I draw the line at Christmas!

Just thought I'd share some of the festive work of my youngest.  He really is a dab hand and his drawings never cease to make me smile!  I love that he draws cards for holidays.  So since it is better to give.....I present:  

Etchings by M&P

Not bad for a drive by shooting and only having Sharpies.

I know what Mary is praying for...reconstructive surgery!  Look at the noggin' on that kid!

Will write soon.

Thank you (put your initial here)!

It's beginning to look like Christmas even in Sri Lanka!  Check out these goodies at the Bread Talk store.  All I took away was a photo, no calories!

Haven't really been doing much.  Most activities are winding down for the holidays as people "get outta Dodge".  I made a terrible miscalculation this year.  I thought the kids got 2 weeks due to CHOGM but no!  They get 3...sheeit!  I don't want to go anywhere early without G so we're kind of stuck in town until the 22nd.  That is, if I live that long!

Yup, the spirit of Christmas is in everyone except my eldest and I continue to live the "12 hellish weeks of Teenage Christmas"...supply your own lyrics! My youngest is baking like a demon for his friends.  He often speaks of perhaps going to a culinary school...cool. He's excited about Christmas and our trip to Malaysia.  We've been conferring about which restaurant makanning strategy we'll employ.  Anyway it's win-win!  


In spite of a little rain on my parade, I've had some good news this week.  My sister has bought her ticket out for a visit in Feb...yeah!  She's just doing her visa now.  I've got my list all made of places I want to go to!  It's funny how having someone along with you gives you that "Dutch Courage" to go places or to do things you wouldn't normally do.  Perhaps it's the show-off in me. Thank you S!

Also really nice was an email from old friend from Korea days, telling me that she had read my blog (yeah, a reader who is not related to me!) and if I needed to commiserate about teenage angst to call.  "Wow, it is amazing how that short email made me feel so much better!"  I won't call because I'm not a phoner but it wonderful to know she's there.  Thank you J!

Further proof to me that I'm not totally friendless was a lovely package I received from R in PoCo.  She put together a thoughtful note with leaves (I have to be careful when I open up her cards because something's always falling out!) and a funny little change purse.  Thank you R!

I also taught a yoga class on Monday.  I never know if it was successful or not because I'm always thinking "oh I could've done this or that".  It was small group but that was okay because then you get to do more stuff with them.  I love how the energy of the room changes when people partner.  Everyone gets all twittery!  

So even though I thought the week sucked it turned out pretty well...I am lucky.

Even my counter was Chrismassy!

If a picture can speak a thousand words...

I guess I've mentioned that the honeymoon is over in previous posts.  It's not Sri Lanka's fault, it's nobody's fault, it's life.  My eldest is pushing boundaries in a rather stressful and frankly, incomprehensible way.  Part of me knows that is what he is supposed to do and it's great that he wants to venture into the adult world but the way he's doing it is disruptive and really not getting him anywhere.  Of course, he would disagree with me on that but then again he would disagree with me over the air we breathe.

So I come to cringe a bit when I go to open my email.  I'm actually hoping for spam rather than a message from school, that's how bad it is.  I am grateful that G is really stepping up to the plate on a lot of this.  But I am the first line, I will always be the first line and I have to be honest I DON'T GET IT.

(Warning to any teen readers:  the following is a typical parental lament. You can return to the normal blog post after the jump!)  

I asked him what is so horrible about his life, school. his parents.  I really wanted to know.  I can't change everything but I figure knowing is half the battle.  He really couldn't give me an answer other than he hates moving.  He wants what we had, the stability of living in one place whilst growing up.  I tried to impress upon him that we chose this life because of what it ultimately offers.  I realize that doesn't hold a lot of water for a 15 yr. old...I get it.  He has idealized Seattle and life there to the point where it's become mythical.  Again, totally normal but he won't allow for the sad fact that life moves on, people move on, you have to move on or be left behind.  I tried to get this across by referring to the last scene in one of our favorite movies "Stand by me" the one where the kids go their separate ways after that one incredible, intense weekend. How those people, the ones you swear will be friends forever just become faces in the hallway, ghosts of your past.  Even as I write, I know that he has got to learn this himself.  He won't acknowledge that he is changing, life in Seattle is changing, that's the way it goes.  He clings on to the past..understandable.  So where does that leave us? 

Of course there are other issues, he is a pretty complex character - that's what is going to help him have a great, rich life.  Like any parent I want to give him the tools to realize that life.  I don't want to dictate it, my period of dictating is drawing to a close( but I do have a few "further mores" to add! Duh!)

I didn't think that I would have to learn so much at fifty.  "What the hell I have been doing for the past 50 years?" I know that other people are going through this and frankly, some of them are going through worse things.  Still, I wish I had someone to talk to who wasn't at the school.  It's a small place and having worked at a school I know what happens in the lunchroom.  The biggest shock though is the loss of my sense of humour, I feel so grim and I hate that.  I love my family, I want them to be happy, I want to be happy!  

What to do...what to do?

The Sketchbook Project

After much hemming and hawing I decided to join The Sketchbook Project. It is a project created in conjunction with the Brooklyn Public Library and a group called Art House Projects.  The idea being that people can get one of these books and record their life/mission/adventures/whatevah the way they choose.  These are then submitted to the library, catalogued and put onto caravans that tour the country.  People can take them out and enjoy what others have done.  You can choose a theme or just write (from what I gather!).   It is a neat way to engage with other people, artists and the public library system.  Sounds right up my alley!

So I sent off my money and waited quite excitedly, I must admit!  I don't think that there will be high demand for my work but it's fun to be a part of something big like this.  Besides chronicling my life seems to be the thing I'm into right now.  So you can imagine my dismay when this arrived in the mail!

 It came on a rather tense day so this just added insult to injury.  "Why would you have to open this when it is clearly a paper product and then drop it in water?".  Yup, that's what they did and we know how much paper lurves water.  
 I'm still bummed!  If any of you write, you know the physical pleasure of opening up a new notebook and smoothing out that first page and having the pristine paper accept the black ink from your quill-like Sharpie.  It is exquisite!  But alas, not for me!  So I dried it out as best I could and now have to work paper the texture of Melba Toast! (dating myself there). So what do you do when something like this happens?  Well, I've decided to work with it and call it "Water log(ged)".  Quite good I think and it makes me laugh,  albeit ruefully.

But I have another book in the works as well.  There is an area here in Colombo called "Slave Island"(sounds spooky, I know!).  It's a very historic, culturally and religiously diverse neighbourhood. The name, the crowded conditions, the poverty all make it a rather daunting place for me to venture but it's vibrancy draws me.  It also has the unfortunate benefit of being close to downtown and the new developments that are now starting to come online.  Already we've seen the loss of the Elephant House Cold Storage Godowns and sites are trained on the rest of the area.  So I'm trying to document what's left of the area in a book for G for Xmas.  I got the idea from a store called "Barefoot".  The grandson of the owner published a book about the colour of Sri Lanka.  As I flipped through it I thought, "my shots are as good if not better than these", so I decided why not make one for G?

I'm not such a great photographer but I want to learn.  One thing I think about photography is that you have to anticipate, react and then be patient to make sure you got the shot.  Quite often this means approaching people and asking their permission.  Argh!! I'm a big chicken shit!  You wouldn't think so, but I am!   So me venturing into this neighbourhood really took some cajones.  I was so happy I did!  I was handsomely rewarded!  People couldn't have been nicer and and friendlier.  It's the kind of place where as soon as there is a new face everyone knows so I'm sure my presence preceeded me!  Lots of people very kindly let me take their photos.  But being a little freaked out,  I didn't get all the shots I saw in my head.  That's where I'm running into problems. I can see it in my head and aim the camera toward it, but I can't capture it because I don't have the technical knowledge or the patience.  It's incredibly frustrating but on the up side I am going to go back and take some more shots from a different angle.  I also want to see if I can find this one woman and her baby, I took such a nice shot of them I want to give her a copy.  I hope that's not too creepy!

I would include some of my photos but I don't want to spill the beans about G's Xmas present.  Yeah... he occasionally looks at my blog.  Whoo hooo!

"I don't vant to be alone..."

This

=

This!

Once again, I find myself in the bathroom after "Law and Order, Criminal Investigation" goofing around with the camera.  It must be something about Vincent D'Onofrio that gets me going!  Actually I've wanted to "do"  Greta for awhile!   

I especially love my studio.  It's the bathroom and my crappy little digi cam perched on a swaying stack of toilet paper rolls to get the right height!   I have yet to work up the courage for an outside shot but I do have someone who will take my photo for me.  She's taking a photography course and I dunno, wants an example of what not to do for class?!  

I've got some other ideas and for now they are all black and white.  If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear from you!

Colombo to Mirissa to Kandy and back.

We left Colombo on Friday afternoon to pick up the kids at school and then head on down to the beach at Mirissa.  we were to meet up with friends staying at a rather flash villa. Being as it's off season there was plenty of room for all of us.  

Unfortunately doesn't give you an idea of the topography.

Below are some shots of the time we spent just kinda hangin' out.  I mean what else would you do at the beach?

Nick actually playing with little kids!

I love his gleeful expression!  Soon this dead fish was in everyone's face!

Some of the art at the villa.
I loved the art work but rather sobering when you think how many car parts they had to work with!  Not a good sign.

We left Mirissa quite early on Sunday as we had a long haul ahead of us up to Nuwara Eliya.  We were told it could easily be 7 to 8 hours.  It's not because the distance is so far it's because the roads are narrow and the drivers are quite crazy. We climbed from sea level to the highest point in Sri Lanka at 2500 metres. Greg did an awesome job driving and we only lost our way a few times but were able to loop back to the main roads. It is the journey afterall.  All in all, it probably only took us about 6 hours.  

I love these trucks,  I feel like I'm in the Khyber pass or something

We got in around 4 pm. and found our Misty View Bungalows.  It's very much a Fawlty Towers operation but we have an exceptional view (yes, it is misty) and we have a minder!  It's kind of weird but you do get used to it after awhile.  G, of course, just happened to bring his clubs so I dropped him off at the course on Monday.  There was nobody there except for 15 caddies!  The course is lovely and it is broken up into 3 parts throughout town!  Plus a public path cuts right through it. So not your usual hazards. 

The Royal Nuwara Eliya Golf Club.

Not bad form!

 I went back into town as I figured that the boys wouldn't too bummed if I didn't take them to the market.  I really liked this market as it was so clean and not smelly.  Plus the colours and the quality of the produce was phenomenal.  I couldn't help but take a few arty farty shots!  Please indulge me!

I love the way bananas are presented here.  They look like they are on Mary Poppin umbrellas or even elephant trunks.

 We saw this Grandpa proudly pushing his granddaughter up the hill.  They were so lovely together!

So we've got our holiday rhythm of sleep, eat, veg, doze, eat, sleep down to a science.  

So this is usually how our afternoons end.

So tomorrow we pack up for another drive to Kandy.  This one is not so long and we're going down in elevation.  I think there is more of a townsite to check out.  See you there!

CHOGM...I thought it was a holiday!

This is the week before all the heads of the Commonwealth of Nations descend like locusts on Colombo (CHOGM).  Due to politics between Canada and Sri Lanka, Canada has decided to give this meeting a miss.  There have been a few awkward moments but more for the HOM than us.  On the good side, if Mr. Harper came then we would be stuck in town! (Because it is all about how it affects me!)   G would be "liftin' that bale and totin' that barge"  for Harper' posse.  As it is, it will be a horrible week of road closures and sulking teenagers off school.  So instead of barricading myself between the Xbox and them,  we're taking our sulking teenagers on a road trip! Whee!  Shades of WallyWorld loom large!

The first night out we're down south beyond Unawatuna (gawd I love saying that place's name!) to visit a colleague who is on R and R from Delhi.  She's staying at a villa with someone else so, there may or may not be space for us.  Apparently place is heaven on earth!  Sri Lanka really is blessed with gorgeous beaches. Then to Nuriyallia(spelling?) and then on to Kandy. Kandy, I imagine, is going to be similar to the Cameron Highlands as it is a tea growing region and where the colonials went to cool down!

I'm looking forward to it.  This has really been an emotionally hard 10+ days for me.  I've been up and down like a yoyo.  I know intellectually that you never get anything thrown at that you can't handle but it doesn't mean that it still doesn't take it out of you.  I really feel like time has sped up and the things I want to do are getting pushed further and further back as I have to react to the here and now.  Our time here really is very short...um... our time in Sri Lanka, not earth!

Also been trying to get our Xmas holidays organized.  N wanted to go to Seattle, M wanted to go to Malaysia, and G was ambivalent !  So took those bulls by the horns and booked.  We're going to KL, Cameron Highlands, and Penang!  Whoo HOO!  Life is good.  I booked a hotel in KL that is near our old place...will be weird to be back but not living there.  I'm sure the changes are huge!  The kids and I will go in advance of G and do some shopping etc.  Gotta throw N a bone every once in awhile!  What's great about my instagram foodie other son is, is that he is excited about where we'll eat!  It's unanimous though...Suzi's Corner!

Wow, there she be in all her car park glory!

So I'll report back when I can get internet and time!  

Halloween.  I thought maybe I had dodged that bullet by moving here.  But due to the insidiousness of that other evil empire (Hallmark) even the Sri Lankans are taking it on. There was one store that had hired an actress to be a witch.  I got what she was on about but there were some very bemused shoppers!

Our community coordinator put together a Halloween tour for the little kids at post.  The HOM loves to dress up her place and I sense that there was some rivalry with some of the other staff!  So they went to her house and then came back to our building to haunt the floors.  We were astounding by how much candy those little hands can grab!

I wasn't going to really do anything but something deep inside me broke and I had to, I just had to!  So I brought out the old tickle trunk and jumped in.  I made tombstones out of cereal boxes and white glue, a watermelon jack o'lantern, "boarded up our place" and condemned it! (Must give credit to M...his idea!)
 Our helper, Sulani, just kind of looked at me while I was doing all this.  I had a blast doing it too. I find that those projects were you have limited resources, time and money are often the more creatively rewarding, the less you have the better it is. (WARNING: this does not apply to shoes!!)  I wish that I could have figured out how to control the hallway light sensor but management is picky enough without that added hassle of me adjusting the lighting.  Anyway I spent entirely too much time on something that lasted, say, 5 minutes tops!  Isn't that always the way?  Plus those little kids didn't even get my puns...sheesh.  They just wanted candy!  I can't work with these people!

M, of course, got into the act and in addition to baking cookies for his buddies came up with this really bizarre outfit.  He insisted that I buy him a dolly and then we were to dismember it.  Too macabre for me, so we figured out a way to create the effect without any discarded limbs.

He is good fun!

Anyway I hope everyone had a super holiday.  The day after, we saw Christmas lights at the mall...the horror...the horror!

White knuckle drive or Independence Day?

I think it was all the Dutch courage I drank last night and the subsequent hangover I felt this morn that got me out of bed and into the truck.  Judging by the way the inside of my head felt, I knew I could handle whatever those Colombo drivers would throw at me!

Our mission: photograph what we could before security showed up.

I would kill to "liberate" these signs.

We went out the back way of our building to the school.  There is an old factory out there that has the coolest signs on it.  They started to clean up the grounds a few days ago which led me to suspect something nefarious is afoot! (Sadly, it happened to the Elephant House GoDown across the way in Slave Island).  I got out there with no problems and parked.  Of course, 2 foreigners walking down the street in that neck of the woods does draw a bit of attention.  I quickly took a few shots before the security guard came over to see what was happening.  Okay, I use the term "see" very loosely as his glasses were so thick and dirty!  He chatted us up and we came away not sure if we'd been invited to go in and see it or it was being torn down for condos.  Time will tell.

I was starting to feel a little bit cocky behind the wheel so we explored a bit.  Nice for G to be able sit back and scope out things for once instead of always driving.  We had to find a gas station and we did, near "Inner Flower Lane".  Sounds slightly pornographic but so be it.  G, of course, had to tell the gas jockeys that I had been a tuktuk driver in Canada so all these guys came over and peered at me!  If he's not telling them I'm a tuktuk driver, he tells people I have rellies in prison...which I don't!!!!

Road Warrior.

We arrived back home uneventfully.  It feels good to be back driving.  It has been 3 months, probably the longest I've gone in awhile. I find that your relationship to the host country changes once you begin to drive.  You begin to spend time in your vehicle rather than dealing with people.  Sometimes that's good and sometimes that's sad.

A rare sight in Colombo.

Be busy or be seen as being so...

Is this the scourge of modern times, being busy?  Being busy is being seen as being important.  "Places to go, people to see, things to do?"  When you're not, you feel like a loser.  "When did this happen to us?"  I remember days of nothing to do as a kid and it was fabulous.  Plus I never felt bad about it.  I guess the closer I get to death, the more I'm aware of timing passing!  

The dust has begun to settle here in Sri Lanka.  The kids have begun to make friends and hang out.  Greg's got his golf buddies.  I've found some yoga, though it is not exactly what I was looking for.  I like the vinyasa-style but my wrists are aching from all the downdogs etc.  I'm loathe to go for it because I don't want to lose my yoga practice.  But of course, that's a sign from yoga that I'm doing something I shouldn't.

But I'm still not satisfied.  I've got enough piddly stuff (household stuff) that I have to hang around for which would be okay except our internet usage is throttled so I can't even download stuff.  (That's why I've made the Java Lounge, the Official Wifi Stealing Shop of pegthaccompanyingspouse!)

I want/need to do something creative.  I've noticed that when I lie down in corpse pose at the end of my yoga practice there is no energy circling in my palms.   I can summon it, but it doesn't feel right, because before it was generated spontaneously.  (I wonder if I need to be reiki'd.)  Back to creativity!  I've talked about joining the sketchbook project out of the.   Brooklyn Public Library.  In a nutshell, it is bunch of people who share their experiences of life through their journals. They are given a set of parameters to follow and a specific size book.  They then send these to the library and the library will save them or digitize them.  Then the books tour the US and into BC.  It's very cool, but a little bit daunting.  As you may have seen, I have a cartoon character that I use to illustrate my journal/blog.  But my Archie's style seems so lame compared to what others are doing.  But I won't let that stop me. 

I think my blog group is at an impasse.  I've got to get people to kickstart their blogs because realistically it just makes more sense to "publish and be damned!"  Also there is enormous satisfaction in your first post.  I know that I checked it every few days as I was so chuffed with what I did!  I also assumed that there would also be a flurry of comments and an intro into the rarified air of the bloggers universe.  Alas no, but I'm still having fun.

But something's missing...maybe I'm not busy enough!

A UN Day shout out to Sue...thank you!

M futzed around with his camera and made this. Pretty Awesome!

 The dreaded day arrived...UN Day at school.  It actually had nothing to do with the UN but it was more a celebration of diversity at Overseas School of Colombo (OSC).  It's pretty cool that there are roughly 42 different groups in such a small school and that's not even counting the dual nationals!  I got rooked into being the Canada Country Rep so had to set up a table for this day.  I have to be honest, people were kinda sh*%$y about helping out so the workload was on my shoulders.  Luckily, M was extremely helpful in the baking dept. ( Not so much the cleaning up dept though!)  He made the shortbread cookies.  What was kind of nostalgic for me was being in the kitchen with him and pulling out the decades old cookie presses I used with my Mom to make these cookies.  He made one batch, I, the other and promptly declared his batch shorter!  Cheeky monkey!  I made 2 batches of Nanaimo bars.  They are no-bake and actually quite easy to make. 

This is before my head spouted holes.

 Of course, at the root of every event is "what am I going to wear?"  So this is what I came up with!  Quite effective I must say!  I think though some people thought me a chicken but I was making a statement...yes, a STATEMENT.  You see, I did have help at the table from a French Canadian guy, I was the English Canadian and my headgear represented the First Nations...get it? Oh well, made me laugh.  I think I poked a few of the smaller kids eyes out with it though.  By the end of the day those teeth that secure the headband to your hair were doing some serious stuff to my skull.  I was happy to get it off!  

Our lovely Canada table.

 So here's what my sister's generous contribution looked like!  Thank you so much Sue!  Everyone loved the Timmy's boites and were bummed that there weren't any inside!  I used hockey pucks as the name cards for the dishes and the HBC cookie tin you gave us at Christmas.  The principal of the elementary came through and made dollar size pancakes for the table and they were a great success.  But judging by the feeding frenzy, spoiled meat and fridge goo would've have also been a big success!  M was so proud of his cookies and told lots of his teachers he had made them.  He plans to bake for his buddies this weekend.

I'm sure he's texting "Oh Canada".

N, as the eldest Canadian, was the flagbearer.  He downplayed being the flag guy but I noticed come the morning of the day he carefully selected an outfit which represented our flag.  He is funny that way.  We had about 7 kids under our flag but as mentioned before there are a bunch of dual-nationals.  We got lots of people come up to us and say that they were happy to see that Canada had a separate table from the Americans and that, that hadn't happened in a long time!  A few people came up and thanked me for my work when they heard that I did it all by myself (and M). That was nice. Sue was right about that when she said not to pull out because of lack of assistance, just go do it.  Besides this is payback for all those people who went before me and did this for my kids at our other schools.  Don't tell anyone but, it was fun!

This is what happens at my house after "Law and Order."

Okay, not too bad for a 1/2 hour fooling around in my bathroom.  I got the idea to recreate some famous shots after I got turned down to participate in a traveling skirt of a certain colour blog.  It was like high school all over again! The cool blogging girls didn't want me!  Wah! 

You see while I was waiting to find out whether or not I was accepted, I had the brilliant idea to use the skirt in a shoot that would represent Sri Lanka.  What's more Sri Lankan than an elephant?  Who is more fashionable as a fashion photography than Richard Avedon? So why not recreate his famous shot of Dovima and the elephants here in Colombo?  But alas I won't be using the skirt of a certain colour in my next shot.  However, I did find a great location and when I can convince somebody to come with me to help shoot it, I'll post it.

In the meantime enjoy my first attempt...they can only get better!  Thanks to Nancy Cunard and Google Images.

It kinda snuck up on me...

Canadian Thanksgiving...I had totally forgotten that it is this time of year.  That's the only problem with the tropics is, is that it's like Vegas.  The light and temperature are such that you never really notice the passage of time.  However, unlike Vegas there are no free cocktails! 

Our Head of Mission (HOM) opened up the OR (Official Residence) to a pot luck dinner for the staff. She has a lovely house and it was very welcoming.  The kids could run around the yard and chase the dog.  It is the cutest dog ever!! She's a West Highland White Terrier and a dead ringer for that "Maggie" who stars in those commercials back home.  I COVET that beast.  Even though I really like the dog, I can't understand why my voice goes up several pitches and I want to say repetitive stuff like, "who's a good doggie", "does your mummy wuve you...yes she does!" I never even spoke to my own kids like that!  What gives?!

Anyway I felt the time was right to introduce our family tradition to the rest of the world (hopefully to get a laugh this time!).  No, it is not aspic, nor ambrosia salad, nor any other of those wonderful 50's concoctions, it is the Rice Krispie Turkey!  Ta dah!

Next year I'm going to develop rice krispie giblets to go inside! Stay tuned!

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving Everyone!

May you be surrounded by family and friends and that you take the time to appreciate all that you have in your life and the fantastic place we call home.

"Glocal?"

There is always a bit letdown when something is realized.  I've been nattering on for yonks to anyone who would listen about the Sri Lankan Design Festival .  I even wined and dined a few hoping to score free tickets or contacts, but to no avail.  So I girded my loins and went down to AOD and just signed up.

The Sustainability Session was the part I was most interested in .  I was hoping to get some insight into how the business works.  So I got my myself down to the Mount Lavinia Hotel and was the first to arrive!   It's a lovely old hotel and the lobby was buzzing with fashion/design types.  Once inside the conference room, I thought that I had dodged the ticket guy and was going to get a free ride but no.

Anyway there were some interesting types in the audience.  This tall, slim fashionista in very chic grey stripe saree comes in with an entourage.  I thought maybe she was a Rajapaksa or a model but no she's the lady that established the host school and the Festival!

After many air kisses, we got down to things.  Turned out that it wasn't exactly what I had imagined! Honestly I wasn't sure what to expect.  Turns out, that they dealt in a lot of generalities.  I guess because I'm a conference/meeting newbie I had visions of indepth discussion, passionate discourse, fists pounding on tables, people storming out, but no.   However, I did learn a fair amount about standardization, partnerships and industry problems.

At the tea break, I got chatting to a very interesting woman who had spoken the night before at the "Colours" session.  Her name is Jane McCann and she is an English professor involved in a very exciting project in the UK.  It is called "Design for Ageing Well, New Dynamics of Ageing."  She is a part of a group of English academics doing cross disciplinary work on ageing.  She is on the design side of things.  Professor McCann was quite intense and I have to be honest, she was preaching to the converted!

I didn't get a chance to speak with her but there was another lady here from Draper magazine in the UK.  I would've spoken to her at the lunch but I felt a bit anxious about the taking the train back, a bit tired and frankly, I did feel slightly lame about being there as "Margaret Peters....Private Citizen."  Honestly there is nothing wrong with that, but after sitting for 5 hours I was knackered and my smooze mode was off. To my credit though, I did go up to the tall glamourazon and thank her for the conference.  Then I skittered off into my taxi.

Definitely the best was saved for last.  This is when they introduced the young up and coming designers.  The trend right now is to upcycle and use different of fabrics or unexpected types of processes.  There was a very cool young lady who had been partnered with a IT firm and had come up with a fabric that is hand woven by local women.  It's manufacture has a very small footprint as everything is done "organically", for example they use cow dung to bleach the fabric to an off white.  The sample jea that they show was awesome.  Oh yeah this is the cool part, they weren't dyed they were digitally printed.  Unfortunately I couldn't get over to see them up close but I love the idea of how it was produced.  Patagonia did too and there is interest from them.  Global + local = glocal!

"Omm Pah Pah...omm pah pah, everyone knows!"*

Wow!  It seems like forever since I last wrote even though I've been thinking about the blog everyday.  You see I'm trying to get an expat bloggers groups going.  I want to write with a community of people who have interesting experiences to share.  I also want to know how other expats view life abroad. Since I instigated this thing,  I gave them a challenge to "find their voice" They have to write a 300 word draft everyday (subject doesn't matter), then decide which one represents their truest voice.  The plan is then to discuss this next time and move on to another subject, ie.. photos/video.  Topics are supposed to be organically generated, but for the first little while I think there should be some structure.

Aren't they gorgeous?  Dancers at the festival.

This weekend I got to see Sri Lanka through German eyes!  It was the 60th anniversary of German/Sri Lankan Friendship and there was a street festival celebrating it.  Who knew?  There was the usual collection of pretty darn awesome cars and obviously a growing local taste for luxury vehicles judging by the line ups around the Audis and Porsches. (Cripes, there is even a Lamborghini dealership in town.  Which is pretty vulgar when you think of what that amount of money could do here.)

It's the perfect Bug colour and not modified!  

There were also friendship groups from the various Universities around the country and the girls looked so cute decked out in dirndls and the like.  I can't imagine it was fun to wear white tights in this heat.  I got quite few great shots of the colour and pageantry that went along with the festival.

 They had stilt walkers, puppets and these way cool giant Sri Lankan and German characters.  I got video of them somewhere!

What's a street fair without food!  We went with visions of Teutonic wursts and bretzels dancing in our heads and weren't disappointed.  Although I am not a big fan of the rather rude looking weisswurst, I was happy to try them.  The pastries were good and G happily bought a loaf of 2 tonne bread.  There was heaps of beer but my stomach is still a little queasy after a bout of "mystery disease" this weekend.

I'm usually a Maclaren girl but I'm willing to compromise for German/Sri Lankan relations.

I included this picture because not only are they a beautiful, happy couple, you can see how Sri Lankan women tie their sarees.  If you notice around her waist is a pleated, peplum type fold.  This is unique to here.  People also wear the classic Indian style with the drape over the front of the body.  I have yet to see though the Gujarati-style where the drape comes over the shoulder from the back.  Interesting tidbit:  all female government workers must wear saree.










*Thanks to "Oliver" for the lyrics.