Thursday, December 13, 2007

Nesting and Life

So a palm squirrel is making a nest in my window. No, not outside, inside. I've seen him (oh, I guess it is a her) twice -- staring our at me from the top of the curtain. I don't know why this doesn't bother me. I mean, she is making a mess -- there is stuff from her nest all over the floor. Hmm.Today I'm avoiding the news. One day away from the body count in the north and the disappointment that is Bali will be good for me. Lisa is in town so we had this bright idea to work at Commons (coffee shop in Colombo that is my second home on the weekends). Unfortunately, they now charge for wifi. They didn't always, but everything is becoming really expensive here. So I didn't get much work done, which is o.k. because I don't have much work to do.

Then it rained. I hate biking in the rain here -- the roads are soooooo dirty and that dirt just gets plastered to your skin when you are on a bike in the rain. I no longer believe it is safer to bike here than in the U.S. I can now see that drivers here would sooner kill you than actually give you the right of way or ever pass you safely.

Today a frankentruck pulled around me (and trust me, he had to really struggle to pass me) and then cut me off -- so close that his truck bed touched my arm! And then, of course, he slowed down, because a frankentruck can't actually move faster than me. That really frustrates me. The buses do this too. They speed up to pass you and then they stop to pick up people. Really, you couldn't just drive behind me? So irritating. And then they smile and say hi. Let me give you a hint, I don't want to be friends with people who try to kill me.

Luckily I have my Ipod -- I can usually ignore when people try to talk to me because I have headphones on. Trust me, when I didn't wear the headphones people would follow me yelling, "hi, hi, hi." This is very irritating and I believe fairly dangerous as I don't know these people and the are essentially following me. Not to mention that several times I've actually been propositioned. Seriously, does this ever work? Do western women really sleep with men that yell at them through a car window? Where do they get this idea that this is acceptable? Just makes me want to deck them, but I haven't hit anyone yet. Yet.

So we have a new roommate, but she is only here until Monday. She is an American (originally from Chicagoland, but most recently from Portland, OR) and is supposed to teach English/work on environment projects. I find it interesting that she has been told she can work on environment stuff as I'm unofficially in charge of the environment project and I don't have enough to do. Meaning I'm not sure how we'll keep another foreigner busy. Anyway, she is only here until Monday because she is stationed in the field. It will be interesting to see how long she lasts. She seems very nice and she definitely has the right mentality for Sri Lanka, but I bet she'll become bored fairly easily. Heck, I'm within biking distance of Colombo and I'm bored most of the time. She is on a different agreement than me -- she is only technically committed to six months. Those six months are also not solid because Sri Lanka changed their visa laws and Sewalanka is having a difficult time getting her a residence visa. My residence visa expires in Jan. I wonder if that will be a problem. Hmm.

2 comments:

Jen K said...

You sound bummed, my dear. Maybe a little Supernatural Christmas show will cheer you up. Seriously...watch it. It's perfection.

Kisses to your palm squirrel!!!

Unknown said...

Our internet connection has been awful lately. I will try tonight to watch. If not, I can always try once I get home on Saturday!