Sunday, October 6, 2013

"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.

1 comment:

  1. "all female government workers must wear saree. " this sentence is wrong. saree is a modern cloth also. this saree is not wear to according to the lankan culture. also they are not a couple, may be office mate

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