okay so. . maybe it should be called "want some tea with your milk and sugar"

Words of the week: (spelling is likely not right but roll with me)
Ayubouan- hello or good bye
Istuhtee- thank you
hyundai - good
hemi-hemi - slow down
put-put - small, crazy three wheelers

Well hello again! I apologize for the lack of updates lately but the last week has been a really crazy one for us. We arrived in Colombo late last Wednesday night and were warmly greeted by Prema (our country manager) and his wife Jai-annie. They are both lovely people and as I would soon discover Prema is definitely one of the funniest men I have ever met. He is just a true riot and Tom and I have a hard time talking to him without laughing. If any of you come and visit he will be a highlight of your trip for sure. So back to the whole tea situation here in Sri Lanka. I've probably had around 20 cups thus far (half by my own accord and the other half imposed upon me). You see the tea here is basically served with half a cup of milk and 3-4 tablespoons of sugar. it is not exactly what I was expecting- but hopefully i will acquire a taste for it. .though Prema did teach me how to say no milk (kiri nah) which can also mean no curry depending on how I pronounce it so I have to be careful. haha

Anyway, Colombo is a crazy, hot hectic city and at the same time extremely interesting and different than anything back at home. We spent out first day here and then ventured down south to Matara where I'll be living. We attended some meetings with the local contacts and checked out our house. Unfortunately it has absolutely zero supplies or appliances so we have had to do some shopping to get everything we need. Of course we live really modestly so it's not really all that much. This week we are back in Colombo attending some meetings and we'll head off on another 5 hour drive back to Matara on Thursday afternoon to try to set up our house so we can move in the following week. I've got to say I'm getting pretty tired of travelling around and living out of my bag. .mostly because I wasn't really expecting to being such a transient lady.

As for Matara it is again a hot, busy city though much smaller than Colombo. The western and southern coast of Sri Lanka is amazing. The water is turquiose blue in some part and a deep blue in other areas. Our house is up on Brown's Hill above the beach and we have a good view of the water from our deck. In Matara city we saw a total of 2 foreigners during our short stay and it seems as though Tom and i will be the new local celebrities.Every person, man woman and child stare at us like they have never seen a white person before (and we are quite white seeing as we have been inside 95% of the time thus far). It's a really strange feeling having everyone watch your every move I'm guessing we won't have much privacy when we are in Matara. Just call us Tomkat I guess : )

So on Saturday we had the chance to check out the southern coastline and visit a few schools that were severely affected by the Tsunami. The Tsunami struck at 9am on a Sunday morning and so fortunately these coastal schools which normally have 1500-2000 students were virtually empty. Still the one small schools we visited in Polhena (just outside Matara) lost 1/3 of their children approx. 200 kids in the disaster. One man we met who manages a rebuilt hotel in Polhena told us his story of saving his entire family by holding onto the top of a palm tree. In some areas the Tsunami travelled 3k inland and at some points was 60m in height. Can you even imagine. Now 2 years later most of these coastal towns have been partially rebuilt but there is a tremendous amount of work still to be done. Many people (just down the road from where we'll be living) live on the beach in temporary shelters. Some people here will tell you how the tsunami chose certain people to take back out to sea with it. They believe that some people were just meant to go while the person living right next door was saved for one reason or another. Oddly the Buddhist temple right on a little jetty from the mainland and the Christian church right on the beach survived untouched. Religious people here will again tell you there was a good reason for that. I'm not sure how I feel about that. It's quite emotional to see but all of the Sri Lankans we've met are happy, friendly and kind people. We have already been invited to play badminton, attend a dance recital, play soccer at the beach and go to 3-4 places for dinner. So you can see how welcoming everyone is here.

Anyway, this post is extremely long so I will end it here. The last thing I'll say is that we went shopping tonight and for $24 I got 2 pairs of bananna republic pants, a pair of shorts, a skirt, three tops, two bras, 3 panties, and a silk sleeping shirt. crazy cheap prices here.

okay well, miss you all
love A

PS. yes that is an elephant on a truck that we drove by on the way back from Matara-how insane is that!