this absurdly complex, beautiful, hot, messy, tasty, and tiring country.  But I'm not going to lie, I expected that.  After sending my dad an email updating him of my whereabouts for the past couple weeks, I remembered I had a blog to get all of my word vomit.  I guess there's no reason to subject my poor father to my unnecessary ramblings, that's what the internet is for.  To keep things short, I'm going to make a list of cool/interesting/on my mind topics and try to be as brief but informative as possible.

1. The food: Rice overload but overall it's delicious.  My favorite part about the food here is my ammaa.  She wakes up at some ungodly hour in the morning (which is impossible because I already wake up at some ungodly hour in the morning as well (6) and she's up and running) and cooks rice and curry for my lunch "packet" as well as the rest of the family, well my appacci (father) and my host sister who also studies at the University of Peradeniya.  While I had to do a little manuveuring and extra grocery shopping, I'm now served oatmeal for breakfast, instead of rice, which is a nice change to my daily intake of plain white rice.  The  food's good, don't get me wrong, but what's cooler is how much work my ammaa puts into preparing it.  It's pretty sweet.

2.  The huge spider that lives in my room:  I've seen my share a big spiders; however, nothing will be able to stop me from screaming when I see the huge spider that has taken up residence in my room.  I thought we had worked out a nonverbal agreement, I would let him/her stay there if he/she took care of the all the other creepy crawlies that would've stumbled into my room during the evening.  That was until yesterday, when I saw my spider having a conversation (I think?)with another, even larger spider (I didn't think that could be possible).  I would have "taken care of the issue" however I didn't have a baseball bat handy, and I also didn't want to make a mess in my room.  When I'm sure that my spider's new friend can't rip my head off when I get too close, I will take some pictures to post.  I think that fact that I just said all of this means that Sri Lanka is finally getting to my head...


3. The beaches along the east and south coasts: To avoid angering or arousing serious feelings of jealous, I won't elaborate, I will just say that these beaches are beautiful, and I know what I'm taking about, I'm from Hawaii.

4. The university swimming pool: My only form of exercise in this absurdly hot/humid place.  It's a refreshing place to cool off and although I started out knowing approximately nothing about lap swimming, I've been able to getting going now and can at least do free style well enough for the pool guys to not ask me in broken English if I've ever swam before.  I would also like to point out that Sri Lankans are scared of the deep end (I'm only selectively joking...)

5.  Gender and women's study class:  First one of my career. Even growing up an avid feminist, tomboy, "equal rights for all advocate," my eyes are being opened.  I have to do some serious calming exercises after every class though to keep my self from getting too pissed at the world though... "I am woman, hear me roar" is my new mantra.

6. My independent study project (and how I have no idea what I'm going to do my research on)
I'm planning on looking at fish, I think, or maybe trees? I should really know by now... Crap

7. my unexplainable liking for taking the bus:  I can explain this one actually, I think I'm the only white person in this city who knows how to take the bus, I get lots of looks from literally everyone, especially when I get back to my town.  People always think I'm lost.  I tell myself to walk with a purpose.  I feel cool, but not too cool because then I realized I'm just taking the bus...

8. Why Pink and Taylor Swift have suddenly become homesick music: I'm only slightly embarrassed by this.

Everything else that's been happing in the last 50+ days of my life will have to be explained via pictures, enjoy.
 

Refurbishing the Blog

I'm completely overhauling my old blog from AP American Government.  If you care to hear about the political issues I found particularly important in 2009, then just keep looking down. Well, at least I wrote with a certain amount of conviction. 

If; however, you are interested in hearing about my upcoming semester to Sri Lanka, then read "up."  

I leave next Monday from San Francisco for a lovely two day sojourn to arrive in Colombo, fresh-faced and ready for class the next day, hmm... 

Getting ready for this trip has been a long, slow process.  Or should I say it has been a long process because I've been so slow? Either way, winter break has already felt like a haze... It was ages since I was skiing at Whistler with my dad and my brother or in San Francisco for the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology conference presenting on my honeybee research [don't worry I'll pretty much guarantee that honeybees will make an appearance in this blog]. For now though, I'm sleeping in ridiculously late and behind on all my job applications, not to mention my Sinhalese homework. 

Anyways, don't want to complain too much, life in Sacramento is pretty typical, but I leave you with a few details about my preparations.

Most important items on my packing list:

Linen Breeze Target brand hand sanitizer (it just reminds me of freshly-done laundry)

5pk white tees

gift for the father in my host family, I never know what to get men anyways... 

Also, I finally started taking my antimalarial pills, a week late.  My dreams are supposed to start getting pretty weird.  

Okay, hopefully I'll have more interesting information the next time around.  In the mean time, off to the barn to see the horse! 

Ray helping me learn Sinhalese

Blog 18

End Judicial Elections

There has been a push recently, led by retired Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, to eliminate the process of electing judges on the statewide level.  While most federal judges are selected or appointed, local judges have to win an election, leading some to speculate whether or not they are selected for their ability to win a campaign or their ability to fulfill the requirements of being a judge.  The O’Connor Judicial Selection Initiative, of the University of Denver has been vocal about reducing the role of elections in the local and statewide judicial systems.  The elimination of such elections will also get rid of much of the mess involved running an expensive and time-consuming campaign.

For example, there was a case heard by the Supreme Court earlier this year based on the corruption charges of one judge, Brent D. Benjamin, who took $3 million in campaign donations, plus millions in bonuses and gifts, from the executive of a coal mining company, Don Blankenship.  This case, because it highlights the severe amount of corruption involved, will affect the judgeship elections in over 30 states.  In the state elections next year, a handful of states will vote on the election of judges; however, many of them are far from changing the current system.

As Rebecca Love Kourlis, former justice on the Colorado Supreme Court points out, it is hard to get people to agree to changing the system with a pitch taking away people’s vote for judges.  However, as she points out, doing this will allow merit to play a more important roll in selecting responsible judges than lets say, popularity of ability to win an election. However, one thing that still needs to be dealt with, it still takes charisma to be appointed, just like it takes charisma to be elected.  

Blog 17

Unhealthy Polarization

The American political system, since the first election for president after the creation of the Constitution in 1787, has been conducive to political parties.  As reluctant as the framers of the Constitution were, they could not prevent the formation of political parties.  Ever since then, party power has been a key tool in garnering political power.  However, this has led to an unhealthy role for parties in the everyday political system. From elections to legislation, parties exercise a large amount of control over their members.  This creates an unstable balance in which constituent’s wants and needs are underrepresented and unheard.  Which by and large minimizes the impressive agenda through which our system was created by allowing a party to control the members of Congress.

The most recent and atrocious example of this has been the chaos that is the proposed health care bill that is limping its way through Congress, like a grandma in a hurdles race.  Although this bill is a necessity for the welfare of the American people, many of the Republican candidates refused to vote for it because they did not want to upset their party leaders.  However, Republicans are not the only ones guilty of this, their Democratic counterparts admitted to doing the same thing while under Republican majority during the Bush years on issues related to increase federal borrowing.  The main reason for the strong party influence, especially with the house, lies in reelection.  Loyal incumbents are given money from their parties in addition to party affiliation.  While this ensures they are elected, if often means they are more concerned about pleasing their party leaders than their constituents.

The key to reducing party influence in Congress does not lie in abolishing the party system all together, which would in fact be impossible. Because the parties give voters alternatives and a chance to change, eliminating parties would reduce democracy and the freedom of choice. However, parties should have less influence in campaigning.  If the congress were to allocate campaign funds equally and restrict private campaign contributions, then candidates would be less reliant on the parties to get elected, and therefore more able to vote and legislate with accordance to how their constituents feel.