Love Letter to Sri Lanka

I know I've been fairly negative on this blog and Sri Lanka has beaten me pretty good, but I am actually going to be sad to leave. Every place has its redeeming qualities and Sri Lanka is a beautiful country with an interesting history and seriously incredible biodiversity (and, I might add, a fairly reliable electricity system -- unlike some Siberian towns). So, while I'm excited about my future travels and all, I am going to miss this place.

And, I might add, that although I have taken some space to complain about my trials and tribulations at work, I do really like my coworkers. They are very nice people and they have actually warmed to me over the year that I've been here. But the environment program is being left in very capable hands and it really is time that they were set free of foreign oversight, so I'm happy to be moving on in the hopes that they will also move on to bigger and brighter things.

And we all know that I can be a bit of an overzealous watch-dog, so it might be better for this non-environmentally focused organization to not have to answer to such strict ideas of sustainability.

What brought on this bought of nostalgia? Sewalanka threw a little going away party for me today. It was very sweet. Since the party several people have come up to me to say they are sad to see me go. It is funny because I've spent the year feeling very frustrated because I didn't believe I was making an impact, but of course once the decision to leave is reached, the impact begins to show its silly head. Oh well. I could have anticipated this -- it happened in Kazakhstan too.

That isn't to say I'm not happy to go to. I've learned a lot about myself here and frankly, I allow myself to take on too much stress when I'm living abroad. In the States I don't really worry about my overall "impact" on an organization. I think I just believe I have an "impact" on any organization I work at when I'm home. But abroad it is an obsession and I never seem to be satisfied. So for the foreseeable future I'm just going to stay in the States -- if only so my eczema can clear up.