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  Kegalle, Sri Lanka
Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Its hard ( even if like me you have never watched the game ) not to get caught up with the excitement here about the Cricket world cup super 8 thing ( or what ever its heck its called )  Every one is talking about it and last night as the Sri Lankan vs. Australia game that has been the topic of conversation for days even the young girls we teach were giving me in depth forecasts of who would be playing and which Australian players we should worrying about  ( and they include us in the "we" as there is no doubt in there mind "we" are supporting Sri Lanka )
 
Every one plays cricket here, the Tuk Tuk drivers play in the road outside MEF and as the boundary is up near the steps to restaurant across the road you often see Tuk Tuk drivers madly running towards the steps trying to catch the ball! when I taught at a 2nd after school club here last year we had to play cricket with the children every night and even there parents would come along and play and some times the grandparents
 
Last night as it was the big match Del and I went with Sara to the Kandy cricket club to watch the game on "a big screen" which was actually a projection on the wall but the picture was not too bad. All around the club were various TVs so the game could be seen everywhere and it quickly became clear that the "big screen" had a slight time lag and was maybe 10 seconds behind the TV at the bar. Which meant every time we heard a whoop of delight or cheers something good was coming (which for me was very handy) I am now fully versed in the rules of the game (I think) and have been told by so many people here that the final will be Sri Lanka Vs. Australia and Sri Lanka will win that I am starting to believe it
 
I am shattered today as we did not get back until 1am and I am used to being in bed by 9pm ( 10 at the very latest ) Sri Lankan is a very early to bed and early to rise country and given the climate that does seem to be the best way to do it.
 
For people that have enquired about my health recently , I am pretty okay and did not have such a extreme reaction to the last round of injections ( but still will be very  happy when they are finished in July ) however I cut my ankle badly the other day and this morning I was unable to walk on it. Luckily ( or unluckily depending on how you look at it ) the Vet decided to examine my leg and declared in an excited voice that the wound had become infected and it needed to be drained ( he gets excited about draining wounds ) so he sat me down and cleaned the area ( so far so good ) spent a few minutes looking at it from every angle ( very professional I thought  ) and then grabbed my leg smacked the wound and squeezed it very very hard , in case there are children reading I can't type all of what I said next, about the politest thing I screamed was "I am not a f***ing elephant" as he was applying roughly the same amount of force he uses to squeeze there legs. After nearly passing out with pain (and threatening him with the sack and needles shoved sideways where the sun does not shine) I discovered that I was able to walk (okay with a limp but it was walking) and I have conceded for a vet he makes a pretty okay doctor but he needs to work on his bedside manner (a lot)
 
I am going to go down to the coast for a few days before this weekends Habarana clinic and hope the sea water will do my ankle and various other wounds some good as the weekend is going to be a very hard work for us all and I need to be 100 % for that (and I don't fancy any more treatment from the vet or the vet students)
 
Even at short notice we will be able to get a decent hotel as tourism is currently very slow. As part of my day to day work here I get talking with a lot of tourists and they have also been saying how some of the flights/hotels are pretty empty at the moment. MEF have also had a number of volunteers suddenly cancel there placements and although I am sure that some of them have genuine reasons to its becoming more and more clear that some people are scared to travel to Sri Lanka  ( and that some travel agents are advising against it ) .  I personally don't think it's any more dangerous here than a lot of other places that are regular holiday destinations. Of course there are sometimes problems here and no where you travel is ever going to be 100 % risk free. What really made me think about it was reading in the local Paper (it was in English before you get too impressed) That Ronan Keating had cancelled an up coming event in Colombo citing security concerns as the reason, The article pointed out that our very own Sir Cliff Richard had played in Colombo just a few weeks before to his many delighted fans (and Yes Cliff does appear to have a Sri Lankan fan base including I think the journalist based in the glowing terms he used!)
 
I am off to hobble to the beach now and will stop on route to get some antibiotics (you can buy them from chemists here) as the vet said I should take them (I can't believe I am now taking medical advice from my vet!) but I will to be on the safe side as I don't want him near my ankle again in a hurry!
 
 

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